]5k. U. Ch. I. INTRODUCTORY. 147 nothing. It is only by study and comparison that the mind eventually realizes the greatness and the beauty of the most gorgeous of Eastern monarchies, or that any one can be made to feel that he actually sees the sculptures which a Sardanapalus set up, or the tablets which a Nebuchadnezzar caused to be engraved. Owing to the fragmentary nature of the materials, it must perhaps be admitted that the study of the ancient architecture of Central Asia is more difficult and less attractive than that of other countries and more familiar forms. On the other hand, it is an immense triumph to the philosophical student of art to have penetrated so far back towards the root of Asiatic civilization. It is besides as great a gain to the student of history to have come actually into contact with the works of kinfjs whose names have been familiar to him as household words, but of whose existence he had until lately no tangible proof. In addition to this it must be admitted that the Assyrian explora- tion commenced in 1843 by M. Botta, at Khorsabad, and brought to a temporary closd by the breaking out of the war in 1855, have added an entirely new chapter to our history of architecture ; and with the exception of that of Egypt, probably the most ancient we can ever now hope to obtain. It does not, it is true, rival that of Egvpt in antiquity, as the Pyramids still maintain a preeminence of 1000 years beyond anything that has yet been discovered in the valley of the Euphrates, and we now know, approximately at least, what we may expect to find on the banks of that celebrated liver. There is nothing certainly in India that nearly approaches these monuments in antiquity, nor in China or the rest of Asia; and in Europe, whatever may be maintained regarding primaeval man, we can hardly expect to find any building of a date 2:>rior to the Trojan war. All our histories must therefore begin with Egypt and Assyria — beyond them all is speculation, and new fields of discovery can hardly be hoped for. The Assyrian discoveries are also most important in supplying data which enable us to understand what follows, especially in the architectural history of Greece. No one now probably doubts that the Dorian Greeks borrowed the idea of their Doric order from the pillars of Beni Hassan (Woodcuts Nos. 16 and 17) or Nubia — or rather ])erhaps from the rubble or brick piers of Meinphis or Naucratis,i from which these rock-cut examples were themselves imitated. But the origin of the Ionic element was always a mystery. We know, indeed, that the Greeks practised it principally in Asia Minor — hence its name; but we never knew how essentially Asiatic it was till the architecture of Nineveh was revealed to us, and till, by studying it through the medium of the buildings at Persepolis, we were made to ^ If the Greeks traded to Naucratis as early as the 1st Olympiad.
