Bk. II. Ch. III. ASSYRIAN PALACES. 181 Notwithstanding the impossibility that now exists of making out all the details of the buildings situated on the great mounds of Ximroud and Koyunjik, it is evident that these great groups of buildings must have ranked among the most splendid monuments of antiquity, sur- rounded as they were Vjy stone-faced terraces, and approached on every side by noble flights of stairs. When all the palaces with their towers and temples were seen gay with color, and crowded with all the state and splendor of an Eastern monarch, they must have formed a scene of such dazzling magnificence that one can easily comprehend how the inhabitants of the little cities of Greece or Judea were betrayed into such extravagant hyperbole, when speaking of the size and splendor of the great cities of Assyria. The worst feature of all this splendor was its ephemeral character — though perhaps it is owing to this very fact that we now know so much about it — for, like the reed that bends to the storm and recovers its elasticity, while the oak is snapped by its violence, these relics of a past age have retained to some extent their pristine beauty. Had these buildings been constructed like those of the Egyptians, their remains would probably have been apj)lied to other pur|)Oses long ago, but having been overwhelmed so early and forgotten, they have been preserved to our day; nor is it difficult to see how this has occurred. The ])illars that supported the roof being of wood, probably of cedar, and the beams on the under side of the roof being of the same material, nothing was easier than to set fire to them. The fall of the roofs, which were probably composed, as at the present day, of five or six feet of earth, and which is requisite to keep out heat as well as wet, would alone suffice to bury the building iip to the height of the sculptures. The gradual crumbling of the thick walls consequent on their improtected exposure to the atmosphere would add three or four feet to this : so that it is hardly too much to suppose that green grass might have been grow- ing over the buried palaces of Nineveh before two or three years had elapsed from the time of their destruction and desertion. When once this had taken place, the mounds afforded far too tempting jjositions not to be speedily occupied by the villages of the natives; and a few centuries of mud-hut building would complete the process of entomb- ment so completely as to protect the hidden remains perfectly for the centuries during which they have lain buried. These have now been recovered to such an extent as enables us to restore their form almost as certainly as we can those of the temples of Greece or Rome, or of any of the great nations of antiquity. It is by no means improbable that at some future jieriod we may be able to restore much that is now unintelligible, from the represent- ations of buildings on the sculptures, and to complete our account of their style of architecture from illustrations drawn by the Assyrians
