specimen. Excavation has been hitherto confined to the most elevated
portions of the mounds which mark the sites of cities, where it was
likely that remains of the greatest interest would be found. Palaces,
temples, and the great gates which gave entrance to towns, have in this
way seen the light; but the humbler buildings, the ordinary dwellings of
the people, remain buried beneath the soil, unexplored and even unsought
for. In this entire default of any actual specimen of an ordinary
Assyrian house, we naturally turn to the sculptured representations
which are so abundant and represent so many different sorts of scenes.
Even here, however, we obtain but little light. The bulk of the slabs
exhibit the wars of the kings in foreign countries, and thus place
before us foreign rather than Assyrian architecture. The processional
slabs, which are another large class, contain rarely any building at
all, and, where they furnish one, exhibit to us a temple rather than a
house. The hunting scenes, representing wilds far from the dwellings of
man, afford us, as might be expected, no help. Assyrian buildings, other
than temples, are thus most rarely placed before us. In one case,
indeed, we have an Assyrian city, which a foreign enemy is passing; but
the only edifices represented are the walls and towers of the exterior,
and the temple [No. VI., PLATE L.] whose columns rest upon lions. In one
other we seem to have an unfortified Assyrian village; and from this
single specimen we are forced to form our ideas of the ordinary
character of Assyrian houses.

It is observable here, its the first place, that the houses have no
windows, and are, therefore, probably lighted from the roof; next, that
the roofs are very curious, since, although flat in some instances, they
consist more often either of hemispherical domes, such as are still so
common in the East, or of steep and high cones, such as are but seldom
seen anywhere. Mr. Layard finds a parallel for these last in certain