203 
than probable that there were other buildings on the top of 
the one which was found buried below them.* The late M. 
Place, who excavated at Khorsabad for the French Museum, 
was of the same opinion, and in the interesting work he pub- 
lished he explains his theory by elegant plans and drawings. 
44. It is believed, on the authority of Greek and other 
historians, that when the last Assyrian king, supposed to be 
Saracus, was besieged at Nineveh by Nabopolassar, the father 
of Nebuchadnezzar, he shut himself in one of his palaces, which 
he set on fire and perished therein with all his family about 
625 B.c.,t so when the lower or ground story was burnt down 
the upper one fell into it, and since then rain and sand-storms • 
and future occupiers of the place made the mound look as if it 
had been a natural hill. The nature of the rubbish and walls 
led me to this conjecture, and thus I believe that most of the 
Assyrian palaces were two stories high. The first story or 
ground floor was panelled with plain or sculptured slabs, 
engraved after they were built in, with walls to support them 
of sun-dried bricks varying from 4 to 5 feet in thickness. 
The second story must have been built entirely of sun-dried 
bricks plastered or painted over with hunting scenes or mar- 
tial representations. It may be urged that the lower story 
could not have been supplied with daylight when there was 
another story above it ; my answer to this objection is, that 
the outer rooms or halls might have been lighted through 
apertures or windows in the outer walls, and that the inner 
rooms, like those in which Sennacherib deposited his library, 
had no separate light, but were merely supplied by the re- 
flection from the outer rooms, or it might have been that 
those rooms had no other building above them, and they 
were lighted by means of skylights. However, be it as 
it may, I feel confident that it was quite impossible that the 
whole of the Assyrian palaces could have been filled up to 
such an extent from the mere falling in of the upper part of 
the walls and the roofing. J 
* It is impossible to look at the rubbish heaped over the palaces of Assyria 
without calling to mind the words of the prophet Nahum, “ And I will cast 
abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing- 
stock.” 
t It is also related that the conqueror completed the utter destruction of 
that magnificent Assyrian capital by levelling the great walls and delivering 
the whole city to the flames. This destruction by fire has also been pro- 
phesied by Nahum and wonderfully fulfilled. He says in ch. iii. 15, “ there 
shall the fire devour thee.” In which of the palaces Saracus destroyed him- 
self it is impossible to tell, but most probably he took refuge in Sennacherib’s 
palace at Koyunjik, as it must have been the most impregnable of all. 
t Herodotus, in his account of Babylon, mentions that the houses in that 
city were built three or four stories high. 
M 
