Its great
halls, so narrow for their length, were probably roofed with beams
stretching across them from side to side, and lighted by small _louvres_
in their roofs after the manner already described elsewhere. Its square
chambers may have been domed, and perhaps were not lighted at all, or
only by lamps and torches. They were generally without ornamentation.
The grand halls, on the contrary, and some of the narrower chambers,
were decorated on every side, first with sculptures to the height of
nine or ten feet, and then with enamelled bricks, or patterns painted in
fresco, to the height, probably, of seven or eight feet more. The entire
height of the rooms was thus from sixteen to seventeen or eighteen feet.

The character of Asshur-izir-pal's sculptures has been sufficiently
described in an earlier chapter. They have great spirit, boldness, and
force; occasionally they show real merit in the design; but they are
clumsy in the drawing and somewhat coarse in the execution. What chiefly
surprises us in regard to them is the suddenness with which the art they
manifest appears to have sprung up, without going through the usual
stages of rudeness and imperfection. Setting aside one mutilated statue,
of very poor execution, and a single rock tablet, we have no specimens
remaining of Assyrian mimetic art more ancient than this monarch. That
art almost seems to start in Assyria, like Minerva from the head of
Jove, full-grown. Asshur-izir-pal had undoubtedly some constructions of
former monarchs to copy from, both in his palatial and in his sacred
edifices; the old palaces and temples at Kileh-Sherghat must have had a
certain grandeur; and in his architecture this monarch may have merely
amplified and improved upon the models left him by his predecessors; but
his ornamentation, so far as appears, was his own. The mounds of
Kileh-Sherghat have yielded bricks in abundance, but not a single
fragment of a sculptured slab. We cannot prove that ornamental
bas-reliefs did not exist before the time of Asshur-izir-pal; indeed the
rock tablets which earlier monarchs set up were sculptures of this
character; but to Asshur-izir-pal seems at any rate to belong the merit
of having first adopted bas-reliefs on an extensive scale as an
architectural ornament, and of having employed them so as to represent
by their means all the public life of the monarch.

The other arts employed by this king in the adornment of his buildings
were those of e