some connection between those
heavenly bodies and the arrangement of their edifices. All the buildings
of Chaldaea and Assyria are orientated; the principle is everywhere
observed, but it is not always understood in the same fashion.

[Illustration: FIG. 143.--Plan of a temple at Mugheir; from Loftus.]

Mesopotamian buildings were always rectangular and often square on plan,
and it is sometimes the angles and sometimes the centres of each face that
are directed to the four cardinal points. It will easily be understood that
the former system was generally preferred. The facades were of such extent
that their direction to a certain point of the horizon was not evident,
while salient angles, on the other hand, had all the precision of an
astronomical calculation; and this the earliest architects of the Chaldees
thoroughly understood. Some of the buildings examined by Loftus and Taylor
on the lower Euphrates may have been restored, more or less, by
Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, but it is generally acknowledged that
the lower and less easily injured parts of most of these buildings date
from the very beginnings of that civilization, and were constructed by the
princes of the early empire. Now both at Warka and at Mugheir one corner of
a building is always turned towards the true north.[397] An instance of
this may be given in the little building at Mugheir in which the lower
parts of a temple have been recognized (Fig. 143). The same arrangement is
to be found in the palace excavated by M. de Sarzec at Tello.[398]

[Illustration: FIG. 144.--Plan of the town and palace of Sargon at
Khorsabad; from Place.]

Most of the Assyrian architects did likewise. See for example the plan of
Sargon's city, Dour-Saryoukin (Fig. 144). Its circumvallation incloses an
almost exact square, the diagonals of which point to the north, south,
east and west respectively.[399] In the large scale plans that we shall
give farther on of the palace and of some of its parts it will be seen that
the parallelograms of which that building was composed also had their
angles turned to the four cardinal points. It was the same with the
structures sprinkled over the summit of the vast mound of Kouyundjik, in
the centre of what once was Nineveh.

[Illustration: FIG. 145.--General plan of the remains at Nimroud; from
Layard.

1, 2, 3 Trenches, 4 Central palace, 5 Tombs, 6 South-eastern edifice, 7
South-western palace, 8 North-western palace, 9 High pyra