(which is at a higher elevation) projecting beyond the line of the walls to a distance of at least 500 feet.  At present there is a considerable space between the ends of the wall and the palace mound; but anciently it is provable that they either abutted on the mound, or were separated from it merely by gateways.  The mound, or at any rate the part of it which projected beyond the walls, was faced with hewn stone, carried perpendicularly from the plain to the top of the platform, and even beyond, so as to form a parapet protecting the edge of the platform.  On the more elevated portion of the mound—­that which projected beyond the walls stood the palace, consisting of three groups of buildings, the principal group lying towards the mound’s northern angle.  On the lower portion of the platform were several detached buildings, the most remarkable being a huge gateway or propylaeum, through which the entrance lay to the palace from the city.  Beyond and below this, on the level of the city, the first or outer portals were placed, giving entrance to a court in front of the lower terrace.

A visitor approaching the palace had in the first place to pass through these portals.  They were ornamented with colossal human-headed bulls on either side, and probably spanned by an arch above, the archivolte being covered with enamelled bricks disposed in a pattern.  Received within the portals, the visitor found himself in front of a long wall of solid stone masonry, the revetement of the lower terrace, which rose from the outer court to a height of at least twenty feet.  Either an inclined-way or a flight of steps—­probably the latter—­must have led up from the outer court to this terrace.  Here the visitor found another portal or propylaeum of a magnificent character. [PLATE XLIII., Fig. 1.] Midway in the south-east side of the lower terrace, and about fifty feet from its edge, stood this grand structure, gateway ninety-feet in width, and at least twenty-five in depth, having on each side three winged bulls of gigantic size, two of them fifteen feet high, and the third nineteen feet.  Between the two small bulls, which styled back to back, presenting their sides to the spectator, was a colossal figure, strangling a lion—­the Assyria Hercules, according to most writers.  The larger bulls stood at right angles to these figures, withdrawn within the portal, and facing the spectator.  The space between the bulls, which is nearly twenty feet, was (it is probable) arched over.  Perhaps the archway led into a chamber beyond which was a second archway and an inner portal, as marked in Mr. Fergusson’s plan:  but this is at present uncertain.

Besides the great portal, the only buildings as yet discovered on this lower platform, are a suite of not very extensive apartments.  They are remarkable for their ornamentation.  The walls are neither lined with slabs, nor yet (as is sometimes the case) painted, but the plaster of which they are composed is formed into sets of half pillars or reeding, separated from one another by pilasters with square sunk panels.  The former kind of ornamentation is found also in Lower Chaldaea, and has been already represented; the latter is peculiar to this building.  It is suggested that these apartments formed the quarters of the soldiers who kept watch over the royal residence.