g
centrally placed on the upper surface of the one below it. The weight would
be more equally divided and the risks of settlement more slight than in any
other system. Of this type M. Chipiez has restored two varieties. We shall
first describe the simpler of the two, which we may call the SQUARE
SINGLE-RAMPED CHALDAEAN TEMPLE (Figs. 173, 174, 175, 176).

The principal elements for this restoration have been taken from the staged
tower at Khorsabad known as the _Observatory_, but M. Chipiez has expanded
its dimensions until they almost reach those ascribed to the temple of Bel
by Strabo. Moreover, he had to decide a delicate question which the
discovery of the Khorsabad _Observatory_, where only the four lower stages
remained, had done nothing to solve, namely the plan and inclination of the
ramp. In M. Thomas's restoration of the Khorsabad tower, the last section
of the ramp at the top, is parallel to that at the bottom, and the crowning
platform is not exactly upon the central axis of the building.[465] In M.
Chipiez's restoration the top platform is in the centre, like those below
it, and the upper end of his ramp is vertically over the spot where it
leaves the ground. This result has been obtained by a peculiar arrangement
of the inclined plane which must have been known to the Mesopotamian
architects, seeing how great was their practice and how desirable, in their
eyes, was the symmetrical aspect which it alone could give. We have
suggested the varied colours of the different stages by changes of tone in
our engraving. In spite of the words of Herodotus M. Chipiez has only given
his tower seven stages, because that number seems to have been sacred and
traditional, and Herodotus may very well have counted the plinth or the
terminal chapel in the eight mentioned in his description. Bearing in mind
a passage in Diodorus--"At the summit Semiramis placed three statues of
beaten gold, Zeus, Hera, and Rhea"[466]--we have crowned its apex with such
a group. The phrase of Herodotus, "Below ... there is a second temple," has
led us to introduce chapels contrived in the interior of the mass and
opening on the ramp at the fifth and sixth stories. There is nothing to
forbid the idea that such chambers were much more numerous than this, and
opened, sometimes on one, sometimes on another, of the four faces.

[Illustration: FIG. 173.--Type of square, single-ramped Chaldaean temple.
Compiled by Ch. Chipiez.]

The buildings at the l