d to think that both systems were occasionally found in a
single building. The tunnel vault and the joisted ceiling were equally well
suited to the long galleries of Assyrian palaces. In one room, or suite of
rooms, nothing but brick may have been used, while in others wood may have
had the preference. Still more probably, one architect may have had a
predilection for timber, while another may have preferred clay vaults. In
either case the general arrangement, what we may call the spirit of the
plan, would remain the same.

When wooden roofs were used were they upheld by wooden uprights or by
columns of any other material? Botta was at first inclined to say yes to
this question, but he did not attempt to conceal that excavation had
discovered little to support such an hypothesis.[220] Such pillars, were
they of stone, would leave traces among the ruins in the shape of broken
columns; were they of burnt bricks (and there could be no question of the
crude material), those bricks would be found on the spot they occupied and
would easily be recognized by their shape, which, as we have already shown,
would have been specially adapted to the work they had to do.[221] The
points of junction with the pavement would also be visible. If we contend
that they were of wood, like those of the house figured above, we must
admit that, at least in the more carefully built houses, such precautions
as even the peasants of the Yezidis do not neglect must have been taken,
and the timber columns raised upon stone bases which would protect them
from the sometimes damp floors. Neither these bases nor any marks of their
existence have been found in any of the ruins; and we are therefore led to
the conclusion that to search for hypostyle halls in the Assyrian palaces,
would be to follow the imagination rather than the reason.

If we admit that architects made no use of columns to afford intermediate
support to the heavy roofs, we may at first be inclined to believe that
wooden ceilings were only used in very narrow apartments, for we can hardly
give a length of more than from twenty-four to twenty-seven feet to beams
that were called upon to support a thick covering of beaten earth as well
as their own weight.[222] Perhaps, however, the skill of their carpenters
was equal to increasing the span and rigidity of the beams used by a few
simple contrivances. One of these is shown in our Fig. 60, a diagram
composed by M. Chipiez to give an idea of the