815 



NINEVEH, ARCHITECTURE OF. 



NIOBE. - 



010 



Khoraabad, and Kouyunjik." But among the discoveries made by M. 

 Place at Nineveh was that of one of the city gates. These appear to have 

 been constructed in pairs of about equal width, from 12 to 15 feet ; 

 one gateway being devoted to wheeled carriages, the other to foot 

 passengers, as is shown by the deep lines cut by the wheels in the 

 pavement of the one, while that of the other is quite smooth. The 

 foot passengers' gate is ornamented with slabs of human-headed winged 

 bulls, alongside of which stand colossal figures strangling lions. The 

 carriage gateway has plain slabs. Both have semicircular arches, with 

 elegantly adorned archivolts formed of blue enamelled bricks with 

 yellow figures. 



The private residences, being constructed of sun-dried bricks, have 

 entirely perished. \ 



Babylonian Architecture. Of the buildings of Babylon no complete 

 example remains. Long before Layard or Botta began to excavate the 

 buried Nineveh, Babylon had been the scene of frequent and careful, 

 though by no means fruitful, explorations. The remarkable results of 

 the researches at Nineveh led to a renewal of the investigation ; but 

 the success has been far from commensurable with the labour, and 

 there is little reason to look forward to happier results at a future time. 

 Like the ordinary dwellings of Nineveh, the buildings of Babylon were 

 constructed entirely of brick, and where vast masses of brickwork 

 remain they have utterly lost their form as buildings. The great 

 mounds, which now comprise all that remains of the magnificent 

 structures which excited the wonder alike of the ancient Hebrews and 

 the polished Greeks, have been so fully described elsewhere [BABYLON, 

 in GEOO. Drv.] that here a very brief notice will suffice. 



The chief of the existing remains is that standing on the western 

 side of tl'e Euphrates, and known as the Birs Nimroucl, a conical 

 mound, formed of bricks, clay, and broken pottery, 762 yards in cir- 

 cumference, and at the western end rising to a height of 198 feet. On 

 this summit is a solid structure of brick, 37 feet high and 28 feet 

 broad, but diminishing to the top, which is broken and irregular. [See 

 the cut and description in the article BABYLON, before referred to.] 

 The building on the top is constructed of kiln-burnt bricks, and is in 

 the best style of Babylonian brick-work ; fragments of stone, marble, 

 and basalt scattered about, show that it was adorned with more costly 

 materials. The only openings are square holes pierced through the 

 solid structure. By most writers it has been supposed to be the 

 Temple of Belus, described by Herodotus ; but there were always diffi- 

 culties about the identification of the site, and the recent investigations 

 of Sir H. Kawlinson have shown it to be a different building. Sir 

 Henry, on discovering the angle of the basement wall by sinking a 

 shaft, at once directed the workmen to look at a particular spot near 

 it for a recess in which woTild be found a commemorative cylinder. 

 This was done, and a cylinder covered with inscriptions [CUNEIFORM] 

 was drawn out. A similar hollow with a duplicate cylinder in it was 

 discovered near the opposite angle. On translating the inscription it 

 was found to state that this building, the Temple of the Seven Spheres, 

 which was built 504 years before (about 1100 B.C.), having become 

 ruinous owing to the neglect of the drainage, the god Merodack had put 

 it into the heart of the great King Nebuchadnezzar to rebuild it all but 

 the platform which had not been injured. The building would appear 

 from the investigations of Sir H. Rawlinson, to have consisted of a 

 square basement about 360 feet on each side, and 6 feet high, on which 

 stood a pyramidal structure of six stories, each about 20 feet high, 

 and 42 feet less in horizontal extent than that on which it stands. 

 These stories instead of being concentrically above each other, recede 

 regularly, so that the front of the tower on the summit is above 200 feet 

 from the front line of the basement, while the back is less than 100 

 feet from the rear line. The sides recede equally. The tower which 

 crowns the summit, and which is spoken of above, was probably in two 

 stories, and surmounted with a cornice. Within it was probably the 

 shrine or holy place of the temple. In the front of the temple were 

 steps leading from story to story from the basement to the tower at 

 the summit. The seven stories, or platforms, were, Sir Henry believes, 

 dedicated to the seven planets, and coloured with the colours attributed 

 to them by the Sabacan astrologers. The lowest platform was panelled 

 and painted black, the colour emblematic of Saturn ; the secqnd orange, 

 the colour of Jupiter; the third red, Mars; the fourth gold, as dedi- 

 cated to the Sun ; the fifth green, for Venus ; the sixth blue, Mercury; 

 and the highest white, as the colour of the Moon, whose place was the 

 hignest in the Chaldajan system. This remarkable discovery accords 

 not only very closely with the descriptions of Greek writers, but in 

 general form with figures on slabs found at Kouyuujik, and is probably 

 therefore nearly correct. 



The mound called the Wujelibe', by Rich, or the Mount of Babel by 



Layard [described under BABYLON in GEOO. Div.J, seems to be the site 



of a great palace resembling, probably, in its general character the 



Mi of Nineveh ; but it appears to be too utterly ruined to admit 



nt ;niy very definite restoration. The Kasr of Rich, Layard (who calls 



it the Mujelibd) conceives to have been a fortified palace. There are 



numerous other mounds, but they yield no insight into the peculiarities 



I. ylonian architecture; which, therefore, in the absence of any 



nee to the contrary, we may fairly suppose to have been in its 



general characteristics, analogous to that of Nineveh. Its chief differ- 



l/robably from being built wholly of brick. Instead of the 



walls of tli' :! the interior being faced with sculptured elabs 



ABTS AMD SCI. DIV. VOL. V. 



of alabaster, they were covered with fine moulded bricks or stucco, and 

 painted with representations of a similar kind to those at Nineveh, but 



vhips even more gorgeously coloured. 



The architecture of Babylon was contemporaneous, or nearly so, with 

 bhat of Persepolis and Passargadae ; and thus, as Mr. Fergusson suggests, 

 her palaces may have " formed the link that would enable us to con- 

 nect, in a satisfactory manner, the edifices and architecture of Assyria 

 with those of Persia." It is noteworthy that none of the bricks found 

 in or about Babylon are earlier than Nebuchadnezzar ; in fact all, or 

 nearly all, are inscribed with the name of that monarch. 



Other mounds and heaps of brickwork are found at Mugheyr and 

 Wurka in southern Babylonia ; but they do not seem likely to throw 

 much additional light on the architecture of the country. Two of 

 the buildings at Wurka appear to have been palaces ; but the most 

 extensive of the mounds must, from the numbers of tombs and coffins 

 found in it, have formed for centuries a vast cemetery. 



(Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, 8vo; Monuments of Nineveh, fol. ; 

 Fergusson, Palaces of Nineveh and Persejiolts Restored ; and Handbook 

 of Architecture ; Bonomi, Nineveh and its Palaces, 8vo; Botta and 

 Flandin, Monument de Ninive, 5 vols., fol.) 



NINTH, an interval in music, a discord retarding the 8th, but may 

 be resolved into either the 6th or the 3rd ; and though this is the 

 octave of the 2nd, yet it is essentially different in harmony, both as to 

 treatment and effect. [CHORD; THOROUGH-BASI:.] 



Of this interval there are two kinds ; the major 9th, composed of 

 six tones and two semitones 



and the minor 9th, composed of five tones and three semitones 



NI'OBE, the daughter of Tantalus, king of Lydia, was married to 

 Amphion, by whom she had, according to Ovid and other ancient 

 writers, seven sons and seven daughters. This is the most commonly 

 received opinion, though Homer (' II.,' xxiv. 602, &c.) and others give 

 the numbers variously. The pride of Niobe at having this numerous 

 progeny was so great that she is said in ancient story to have insulted 

 Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana, by refusing to offer at the 

 altars raised in her honour, declaring that she had a better claim to 

 worship and sacrifices than one who was the mother of only two 

 children. Latona, indignant at this insolence and presumption, called 

 upon her children to revenge her, and punish the arrogance of Niobe. 

 Apollo and Diana heard the prayer, and obeyed the entreaty of their 

 outraged parent. All the sons of Niobe fell imder the arrows of 

 Apollo, while the daughters in like manner met their death from the 

 hands of Diana. Chloris alone escaped the common fate. She was 

 the wife of Neleus, king of Pylos. This terrible judgment of the gods 

 so affected the now heart-stricken and humiliated Niobe, that she was 

 changed by her excessive grief into stone on Mount Sipylus in Lydia. 

 Pausanias says (i. 21, 3) that the rock on Sipylus, which went by the 

 name of Niobe, and which he had visited, " was merely a rock and a 

 precipice when one came close up to it, and bore no resemblance at all 

 to a woman ; but at a distance you might imagine it to be a wonlan 

 weeping with downcast countenance." 



The fable of Niobe and her children has afforded a subject for art, 

 which has been finely treated by one of the greatest ancient masters of 

 sculpture. It consists of a series, rather than a group, of figures of 

 both sexes, in all the disorder and agony of expected or present suffer- 

 ing ; while one, the mother, the hapless Niobe, in the most affecting 

 attitude of supplication, and with an expression of deep grief, her eyes 

 turned upwards, implores the justly offended gods to moderate their 

 anger and spare her offspring, one of whom, the youngest girl, she 

 strains fondly to her bosom. It is difficult by description to do justice 

 to the various excellence exhibited in this admirable work. Its great 

 merit is independent of fine execution, in which it is inferior as a 

 whole to many other well-known productions of the Greeks. Its 

 excellence consists in the finer qualities of sentiment, as expression, 

 grace, propriety, anoT variety of action, with that unity of effect by 

 which the scene is brought dramatically and at the same time truly 

 before the spectator, and a story of the most affecting interest told in 

 language that cannot be mistaken. The arrangement of the composi- 

 tion is supposed to have been adapted to a tympanum or pediment. 

 The figure of Niobe, of colossal dimensions compared with the other 

 figures, which are life size, forms, with her youngest daughter pressed 

 to her, the centre ; while the rest of the sous and daughters are ranged 

 in various ways on each side, some exhibiting expression of fear, others 

 agonised with pain, others in grief, while one of the sons lies dead or 

 dying, and stretched upon the ground. All are graceful, and some of 

 the figures possess also great beauty, and the action and expression of 

 many of the heads offer admirable examples for study to the artist. 

 The whole attitude and expression of Niobe herself may truly be 

 called sublime. 



The colossal scale of the principal figure has justly been objected to 

 as a fault. Tho artist doubtless had two purposes in view when ho 



3 i> 



