[Illustration:  208a.jpg Chaldean houses at Uru.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the sketch by Taylor.

[Illustration:  208b plans of houses excavated at Eridu and Ubu.]

These plans were drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from sketches by Taylor.  The houses reproduced to the left of the plan were those uncovered in the ruins of Uru; those on the right belong to the ruins of Eridu.  On the latter, the niches mentioned in the text will be found indicated.

In the interior may still be distinguished the small oblong rooms, sometimes vaulted, sometimes roofed with a flat, ceiling supported by trunks of palm trees;* the walls are often of a considerable thickness, in which are found narrow niches here and there.  The majority of the rooms were merely store-chambers, and contained the family provisions and treasures; others served as living-rooms, and were provided with furniture.  The latter, in the houses of the richer citizens no less than in those of the people, was of a very simple kind, and was mostly composed of chairs and stools, similar to those in the royal palaces; the bedrooms contained the linen chests and the beds with their thin mattresses, coverings, and cushions, and perhaps wooden head-rests, resembling those found in Africa,** but the Chaldaeans slept mostly on mats spread on the ground.

* Taylor, Notes on the Ruins of Mugeyer, in the Journ. of the Royal As.  Soc, vol. xv. p. 266, found the remains of the palm-tree beams which formed the terrace still existing.  He thinks (Notes on Tel-el-Lahm, etc., in the Journ, of the Royal As.  Soc., vol. xv. p. 411) with Loftus that some of the chambers were vaulted.  Cf. upon the custom of vaulting in Chaldaean houses, Piereot-Cupiez, Histoire de l’Art, vol. ii. p. 163, et seq.

** The dressing of the hair in coils and elaborate erections, as seen in the various figures engraved upon Chaldaean intaglios (cf. what is said of the different ways of arranging the hair on p. 262 of this volume), appears to have necessitated the use of these articles of furniture; such complicated erections of hair must have lasted several days at least, and would not have kept in condition so long except for the use of the head-rest.

An oven for baking occupied a corner of the courtyard, side by side with the stones for grinding the corn; the ashes on the hearth were always aglow, and if by chance the fire went out, the fire-stick was always at hand to relight it, as in Egypt.  The kitchen utensils and household pottery comprised a few large copper pans and earthenware pots rounded at the base, dishes, water and wine jars, and heavy plates of coarse ware; metal had not as yet superseded stone, and in the same house we meet with bronze axes and hammers side by side with the same implements in cut flint, besides knives, scrapers, and mace-heads.*