With an insignificant exception or two the remains of Assyrian buildings and sculptures all belong to the period of Assyrian greatness.  The principal sites where explorations have been carried on are Koyunjik (Nineveh), Nimroud, and Khorsabad, and the ruins uncovered are chiefly those of royal palaces.  These buildings were of enormous extent.  The palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, for example, covered more than twenty acres.  Although the country possessed building stone in plenty, stone was not used except for superficial ornamentation, baked and unbaked bricks being the architect’s sole reliance.  This was a mere blind following of the example of Babylonia, from which Assyria derived all its culture.  The palaces were probably only one story in height.  Their principal splendor was in their interior decoration of painted stucco, enameled bricks, and, above all, painted reliefs in limestone or alabaster.

The great Assyrian bas-reliefs covered the lower portions of the walls of important rooms.  Designed to enrich the royal palaces, they drew their principal themes from the occupations of the kings.  We see the monarch offering sacrifice before a divinity, or, more often, engaged in his favorite pursuits of war and hunting.  These extensive compositions cannot be adequately illustrated by two or three small pictures.  The most that can be done is to show the sculptor’s method of treating single figures.  Fig. 17 is a slab from the earliest series we possess, that belonging to the palace of Asshur-nazir-pal (884-860 B.C.) at Nimroud.  It represents the king facing to right, with a bowl for libation in his right hand and his bow in his left, while a eunuch stands fronting him.  The artistic style exhibited here remains with no essential change throughout the whole history of Assyrian art.  The figures are in profile, except that the king’s further shoulder is thrown forward in much the fashion which we have found the rule in Egypt, and the eyes appear as in front view.  Both king and attendant are enveloped in long robes, in which there is no indication of folds, though fringes and tassels are elaborately rendered.  The faces are of a strongly marked Semitic cast, but without any attempt at portraiture.  The hair of the head ends in several rows of snail-shell curls, and the king’s beard has rows of these curls alternating with more natural-looking portions.  Little is displayed of the body except the fore-arms, whose anatomy, though intelligible, is coarse and false.  As for minor matters, such as the too high position of the ears, and the unnatural shape of the king’s right hand, it is needless to dwell upon them.  A cuneiform inscription runs right across the relief, interrupted only by the fringes of the robes.

Fig. 18 shows more distinctly the characteristic Assyrian method of representing the human head.  Here are the same Semitic features, the eye in front view, and the strangely curled hair and beard.  The only novelty is the incised line which marks the iris of the eye.  This peculiarity is first observed in work of Sargon’s time (722-705 B. C.).