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NINEVEH, ARCHITECTURE OF. 



NINEVEH, ARCHITECTURE OF. 



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bolioal : Didron mentions a Judas with a black nimbus. The persona 

 who in mediaeval art are represented with the nimbus are, as has been 

 seen, the three persons of the Trinity, the Virgin, angels, the 

 patriarchs, prophets, apostles, &c., of the Old and New Testaments, 

 and all who had been canonised by the Church. But princes, popgs, 

 and bishops, living as well as dead, likewise frequently bear this attri- 

 bute of apotheosis, though they could have no such claim to it. It is 

 often figured also on symbolical animals, as the lamb, the beast with 

 seven heads of the Apocalypse, &c. ; and a hand encircled with a 

 nimbus which has the cruciform rays is a well-known symbol of the 

 Father; but the hand when stretched forth from a cloud has fre- 

 quently, instead of a nimbus, a stream of light issuing from it. The 

 Hebrew word Jehovah is often painted on a tringular nimbus. 



The aureole, as has been said, instead of encircling the head only, 

 like the nimbus, encompasses the entire person. It is confined, with 

 rare exceptions, to the Trinity and the Virgin Mary : the exceptions 

 are mostly of late date, and comprise such representations as the souls 

 of certain saints, or the Magdalene in an ecstacy. The usual form of 

 the aureole is a pointed oval, formed by the intersection of circles of 

 equal diameters. This is commonly termed a Vesica piscis, from a 

 fancied resemblance to the form of a fish, which in its turn was sup- 

 posed to be symbolical of the Saviour, from its name in Greek (Jxft>s) 

 containing the initial letters of the names and titles of Jesus Christ. 

 But this is probably a strained fancy. There can be little doubt that 

 the oval form of the aureole was given to it from the outline circum- 

 scribing the rays of light emanating from the divine person most 

 readily assuming that regular form, as the outline circumscribing the 

 rays emanating from the head would naturally take the circular shape 

 of the nimbus. Sometimes the aureole is contracted at the neck and 

 ancles of a standing figure. Around a seated figure it becomes circular 

 in form, or occasionally takes the shape of a quatrefoil. In Byzantine 

 art it is seen circular, with rays or lines diverging from the centre, so 

 as to resemble a wheel. Some miniatures show the aureole like an 

 encircling cloud. French artists frequently gave the outline a wavy 

 appearance ; and other divergences from the regular form might be 

 mentioned. The aureole is, like the nimbus, commonly gold ; but it is 

 frequently coloured. Sometimes, for instance, when the Father is 

 represented within the aureole, his feet .resting on a rainbow, the 

 ground of the aureole is azure, and powdered with golden stars. At 

 first the aureole, like the nimbus, had an enriched border ; but in the 

 15th century the border was first diminished, and then omitted, the 

 aureole itself soon after ceasing to be represented. 



With the recent revival of mediaevalism, both the nimbus and aureole 

 have reappeared in ecclesiastical art. Even in Protestant churches 

 they are now almost universally figured, and the nimbus is not con- 

 fined to the saints of the Scriptures : thus "King Charles the Martyr" 

 is represented with the nimbus in a stained glass window erected a few 

 years ago in Kilndown Church, Kent. 



(The fullest information respecting the nimbus and aureole will be 

 found in Didron's Jcunoyraphie Ohrftienne ; but Mrs. Jamieson's Sacred 

 and Legendary Art, and works of a similar class, should also be 

 consulted ; while D'Agincourt's Histoire de I'Art par les Monument, 

 will, with the works just named, supply an ample number of 

 examples.) 



NINEVEH, ARCHITECTURE OF. Until the year 1843, the very 

 sites of the great cities of the mighty Assyrian empire were little more 

 than matter of conjecture. Rude mounds of earth, and huge heaps of 

 unburnt brickwork, served to stimulate the wonder of travellers and 

 the curiosity of archaeologists ; but the most searching investigations 

 of travellers like Rich and Niebuhr did not suffice to remove the 

 obscurity which involved the question of where stood Nineveh and 

 Babylon, and what was the character of their buildings ? The wond- 

 rous extent of the cities, and the magnificence of their architecture, 

 were attested alike by the Old Testament scriptures, and by Greek 

 historians and geographers [NINEVEH, in GEOO. Div.], but neither the 

 one nor the other supplied the means of reproducing with the faintest 

 approach to certainty, any of these vast edifices. The explorations of 

 Messrs. Botta and Layard, in 1843 and following years, and of those who 

 succeeded them in their labours, however, brought to light sufficient to 

 prove the accuracy of the contemporary accounts of the splendour of 

 the Assyrian pilnces, and to enable the accomplished architect to 

 reproduce with tolerable distinctness the buildings themselves. 



The excavations which yielded such marvellous and unexpected 

 results, were carried on chiefly at Nimroud, Khorsabad, and Kouyunjik, 

 situated on the east bank of the Tigris nearly opposite Mosul, and 

 within a district about 30 miles in length ; and, as Mr. Layard, the 

 great authority on the subject, believes, all forming at one time 

 portions of the same great city : " the numerous royal residences, 

 surrounded by gardens and parks, and enclosed by fortified walls, each 

 a distinct quarter known by a different name, formed together 

 the great city of Nineveh," though by others they are rather regarded 

 as separate cities. In all ten great buildings have been discovered, and 

 all of them have precisely the game character, being palaces, or rather 

 palaces and temples combined, the king having a sacred character, and 

 being chief priest as well an governor. Nineveh was founded some 

 200n years B.C. ; but the oldest building yet discovered appears, from 

 inscriptions on it, to have been built in the reign of Sardanapalus, B.C. 

 930, the latest was hardly finished at the destruction of the city, B.C. 



625 ; the architectural examples therefore extend over a period of 300 

 years, but leave the archaic period unillustrated. 



The palace-temples of Nineveh yet discovered were all built on an 

 artificial mound or platform raised 30 or 40 feet above the level of the 

 ground. These mounds or terraces were of vast extent ; that of the 

 palace of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik was a mile and a half in circum- 

 ference. They were partly of earth and rubbish, and partly, or, as 

 at Khorsabad, wholly of regular layers of sun-dried bricks cemented 

 together with clay, faced with slabs of stone, and supported by solid 

 masonry. The object in raising these costly substructures was 

 probably, as Mr. Layard suggests, to secure a certain amount of cool- 

 ness during the summer heats, as well as to impart dignity to the 

 biu'lding, and afford a means of defence. The process of raising these 

 mounds, and of erecting the buildings, is minutely depicted in the 

 marble slabs brought from the buildings themselves, and now deposited 

 in the British Museum and the Louvre. 



The buildings appear to have consisted of a series of chambers 

 invariably rectangular, and usually oblong, placed side by side, and 

 with studious symmetry around great halls or square open courts. 

 These chambers occur from one to two hundred feet in length, and 

 from twenty to forty in breadth. From this great central block suites 

 of smaller rooms project as wings, the rooms decreasing in size and 

 richness as they recede from the centre. In some of the palaces long 

 galleries connect the several parts. The great halls and courts, with 

 some of the chief apartments, appear to have been devoted to purposes 

 of state and ceremony ; while other portions were, as Mr. Fergusson has 

 shown, set apart in accordance with eastern habits for the use of the 

 females, or, as it would now be termed, the harem. 



Both externally and in the interior, the palaces were of extraordinary 

 magnificence. The approach to the building was at Khorsabad, and 

 perhaps elsewhere, if Mr. Fergusson's restorations be correct, by way of 

 an outer and lower mound, " on which were situated the great portals 

 of the palace, and the residence of the guards and inferior officers ; and 

 beyond even this, on the plain of the city, a set of interportals are 

 found, from which the great winged bulls, now in the British Museum, 

 were taken." Passing these portals a flight of steps led up to the 

 palace. The building itself was nearly square, with two principal 

 fasades, one of which, where the palace was built by the Tigris, usually 

 overlooked the river ; the other was on the opposite side. Each front 

 had three entrances, the principal being in the centre. The sides, or 

 jambs of the central portals, were formed by slabs, on which were 

 sculptured colossal human-headed and winged bulls, 16 or 18 feet 

 high ; the side doorways being usually guarded by colossal figures of 

 divinities or kings, but in some instances by winged-bulls similar to 

 those of the chief entrance. Between the doorways, pairs of these 

 winged-bulls, of somewhat smaller size, were placed back to back, 

 with sometimes colossal human or symbolical figures between them. 

 The rest of the walls, to the height of about 9 feet, were faced with 

 slabs, on which were carved single figures or groups, of the kind 

 familiar to every one, by the examples in the British Museum or the 

 popular works of Layard, Bonomi, and others. The walls themselves, 

 which were of immense thickness, were built of sun-dried bricks ; the 

 sculptured slabs are chiefly of calcareous stone or alabaster. Of the 

 actual buildings, only these lower sculptured walls, with a few feet of 

 the brick surface above, remain. 



The character of the upper part of the building is conjectural. But 

 following out the indications on the extant parts, it seems pretty 

 evident that the brick walls were carried up at least to the height of 

 the great bulls, or about 18 feet, the surface being covered with stucco, 

 and painted with various figures of the king and his attendants, 

 mythological subjects, &c., or in conventional patterns.' From large 

 quantities of charred wood being found within the chambers, and no 

 remains of a stone or brick superstructure, it is conjectured that the 

 superstructure, of whatever description it was, was constructed chiefly 

 or wholly of wood. This superstructure, Mr. Fergusson, who has 

 more thoroughly studied the subject than any other authority, con- 

 siders to have consisted of " a gallery or upper story to the palace ; 

 and thus in the heat of the day, the thickness of the walls kept the 

 inner apartments free from glare, while in the evenings and mornings, 

 the galleries formed airy and light apartments, affording a view over 

 bhe country, and open on every side to the breezes that blow so 

 refreshingly over the plains. It will thus," he adds, " be evident that 

 *he direct rays of the sun could never penetrate into the halls them- 

 selves, and that rain, or even damp, could easily be excluded by means 

 of curtains or screens." 



The roof Mr. Fergusson supposes to have been supported on low 

 wooden columns, resembling in style those of stone still standing at 

 Persepolis, and others recently found at Susa ; grounding his opinion 

 on the fact made evident by the discoveries at Nineveh, that the 

 Persians in their architecture imitated that of the Assyrians ; repro- 

 ducing as well as they could, the winged-bulls and other characteristic 

 sculpture, as well as the general form of the buildings, and, as is 

 highly probable, copying in stone the wooden columns of their pro- 

 totypes. No complete column, it must be understood however, has 

 been exhumed among the Assyrian remains, but only fragments of 

 bases, and none of these are of wood. In the relievi which cover the 

 walls of the Assyrian palaces, columns of various kinds occur, including, 

 as it would seem, the original of the Greek Ionic ; the open gallery, or 



