road within a little distance of the king stands an altar.  The temple occupies the top of a mound, which is covered with trees of two different kinds, and watered by rivulets.  On the right is a “hanging garden,” artificially elevated to the level of the temple by means of masonry supported on an arcade, the arch here used being not the round arch but a pointed one.  No.  VI. [PLATE L.] is unfortunately very imperfect, the entire upper portion having been lost.  Even, however, in its present mutilated state it represents by far the most magnificent building that has yet been found upon the bas-reliefs.  The facade, as it now stands, exhibits four broad pilasters and four pillars, alternating in pairs, excepting that, as in the smaller temples, pilasters occupy both corners.  In two cases, the base of the pilaster is carved into the figure of a winged bull, closely resembling the bulls which commonly guarded the outer gates of palaces.  In the other two the base is plain—­a piece of negligence, probably, on the part of the artist.  The four pillars all exhibit a rounded base, nearly though not quite similar to that of the pillars in No.  V.; and this rounded base in every case rests upon the back of a walking lion.  We might perhaps have imagined that this was a mere fanciful or mythological device of the artist’s, on a par with the representations at Bavian, where figures, supposed to be Assyrian deities, stand upon the backs of animals resembling dogs.  But one of M. Place’s architectural discoveries seems to make it possible, or even probable, that a real feature in Assyrian building is here represented M. Place found the arch of the town gateway which he exhumed at Khorsabad to spring from the backs of the two bulls which guarded it on either side.  Thus the lions at the base of the pillars may be real architectural forms, as well as the winged bulls which support the pilasters.  The lion was undoubtedly a sacred animal, emblematic of divine power, and especially assigned to Nergal, the Assyrian Mars, the god at once of war and of hunting.  His introduction on the exteriors of buildings was common in Asia Minor but no other example occurs of his being made to support a pillar, excepting in the so-called Byzantine architecture of Northern Italy.

[Illustration:  PLATE 49]

[Illustration:  PLATE 50]

[Illustration:  PLATE 51]

[Illustration:  PLATE 52]

No.  VII. a [PLATE LII., Fig. 1] introduces us to another kind of Assyrian temple, or perhaps it should rather be said to another feature of Assyrian temples—­common to them with Babylonian—­the tower or ziggurat.  This appears to have been always built in stages, which probably varied in number—­never, how-ever, so far as appears, exceeding seven.  The sculptured example before us, which is from a bas-relief found at Koyunjik, distinctly exhibits four stages, of which the topmost, owing to the destruction of the upper portion of the tablet, is imperfect.  It is not unlikely that in this instance there was above the fourth a fifth stage, consisting of a shrine like that which at Babylon crowned the great temple of Belus.  The complete elevation would then have been nearly as in No.  VII. b. [PLATE XLI., Fig. 3.]