[6] This latter hypothesis was sustained, with more erudition, perhaps, than tact or taste, by Dr. Hœfer. A skilful historian of chemistry, he was by no means an archæologist. He had no feeling for the differences between one style and another. See the _Memoires sur les Ruines de Ninive, addressés à l’Académie des Inscriptions, par_ FERD. HŒFER [20th February and 24th May, 1850]; see especially the second paper: _De l’Âge et du Caractère des Monuments découverts à Khorsabad, à Nimroud, à Kouioundjik, à Karamles et à Kaleh-Shergat_, Paris, Didot, 1850. His assertions were refuted by de Longperier in the first part of his paper entitled: _Antiquités assyriénnes_, published in 1850, in the _Revue archéologique_, (_Œuvrcs_, vol. i. p. 139). [7] _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. chapter xi. § 2. [8] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 38, Esarhaddon was the chief offender in this respect. [9] See G. PERROT, _Souvenirs d’un Voyage en Asia Mineure_, p. 50. [10] This preconceived notion explains the erroneous title he gave to his great work: _Monument de Ninive, découvert et décrit par_ P. E. BOTTA, _mesuré et dessiné par_ E. FLANDIN, published at the expense of the state at the _Imprimerie nationale_, Paris, 1849, 5 vols, folio (1 volume of text, 4 of plates). [11] The palace platform was not quite in the centre of the north-western face. The Assyrians were no fonder of a rigid symmetry than the Egyptians. [12] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 7. [13] In this plan the darkest parts are those discovered by M. Botta; the more lightly shaded lines show the rooms and courts excavated by his successor. [14] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. iii. plate 18 _bis._ [15] RAWLINSON (_The Five Great Monarchies_, vol. i. p. 286), and LENORMANT (_Historie ancienne_, vol. ii. p. 196) make the two parts of the platform--the arms of the T and its shank--different in height. In doing so they have borrowed a mistake from Botta. The mistake is easily understood in the case of Rawlinson, whose fourth edition, although published in 1879, reproduces the plans compiled by Fergusson after Botta. We are more surprised at Lenormant falling into the same error, as he gives an excellent _résumé_ of Place’s discoveries. Botta seems to have thought the two parts of the palace had different levels in consequence of an inequality in the distribution of the fallen materials. In the neighbourhood of the latter buildings, such as the so-called _Observatory_, and where the open spaces were fewer and less ample, there was, of course, a thicker bed of rubbish than where the buildings were lower and the walls farther apart. But wherever the original surface of the mound was reached, Place ascertained that its level never varied. In none of his plans is there the slightest trace of any slope or staircase leading from one level to the other, so far as the summit of the platform is concerned. [16] LAYARD, _Monuments_, 2nd series, plates 14 and 15.