tions; in spite of the care devoted to many of their
details, the real constitution of these little buildings is not easily
grasped. In order to make it quite clear M. Chipiez has restored one of
them, using no materials in the restoration but those for which authority
is to be found in the bas-reliefs (Fig. 70).

M. Chipiez has placed his pavilion upon a salient bastion forming part of a
wide esplanade. Two staircases lead up to it, and the wall by which the
whole terrace is supported and inclosed is ornamented with those vertical
grooves which are such a common motive in Chaldaean architecture. In front
of the pavilion, on the balustrade of the staircase, and in the background
near a third flight of steps, four isolated columns may be seen, the two
former crowned with oval medallions, the two latter with cones. The meaning
of these standards--which are copied from the Balawat Gates[245]--is
uncertain. In the bas-reliefs in question they are placed before a stele
with a rounded top, which is shown at the top of our engraving. This stele
bears a figure of the monarch; another one like it is cut upon a cylinder
of green feldspar found by Layard close to the principal entrance to
Sennacherib's palace (see Fig. 69).[246]

Though practically absent from the great brick palaces, the column here
played an important and conspicuous part. It furnished elegant and richly
decorated supports for canopies of wool that softly rose and fell with the
passing breeze. Fair carpets were spread upon the ground beneath, others
were suspended to cross beams painted with lively colours, and swept the
earth with the long and feathered fringes sewn upon their borders.

[Illustration: FIG. 69.--The Seal of Sennacherib. Cylinder of green
feldspar in the British Museum.]

The difference was great between the massive buildings by which the
Mesopotamian plains were dominated, and these light, airy structures which
must have risen in great numbers in Chaldaea and Assyria, here on the banks
of canals and rivers or in the glades of shady parks, there on the broad
esplanades of a temple or in the courts of a royal palace. Between the
mountains of clay on the one hand and these graceful tabernacles with their
slender supports and gay coverings on the other, the contrast must have
been both charming and piquant. Nowhere else do we find the distinction
between the house and the tent so strongly marked. The latter must have
held, too, a much more importa