[Illustration:  406.jpg A HUNTING EXPEDITION IN THE WOODS NEAR DUR-SHARRUKIN]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a drawing by Flandin, in Botta.

The king occupied a suite of some twenty rooms of a rather simple character; here he slept, ate, worked, and transacted the greater part of his daily business, guarded by his eunuchs and attended by his ministers and secretaries.  The remaining rooms were apartments of state, all of the same pattern, in which the crowd of courtiers and employes assembled while waiting for a private audience or to intercept the king as he passed.  A subdued light made its way from above through narrow windows let into the massive arches.  The walls were lined to a height of over nine feet from the floor with endless bas-reliefs, in greyish alabaster, picked out in bright colours, and illustrating the principal occupations in which the sovereign spent his days, such as the audiences to ambassadors, hunting in the woods, sieges and battles.  A few brief inscriptions interspersed above pictures of cities and persons indicated the names of the vanquished chiefs or the scenes of the various events portrayed; detailed descriptions were engraved on the back of the slabs facing the brick wall against which they rested.  This was a precautionary measure, the necessity for which had been but too plainly proved by past experience.  Every one—­the king himself included—­well knew that some day or other Dur-Sharrukin would be forsaken just as the palaces of previous dynasties had been, and it was hoped that inscriptions concealed in this manner would run a better chance of escaping the violence of man or the ravages of time; preserved in them, the memory of Sargon would rise triumphant from the ruins.  The gods reigned supreme over the north-east angle of the platform, and a large irregular block of buildings was given up to their priests; their cells contained nothing of any particular interest, merely white walls and black plinths, adorned here and there with frescoes embellished by arabesques, and pictures of animals and symbolical genii.  The ziggurat rose to a height of some 141 feet above the esplanade.  It had seven storeys dedicated to the gods of the seven planets, each storey being painted in the special colour of its god—­the first white, the second black, the third purple, the fourth blue, the fifth a vermilion red; the sixth was coated with silver, and the seventh gilded.  There was no chamber in the centre of the tower, but a small gilded chapel probably stood at its base, which was used for the worship of Assuf or of Ishtar.  The harem, or Bit-riduti, was at the southern corner of the enclosure, almost in the shadow of the ziggurat.  Sargon had probably three queens when he founded his city, for the harem is divided into three separate apartments, of which the two larger look out on the same quadrangle.

[Illustration:  408.jpg THE ZIGGURAT AT DUR-SHARRUKIN]