History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 3 — 29 - Ch. 3: Chaldaean Civilization, pt. 2

The palaces of the Chaldaean kings, like those of the Egyptians, presented the appearance of an actual citadel: the walls had to be sufficiently thick to withstand an army for an indefinite period, and to protect the garrison from every emergency, except that of treason or famine.

One of the statues found at Telloh holds in its lap the plan of one of these residences: the external outline alone is given, but by means of it we can easily picture to ourselves a fortified place, with its towers, its forts, and its gateways placed between two bastions.

It represents the ancient palace of Lagash, subsequently enlarged and altered by Oudea or one of the vicegerents who succeeded him, in which many a great lord of the place must have resided down to the time of the Christian era.

The site on which it was built in the Girsu quarter of.

the city was not entirely unoccupied at the time of its foundation.

Urbau had raised a ziggurat on that very spot some centuries previously, and the walls which he had constructed were falling into ruin.

[Illustration: 248. jpg THE PLAN OF A PALACE BUILT BY GUDEA.

] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec.

The plan is traced upon the tablet held in the lap of Statue E in the Louvre.

Below the plan can be seen the ruler marked with the divisions used by the architect for drawing his designs to the desired scale; the scribe’s stylus is represented lying on the left of the plan.

[Prof. Petrie has shown that the unit of measurement represented on this ruler is the cubit of the Pyramid-builders of Egypt.

--Te.

] Gudea did not destroy the work of his remote predecessor, he merely incorporated it into the substructures of the new building, thus showing an indifference similar to that evinced by the Pharaohs for the monuments of a former dynasty.

The palaces, like the temples, never rose directly from the soil, but were invariably built on the top of an artificial mound of crude brick.

At Lagash, this solid platform rises to the height of 40 feet above the plain, and the only means of access to the top is by a single narrow steep staircase, easily cut off or defended.

[Illustration: 249. jpg TERRA-COTTA BARREL-right] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the facsimile by Place.

The palace which surmounts this artificial eminence describes a sort of irregular rectangle, 174 feet long by 69 feet wide, and had, contrary to the custom in Egypt, the four angles orientated to the four cardinal points.

The two principal sides are not parallel, but swell out slightly towards the middle, and the flexion of the lines almost follows the contour of one of those little clay cones upon which the kings were wont to inscribe their annals or dedications.

This flexure was probably not intentional on the part of the architect, but was owing to the difficulty of keeping a wall of such considerable extent in a straight line from one end to another; and all Eastern nations, whether Chaldaeans or Egyptians, troubled themselves but little about correctness of alignment, since defects of this kind were scarcely ever perceptible in the actual edifice, and are only clearly revealed in the plan drawn out to scale with modern precision.

* * Mons.

Heuzey thinks that the outward deflection of the lines is owing “merely to a primitive method of obtaining greater solidity of construction, and of giving a better foundation to these long facades, which are placed upon artificial terraces of crude brick always subject to cracks and settlements.

” I think that the explanation of the facts which I have given in the text is simpler than that ingeniously proposed by Mons.

Heuzey: the masons, having begun to build the wall at one end, were unable to carry it on in a straight line until it reached the spot denoted on the architect’s plan, and therefore altered the direction of the wall when they detected their error; or, having begun to build the wall from both ends simultaneously, were not successful in making the two lines meet correctly, and they have frankly patched up the junction by a mass of projecting brickwork which conceals their unskilfulness.

[Illustration: 250. jpg PLAN OF THE EXISTING BUILDINGS OF TELLOH.

] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec.

The facade of the building faces south-east, and is divided into three blocks of unequal size.

The centre of the middle block for a length of 18 feet projects some 3 feet from the main front, and, by directly facing the spectator, ingeniously masks the obtuse angle formed by the meeting of the two walls.

This projection is flanked right and left by rectangular grooves, similar to those which ornament the facades of the fortresses and brick houses of the Ancient Empire in Egypt: the regular alternation of projections and hollows breaks the monotony of the facing by the play of light and shade.

Beyond these, again, the wall surface is broken by semicircular pilasters some 17 inches in diameter, without bases, capitals, or even a moulding, but placed side by side like so many tree-trunks or posts forming a palisade.

[Illustration: 251. jpg DECORATION OF COLOURED CONES ON THE FACADE AT URUK] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketch by Loftus.

Various schemes of decoration succeed each other in progressive sequence, less ornate and at greater distances apart, the further they recede from the central block and the nearer they approach to the extremities of the facade.

They stop short at the southern angle, and the two sides of the edifice running from south to west, and again from west to north, are flat, bare surfaces, unbroken by projection or groove to relieve the poverty and monotony of their appearance.

The decoration reappears on the north-east front, where the arrangement of the principal facade is partly reproduced.

The grooved divisions here start from the angles, and the engaged columns are wanting, or rather they are transferred to the central projection, and from a distance have the effect of a row of gigantic organ-pipes.

We may well ask if this squat and heavy mass of building, which must have attracted the eye from all parts of the town, had nothing to relieve the dull and dismal colour of its component bricks.

[Illustration: 252. jpg PILASTERS OF THE FACADE OF GUDEA’S PALACE] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec The idea might not have occurred to us had we not found elsewhere an attempt to lessen the gloomy appearance of the architecture by coloured plastering.

At Uruk, the walls of the palace are decorated by means of terra-cotta cones, fixed deep into the solid plaster and painted red, black, or yellow, forming interlaced or diaper patterns of chevrons, spirals, lozenges, and triangles, with a very fair result: this mosaic of coloured plaster covered all the surfaces, both flat and curved, giving to the building a cheerful aspect entirely wanting in that of Lagash.

A long narrow trough of yellowish limestone stood in front of the palace, and was raised on two steps: it was carved in relief on the outside with figures of women standing with outstretched hands, passing to each other vases from which gushed forth two streams of water.

This trough formed a reservoir, which was filled every morning for the use of the men and beasts, and those whom some business or a command brought to the palace could refresh themselves there while waiting to be received by the master.

The gates which gave access to the interior were placed at somewhat irregular intervals: two opened from the principal facade, but on each of the other sides there was only one entrance.

They were arched and so low that admittance was not easily gained; they were closed with two-leaved doors of cedar or cypress, provided with bronze hinges, which turned upon two blackish stones firmly set in the masonry on either side, and usually inscribed with the name of the founder or that of the reigning sovereign.

Two of the entrances possessed a sort of covered way, in which the soldiers of the external watch could take shelter from the heat of the sun by day, from the cold at night, and from the dews at dawn.

On crossing the threshold, a corridor, flanked with two small rooms for porters or warders, led into a courtyard surrounded with buildings of sufficient depth to take up nearly half of the area enclosed within the walls.

This court was moreover a semi-public place, to which tradesmen, merchants, suppliants, and functionaries of all ranks had easy access.

A suite of three rooms shut off in the north-east angle did duty for a magazine or arsenal.

The southern portion of the building was occupied by the State apartments, the largest of which measures only 40 feet in length.

In these rooms Gudea and his successors gave audience to their nobles and administered justice.

The administrative officers and the staff who had charge of them were probably located in the remaining part of the building.

The roof was flat, and ran all round the enclosing wall, forming a terrace, access to it being gained by a staircase built between the principal entrance and the arsenal.

At the northern angle rose a ziggurat.

Custom demanded that the sovereign should possess a temple within his dwelling, where he could fulfil his religious duties without going into the town and mixing with the crowd.

At Lagash the sacred tower was of older date than the palace, and possibly formed part of the ancient building of Urbau.

It was originally composed of three stories, but the lower one was altered by Gudea, and disappeared entirely in the thickness of the basal platform.

The second story thus became the bottom one; it was enlarged, slightly raised above the neighbouring roofs, and was probably crowned by a sanctuary dedicated to Ningirsu.

It was, indeed, a monument of modest proportions, and most of the public temples soared far above it; but, small as it was, the whole town might be seen from the summit, with its separate quarters and its belt of gardens; and beyond, the open country intersected with streams, studded with isolated villages, patches of wood, pools and weedy marshes left by the retiring inundation, and in the far distance the lines of trees and bushes which bordered the banks of the Euphrates and its confluents.

Should a troop of enemies venture within the range of sight, or should a suspicious tumult arise within the city, the watchers posted on the highest terrace would immediately give the alarm, and ‘through their warning the king would have time to close his gates, and take measures to resist the invading enemy or crush the revolt of his subjects.

[Illustration: 255. jpg STONE SOCKET OF ONE OF THE DOORS IN THE PALACE OF GUDEA.

( right)] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec.

The northern apartments of the palace were appropriated to Gudea and his family.

They were placed with their back to the entrance court, and were divided into two groups; the sovereign, his male children and their attendants, inhabited the western one, while the women and their slaves were cloistered, so to speak, in the northern set.

The royal dwelling had an external exit by means of a passage issuing on the north-west of the enclosure, and it also communicated with the great courtyard by a vaulted corridor which ran along one side of the base of the ziggurat: the doors which, closed these two entrances opened wide enough to admit only one person at a time, and to the right and left were recesses in the wall which enabled the guards to examine all comers unobserved, and stab them promptly if there were anything suspicious in their behaviour.

Eight chambers were lighted from the courtyard.

In one of them were kept all the provisions for the day, while another served as a kitchen: the head, cook carried on his work at a sort of rectangular dresser of moderate size, on which several fireplaces were marked out by little dividing walls of burnt bricks, to accommodate as many pots or pans of various sizes.

A well sunk in the corner right down below the substructure provided the water needed for culinary purposes.

The king and his belongings accommodated themselves in the remaining five or six rooms as best they could.

A corridor, guarded as carefully as the one previously described, led to his private apartments and to those of his wives: these comprised a yard, some half-dozen cells varying in size, a kitchen, a well, and a door through which the servants could come and go, without passing through the men’s quarters.

The whole description in no way corresponds with the marvellous ideal of an Oriental palace which we form for ourselves: the apartments are mean and dismal, imperfectly lighted by the door or by some small aperture timidly cut in the ceiling, arranged so as to protect the inmates from the heat and dust, but without a thought given to luxury or display.

The walls were entirely void of any cedar woodwork inlaid with gold, or panels of mosaic such as we find in the temples, nor were they hung with dyed or embroidered draperies such as we moderns love to imagine, and which we spread about in profusion, when we attempt to reproduce the interior of an ancient house or palace.

* * Mons.

de Sarzec expressly states that he was unable to find anywhere in the palace of Gudea “the slightest trace of any coating on the walls, either of colour or glazed brick.

The walls appear to have been left bare, without any decoration except the regular joining of the courses of brickwork.

” The wood panelling was usually reserved for the temples or sacred edifices: Mons.

de Sarzec found the remains of carbonized cedar panels in the ruins of a sanctuary dedicated to Ningirsu.

According to Mons.

Heuzey, the wall-hangings were probably covered with geometrical designs, similar to those formed by the terra-cotta cones on the walls of the palace at Uruk; the inscriptions, however, which are full of minute details with regard to the construction and ornamentation of the temples and palaces, have hitherto contained nothing which would lead us to infer that hangings were used for mural decoration in Chaldoa or Assyria.