[268] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 349, at a little distance the explorer found the bodies of two lions placed back to back, which seemed to have formed a pedestal of the same kind. Their heads were wanting, and the whole group had suffered so much from fire, that it was impossible either to carry it off or to make a satisfactory drawing from it (_ibid._ p. 351). [269] This suggestion seems inconsistent with the state of the ruin at the spot where the discovery was made. Sir Henry Layard describes these sphinxes as buried in charcoal, and so calcined by the fire that they fell into minute fragments soon after exposure to the air. Anything carried on their backs must have fallen at the time of the conflagration, and, if a stone column, it would have been found under the charcoal.--ED. [270] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 11. [271] STRABO, xvi. 1, 5. [272] Thomas has placed one of these porches in his restoration of Sargon's palace at Khorsabad. It is supported by two columns, and serves to mark one of the entrances to the harem. (PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 37 _bis_.) [273] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. pp. 349, 350. [274] Numerous examples are figured in COSTE and FLANDIN'S _Perse Moderne_, plates 3, 7, 9, 26, 27, 54, &c. They cast a wide shadow in front of the doorways, and sometimes run along the whole length of the facade. Some little support to M. Perrot's theory is afforded by a circumstance on which Layard dwells strongly in the passage referred to above, namely, that the sphinxes were found buried over their heads in charcoal, which may very well have been the remains of such a porch; its quantity seems too great for those of a ceiling.--ED. [275] This coincidence struck Professor Rawlinson, who compares one of these Assyrian columns to a column in the porch of the Cathedral of Trent. He reproduces them both in his _Five Great Monarchies_, vol. i. p. 313. [276] See PERROT and GUILLAUME, _Exploration archeologique de la Galatie_, vol. ii. pl. 57. [277] _Discoveries_, p. 590. [278] GEORGE SMITH, _Assyrian Discoveries_, p. 431. [279] One curious example of this is figured in the work of M. CHIPIEZ, _Histoire critique de l'Origine et de la Formation des Ordres grecs_, p. 20. See also LAYARD, _Discoveries_, p. 444, where a bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib is figured, upon which appears a coffer supported by a foot in the shape of a column, which ends in a regular volute. Sec. 5.--_The Arch._