s than a single
grand hall. The plan of this apartment will be seen by referring to
[PLATE XLIII., Fig. 2.] Viewed as a single apartment, the room was 165
feet in length by 62 feet in width, and thus contained an area of 10,230
square feet, a space nearly half as large again as that covered by the
greatest of the halls of Sennacherib, which was 7200 feet. Viewed as a
suite of chambers, the rooms may be described as two long and narrow
halls running parallel to one another, and communicating by a grand
doorway in the middle, with two smaller chambers placed at the two ends,
running at right angles to the principal ones. The small chambers were
62 feet long, and respectively 19 feet and 23 feet wide; the larger ones
were 110 feet long, with a width respectively of 20 feet and 28 feet.
The inner of the two long parallel chambers communicated by a grand
doorway, guarded by sphinxes and colossal lions, either with a small
court or with a large chamber extending to the southern edge of the
mound; and the two end rooms communicated with smaller apartments in the
same direction. The buildings to the right and left of the great court
seem to have been entirely separate from those at its southern end: to
the left they were wholly unexamined; on the right some explorations
were conducted which gave the usual result of several long narrow
apartments, with perhaps one or two passages. The extent of the palace
westward, southward, and eastward is uncertain: eastward it was
unexplored; southward and westward the mound had been eaten into by the
Tigris and the Shor-Derreh torrent.

The walls of Esar-haddon's palace were composed, in the usual way, of
sun-dried bricks, reveted with slabs of alabaster. Instead, however, of
quarrying fresh alabaster slabs for the purpose, the king preferred to
make use of those which were already on the summit of the mound,
covering the walls of the north-western and central palaces, which, no
doubt, had fallen into decay. His workmen tore down these sculptured
monuments from their original position, and transferring them to the
site of the new palace, arranged them so as to cover the freshly-raised
walls, generally placing the carved side against the crude brick, and
leaving the back exposed to receive fresh sculptures, but sometimes
exposing the old sculpture, which, however, in such cases, it was
probably intended to remove by the chisel. This process was still going
on, when either Esarhaddon died and