ription published by Layard.

** In most of the texts the village of Maganubba is not
named; it is mentioned in the _Cylinder Inscription_, and
this document is the only one which furnishes details of the
expropriation, etc. The modern name of the place is
Khorsabad, _the city of Khosroes_, but the name of its
founder was still associated with its ruins, in the time of
Yakut, who mentions him under the name of Sarghun. It was
first explored in 1843 by Botta, then by Place and Oppert.
The antiquities collected there by Botta and Place
constitute the bulk of the Assyrian Museum in the Louvre;
unfortunately, a part of the objects collected by Place went
to the bottom of the Tigris with the lighter which was
carrying them.

The ground plan of it is of rectangular shape, the sides being about
1900 yards long by 1800 yards wide, each corner exactly facing one
of the four points of the compass. Its walls rest on a limestone
sub-structure some three feet six inches high, and rise fifty-seven feet
above the ground; they are strengthened, every thirty yards or so, by
battlemented towers which project thirteen feet from the face of the
wall and stand sixteen feet higher than the ramparts.*

* Place reckoned the height of the wall at 75 feet, a
measurement adopted by Perrot and Chipiez; Dieulafoy has
shown that the height of the wall must be reduced to 47
feet, and that of the towers about 65 feet.

[Illustration: 398.jpg PLAN OF THE ROYAL CITY OF DUR-SHARRUKIN]

Reduction by Faucher-Gudin, from the plan published in
Place.

Access was gained to the interior by eight gates, two on each side of
the square, each of them marked by two towers separated from one another
by the width of the bay. Every gate had its patron, chosen from among
the gods of the city; there was the gate of Shamash, the gate of Ramman,
those of Bel and Beltis, of Ami, of Tshtar, of Ea, and of the Lady of
the Gods. Each of them was protected externally by a _migdol_, or small
castle, built in the Syrian style, and flanked at each corner by a low
tower thirteen yards in width; five allowed of the passage of beasts
as well as men. It was through these that the peasants came in every
morning, driving their cattle before them, or jolting along in waggons
laden with fruit and vegetables. After passing the outposts, they
crossed a paved courtyard, then made their way