M. Place, too, gives an account of how he saw a few Kurd women build an oven in the shape of a Saracenic dome, with soft clay and without any internal support. Their structure, at the raising of which his lively curiosity led him to assist, was composed of a number of rings, decreasing in diameter as they neared the summit.[210] The domes of crude brick which surmounted many of the Kurd houses were put together in the same fashion, and they were often of considerable size. When asked by M. Place as to how they had learnt to manage brick so skilfully, the oven-builders replied that it was "the custom of the country," and there is no apparent reason why that custom should not date back to a remote antiquity. The Assyrians had recourse to similar means when they built the domes of their great palaces. They too, perhaps, left a day for drying to each circular course, and re-wetted its upper surface when the moment arrived for placing the next.[211] [Illustration: FIG. 55.--Restoration of a hall in the harem at Khorsabad, compiled from Place.] From the existence of domes--which he considers to be almost beyond question--M. Place deduces that of semi-domes, one of which he assigns to the principal chamber of the harem in the palace at Khorsabad (Fig. 55). Feeling, perhaps, that this requires some justification, he finds it in a modern custom, which he thus describes:--"In the towns of this part of the East, the inner court of the harem is, as a rule, terminated at one of its extremities by a vault entirely open at one side, in the form of a huge niche. It is, in fact, the half of a dome sliced in two from top to bottom; the floor, which is elevated a few steps above the pavement of the court, is strewn with carpets and cushions so as to form an open and airy saloon, in which the women are to be found by their visitors at certain hours. This divan is protected from rain by the semi-dome, and from the sun by curtains or mats hung across the arched opening. This arrangement may very well be dictated by ancient tradition. It is well suited to the climate, a consideration which never fails to exercise a decisive influence over architecture."[212] [Illustration: FIG. 56.--Royal Tent, Kouyundjik. British Museum.] [Illustration: FIG. 57.--Tent, Kouyundjik. British Museum.]