might be seen from the summit, with its separate quarters and its belt of gardens; and beyond, the open country intersected with streams, studded with isolated villages, patches of wood, pools and weedy marshes left by the retiring inundation, and in the far distance the lines of trees and bushes which bordered the banks of the Euphrates and its confluents.  Should a troop of enemies venture within the range of sight, or should a suspicious tumult arise within the city, the watchers posted on the highest terrace would immediately give the alarm, and ’through their warning the king would have time to close his gates, and take measures to resist the invading enemy or crush the revolt of his subjects.

[Illustration:  255.jpg STONE SOCKET OF ONE OF THE DOORS IN THE PALACE OF GUDEA.( right)]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec.

The northern apartments of the palace were appropriated to Gudea and his family.  They were placed with their back to the entrance court, and were divided into two groups; the sovereign, his male children and their attendants, inhabited the western one, while the women and their slaves were cloistered, so to speak, in the northern set.  The royal dwelling had an external exit by means of a passage issuing on the north-west of the enclosure, and it also communicated with the great courtyard by a vaulted corridor which ran along one side of the base of the ziggurat:  the doors which, closed these two entrances opened wide enough to admit only one person at a time, and to the right and left were recesses in the wall which enabled the guards to examine all comers unobserved, and stab them promptly if there were anything suspicious in their behaviour.  Eight chambers were lighted from the courtyard.  In one of them were kept all the provisions for the day, while another served as a kitchen:  the head, cook carried on his work at a sort of rectangular dresser of moderate size, on which several fireplaces were marked out by little dividing walls of burnt bricks, to accommodate as many pots or pans of various sizes.  A well sunk in the corner right down below the substructure provided the water needed for culinary purposes.  The king and his belongings accommodated themselves in the remaining five or six rooms as best they could.  A corridor, guarded as carefully as the one previously described, led to his private apartments and to those of his wives:  these comprised a yard, some half-dozen cells varying in size, a kitchen, a well, and a door through which the servants could come and go, without passing through the men’s quarters.  The whole description in no way corresponds with the marvellous ideal of an Oriental palace which we form for ourselves:  the apartments are mean and dismal, imperfectly lighted by the door or by some small aperture timidly cut in the ceiling, arranged so as to protect the inmates from the heat and dust, but without a thought given to luxury or display.  The walls were entirely void of any cedar woodwork inlaid with gold, or panels of mosaic such as we find in the temples, nor were they hung with dyed or embroidered draperies such as we moderns love to imagine, and which we spread about in profusion, when we attempt to reproduce the interior of an ancient house or palace.*