Identifier: ninevehbabylonna00laya (find matches)
Title: Nineveh and Babylon : a narrative of a second expedition to Assyria during the years 1849, 1850, & 1851
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Layard, Austen Henry, Sir, 1817-1894
Subjects: Nineveh (Extinct city) Babylon (Extinct city) Middle East -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : J. Murray
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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rs and of rich materials, were probably suspended tothe pillars supporting the ceiling, or to wooden poles raisedfor the purpose, as in the palaces of Babylon and Shushan. The excavations carried on at Nimroud have enabled meto restore, to a certain extent, the various buildings on theplatform, and to obtain some idea of their original appear-ance. I have endeavoured, with tlie able assistance of Mr. * Daniel, v. 5. t I Kings, vi. 28. I cannot, however, but express my convictionthat much of the metal calle<l gold, both in the sacred writings and int!if: profane authors of antiquity, was really copper, alloyed with othermetals, the aurichalcum, or orichalcum, of the Greeks, such as was usedin the bowls and plates discovered at Nimroud. X 2nd series of the Monuments of Nineveh, plate 56. XIV.) PALACES AT NIMROUD. 389 Fergusson, to convey in the frontispiece to this volume, andin that to the second series of my larger work on the* Monuments of Nineveh, the general effect of these mag-
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nificent edifices when they still rose on their massy base-ment, and were reflected in the broad stream of the Tigris. 390 NINEVEH AND BABYLON. (Chap. I must refer the reader, who desires to follow me in the fol-lowing description, to the accompanying general plan of theplatform and palaces at Nimroud. On the artificial platform, built of regular layers of sun-dried bricks in some parts, and of rubbish in others, butcased on all sides with solid stone masonry, stood at onetime several buildings. The intervals between them werepaved with stone, or with large kiln-burnt bricks, from oneand a half to two feet square. At the north-western cornerrose the great tower, the tomb of Sardanapalus, the founderof the principal palace, already described.* The upper part,built of brick, was most probably painted, like the palaces ofBabylon, with figures and mythic emblems. Its summit, Iconjecture, to have consisted of several gradines or stages,like the top of the black obelisk, and I have ventured

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