ities of the
second rank. The great staged towers, whose height and mass implied an
effort that could not be often repeated, were devoted to the worship of the
great national gods. Botta believed that he had discovered a temple of this
smaller kind in the building from which we borrowed the example of an
Assyrian moulding reproduced in our Figs. 98 and 99. This edifice is
remarkable, not only for its cornice, but also because it is built of
limestone and decorated with sculptures carved from slabs of basalt, the
only things of the kind that have been discovered in the Khorsabad ruins.
The general arrangements are unlike those of any other part of the palace.
Unfortunately the building is in a very bad condition. Even its plan can
only be restored in part. Thomas is inclined to see in it rather a throne
room, or divan, as it would be called in the modern East, than a temple.
The few bas-reliefs which may be certainly recognized as having belonged to
it are not religious in their character; they represent hunting scenes,
battles and prisoners bringing tribute. Although Thomas's restoration is,
as he himself confesses, entirely conjectural, we have no serious motive
for pronouncing the building to have been a temple.[484]

[Illustration: FIG. 188.--Plan of a small temple at Nimroud; from Layard.]

[Illustration: FIG. 189.--Plan of a small temple at Nimroud; from Layard.]

On the other hand, Layard seems to have had good reasons for recognizing
small temples in the structures he cleared near the great staged tower at
Nimroud.[485] The more important of the two was actually touching that
tower (Fig. 188). The character of the building is at once betrayed by the
nature of its sculptures, which are religious rather than
historical--figures of gods and genii, scenes of adoration and mystic
theology. And it was not without a purpose that it was put into close
juxtaposition with a _zigguratt_, an arrangement that proves it to have
formed a part of a collection of buildings consecrated, by the prince whose
dwelling covered the rest of the platform, to the gods in whose protection
he placed his trust. The second and smaller temple stands about thirty
yards to the east on the very edge of the artificial mound (Fig. 189). An
altar with three feet carved in the shape of lion's paws was found in front
of the entrance.[486] There were no bas-reliefs: the decorations were
carried out in paint. The number of rooms was less, but their gene