We again encounter this same base with its opposing curves in a curious monument discovered at Kouyundjik by Mr. George Smith.[267] This is a small and carefully executed model, in yellowstone, of a winged human-headed bull, supporting on his back a vase or base similar in design to that figured above. This little object must have served as a model for the carvers engaged upon the palace walls. We shall not here stop to examine the attributes and ornaments of the bull, they are well shown in our Figs. 83 and 84, and their types are known by many other examples. Our aim is to show that we have rightly described the uses to which it was put. These might have remained obscure but for the discovery, in the south-western palace at Nimroud, of a pair of winged sphinxes, calcined by fire but still in their places between two huge lions at one of the doors. Before their contours disappeared--and they rapidly crumbled away upon contact with the air--Layard had time to make a drawing of the one that had suffered least (Fig. 85). In his description he says that between the two wings was a sort of plateau, "intended to carry the base of a column."[268] [Illustration: FIG. 82.--Ornamented base, in limestone.] Surprised at not finding any trace of the column itself, he gives out another conjecture: that these sphinxes were altars upon which offerings to the gods, or presents to the king were placed. This hypothesis encounters many objections. We may easily account for the disappearance of the column by supposing it to have been of wood. If it was stone, it may have been carried off for use as a roller by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, before that part of the building to which it belonged was so completely engulfed and hidden by the ruins as it afterwards became.[269] Moreover we can point to a certain number of Assyrian altars, and their shapes are very different from this. [Illustration: FIG. 83.--Model of a base, side view. Actual size.] [Illustration: FIG. 84.--The same, seen from in front.]