he building and diversify its
aspect without in any way encumbering it. The whole structure terminated in
a chapel placed on the central axis of the tower, and surmounted by a
cupola. The inscriptions mention the dome covered with leaves of chiselled
gold which crowned at Babylon that temple "to the foundations of the earth"
which was restored by Nebuchadnezzar.[468]

[Illustration: PLATE III. CHALDAEAN TEMPLE SQUARE ON PLAN AND WITH DOUBLE
RAMP

Restored by Ch. Chipiez.]

In these texts another sanctuary included in the same building and placed
half way between the base and summit is mentioned. This was the sepulchral
chamber of Bel-Merodach in which his oracle was consulted; in M. Chipiez's
restoration the entrance to this sanctuary is placed in the middle of the
fifth story.

The vast esplanade about the base of the temple was suggested by the
description of Herodotus. It is borne by two colossal plinths flanked and
retained by buttresses. In our plate the lower of these two plinths is only
hinted at in the two bottom corners. In the distance behind the temple
itself may be seen one of those embattled walls which divided Babylon into
so many fortresses, and, still farther away, another group of large
buildings surrounded by a wall and the ordinary houses of the city.

This double-ramped type is at once the most beautiful and the most
workmanlike of those offered by these staged towers. With a single ramp we
get a tower whose four faces are repetitions of each other, but here we
have a true facade, on which a happy contrast is established between the
unbroken stages and those upon which the ramps appear--between oblique
lines and lines parallel with the soil. The building gains in repose and
solidity, and its true scale becomes more evident than when the eye is led
insensibly from base to summit by a monotonous spiral.

[Illustration: FIGS. 180-182.--Square Assyrian temple. Longitudinal
section, horizontal section and plan.]

We cannot positively affirm that the architects of Mesopotamia understood
and made use of the system just described; there is no positive evidence
on the point.[469] It contains, however, nothing but a logical development
from the premises, nothing but what is in perfect keeping with Mesopotamian
habits, nothing that involves difficulties of execution or construction
beyond those over which we know them to have triumphed. Besides, we have
proofs that they were not content to go on servilel