disappearance, not only of the body, but of all the ornaments and
vessels found commonly in the Mesopotamian tombs, he suggested that the
gallery had been rifled in times long anterior to his visit; and he
thought that he found traces, both internally and externally, of the
tunnel by which it had been entered. But certainly, if this long and
narrow vault was intended to receive a body, it is most extraordinarily
shaped for the purpose. What other sepulchral chamber is there anywhere
of so enormous a, length? Without pretending to say what the real object
of the gallery was, we may feel tolerably sure that it was not a tomb.
The building which contained it was a temple tower, and it is not likely
that the religious feelings of the Assyrians would have allowed the
application of a religious edifice to so utilitarian a purpose.

[Illustration: PLATE 54]

Besides the ziggerat or tower, which may commonly have been surmounted
by a chapel or shrine, an Assyrian temple had always a number of
basement chambers, in one of which was the principal shrine of the god.
[PLATE LIV.,Fig. 1.] This was a square or slightly oblong recess at the
end of an oblong apartment, raised somewhat above its level; it was
paved (sometimes, if not always) with a single slab, the weight of which
must occasionally have been as much as thirty tons. One or two small
closets opened out from the shrine, in which it is likely that the
priests kept the sacerdotal garments and the sacrificial utensils.
Sometimes the cell of the temple or chamber into which the shrine opened
was reached through another apartment, corresponding to the Greek
_pronaos_. In such a case, care seems to have been taken so to arrange
the outer and inner doorways of the vestibule that persons passing by
the outer doorway should not be able to catch a sight of the shrine.
Where there was no vestibule, the entrance into the cell or body of the