ancient Nineveh, the immense enclosing ridges being the ruined city walls.
These ramparts are still, in their crumbled condition, about fifty feet
high, and average about one hundred and fifty in width. The lower part of
the wall was constructed of solid stone masonry; the upper portion of
dried brick. This upper and frailer part, crumbling into earth, has
completely buried the stone basement. The Turks of to-day quarry the stone
from these old walls for their buildings.]

PALACE-MOUNDS AND PALACES.--In order to give a certain dignity to the
royal residence, to secure the fresh breezes, and to render them more
easily defended, the Assyrians, as well as the Babylonians and the
Persians, built their palaces upon lofty artificial terraces, or
platforms. These eminences, which appear like natural, flat-topped hills,
were constructed with an almost incredible expenditure of human labor. The
great palace-mound at Nineveh, called by the natives Koyunjik, covers an
area of one hundred acres, and is from seventy to ninety feet high. Out of
the material composing it could be built four pyramids as large as that of
Cheops. Upon this mound stood several of the most splendid palaces of the
Ninevite kings.

[Illustration: RESTORATION OF A COURT IN SARGON'S PALACE AT KHORSABAD.
(After Fergusson.)]

The group of buildings constituting the royal residence was often of
enormous extent; the various courts, halls, corridors, and chambers of the
Palace of Sennacherib, which surmounted the great platform at Nineveh,
covered an area of over ten acres. The palaces were usually one-storied.
The walls, constructed chiefly of dried brick, were immensely thick and
heavy. The rooms and galleries were plastered with stucco, or panelled
with precious woods, or lined with enamelled bricks. The main halls,