been
comparatively narrow. We may also suppose that on very bright and on
very rainy days carpets or other awnings were stretched across the
opening, which furnished a tolerable defence against the weather.

On the whole, our choice seems to lie--so far as the great halls are
concerned--between this theory of the mode in which they were roofed and
lighted, and a supposition from which archaeologists have hitherto
shrunk, namely, that they were actually spanned from side to side by
beams. If we remember that the Assyrians did not content themselves with
the woods produced in their own country, but habitually cut timber in
the forests of distant regions, as, for instance, of Amanus, Hermon, and
Lebanon, which they conveyed to Nineveh, we shall perhaps not think it
impassible that they may have been able to accomplish the feat of
roofing in this simple fashion even chambers of thirteen or fourteen
yards in width. Mr. Layard observes that rooms of almost equal width
with the Assyrian halls are to this day covered in with beams laid
horizontally from side to side in many parts of Mesopotamia, although
the only timber used is that furnished by the indigenous palms and
poplars. May not more have been accomplished in this way by the Assyrain
architects, who had at their disposal the lofty firs and cedars of the
above mentioned regions?

If the halls were roofed in this way, they may have been lighted by
_louvres_; or the upper portion of the walls, which is now destroyed,
may have been pierced by windows, which are of frequent occurrence, and
seem generally to be some-what high placed, in the representations of
buildings upon the sculptures. [PLATE XLVII Fig. 3.]

[Illustration: PLATE 47]

It might have been expected that the difficulties with respect to
Assyrian roofing and lighting which have necessitated this long
discussion, would have received illustration, or even solution, from the
forms of buildings which occur so frequently on the bas-reliefs. But
this is not found to be the actual result. The forms are rarely
Assyrian, since they occur commonly in the sculptures which represent
the foreign campaigns of the kings; and they have the appearance of
being to a great extent conventional, being nearly the same, whatever
country is the object of attack. In the few cases where there is ground
for regarding the building as native and not foreign, it is never
palatial, but belongs either to sacred or to domestic architectur