Only fragments of the enamelled surface were discovered, but these sufficed to restore the scheme of decoration. A series of yellow columns with bright blue capitals, both edged with white borders, stand out against a dark blue ground. The capitals are the most striking feature of the composition. Each consists of two sets of double volutes, one above the other, and a white rosette with yellow centre comes partly into sight above them. Between each member is a bud in sheath, forming a trefoil, and linking the volutes of the capitals by means of light blue bands which fall in a shallow curve from either side of it. Still higher on the wall ran a frieze of double palmettes in similar colouring, between yellow line-borders, the centres of the latter picked out with lozenges coloured black and yellow, and black and white, alternately. The rich effect of this enamelled façade of the Throne Room was enhanced by the decoration of the court gateway, the surface of which was adorned in a like fashion with figures of lions. So too were the gateways of the other eastern courts, to judge from the fragments of enamel found there, but the rest of the court-walls were left undecorated or, perhaps, merely received a coat of plaster. The fact that the interior of the Throne Room, like the rest of the chambers of the palace, was without ornamentation of any sort favours the view that heat, and light with it, was deliberately excluded by the absence of windows in the walls. The chambers behind the Throne Room, reached by two doorways in the back wall,[80] were evidently for the king's service, and are ranged around three open courts; and in the south-west corners of two of them, which lie immediately behind the Throne Room wall, are wells, their positions indicated on the plan by small open circles. The walls of each of these small chambers are carried down through the foundations to water-level, and the intermediate space is filled in around the wells with rubble-packing. This device was evidently adopted to secure an absolutely pure supply of water for the royal table. But the private part of the palace, occupied by the women and the rest of the royal household, was evidently further to the west, built over the earlier dwelling of Nabopolassar. It will be seen from the ground-plan that this is quite distinct from the eastern or official portion of the palace, from which it is separated by a substantial wall and passage-way running, with the Great Court, the whole width of the palace-area. The character of the gateway-building, which formed its chief entrance and opened on the Great Court, is also significant.[81] For the towers, flanking the gateways to the official courts, are here entirely absent, and the pathway passes through two successive apartments, the second smaller than the first and with a porters' service-room opening off it. The entrance for the king's own use was in the southern half of the passage-way, and lies immediately between