The following features are worth of remark in this temple.  The basement story is panelled with indented rectangular recesses, as was the ease at Nimrud [PLATE LIII.] and at the Birs the remainder are plain, as are most of the stages in the Birs temple.  Up to the second of these squared recesses on either side there runs what seems to be a road or path, which sweeps away down the hill whereon the temple stands in a bold curve, each path closely matching the other.  The whole building is perfectly symmetrical, except that the panelling is not quite uniform in width nor arranged quite regularly.  On the second stage, exactly in the middle, there is evidently a doorway, and on either side of it a shallow buttress or pilaster.  In the centre of the third story, exactly over the doorway of the second, is a squared niche.  In front of the temple, but not exactly opposite its centre, may be seen the prophylaea, consisting of a squared doorway placed under a battlemented wall, between two towers also battlemented.  It is curious that the paths do not lead to the propylaea, but seen to curve round the hill.

[Illustration:  PLATE 53]

Remains of ziggurats similar to this have been discovered at Khorsabad, at Nimrud, and at Kileh-Sherghat.  The conical mound at Khorsabad explored by M. Place was found to contain a tower in seven stages; that of Nimrud, which is so striking an object from the plain, and which was carefully examined by Mr. Layard, presented no positive proof of more than a single stage; but from its conical shape, and from the general analogy of such towers, it is believed to have had several stages. [PLATE LII., Fig. 2.] Mr. Layard makes their number five, and crowns the fifth with a circular tower terminating in a heavy cornice; but for this last there is no authority at all, and the actual number of the stages is wholly uncertain.  The base of this ziggurat was a square, 167 feet 6 inches each way, composed of a solid mass of sun-dried brick, faced at bottom to the height of twenty feet with a wall of hewn stones, more than eight feet and a half in thickness.  The outer stones were bevelled at the edges, and on the two most conspicuous sides the wall was ornamented with a series of shallow recesses arranged without very much attention to regularity.  The other two sides, one of which abutted on and was concealed by the palace mound, while the other faced towards the city, were perfectly plain.  At the top of the stone masonry was a row of gradines, such as are often represented in the sculptures as crowning an edifice.  Above the stone masonry the tower was continued at nearly the same width, the casing of stone being simply replaced by one of burnt brick of inferior thickness.  It is supposed that the upper stages were constructed in the same way.  As the actual present height of the ruin is 140 feet, and the upper stages have so entirely crumbled away, it can scarcely be supposed that the original height fell much short of 200 feet.