+GENERAL CHARACTER OF MONUMENTS.+ Recent excavations at Nippur (Niffer), the sacred city of Chaldæa, have uncovered ruins older than the Pyramids. Though of slight importance architecturally, they reveal the early knowledge of the arch and the possession of an advanced culture. The poverty of the building materials of this region afforded only the most limited resources for architectural effect. Owing to the flatness of the country and the impracticability of building lofty structures with sun-dried bricks, elevation above the plain could be secured only by erecting buildings of moderate height upon enormous mounds or terraces, built of crude brick and faced with hard brick or stone. This led to the development of the stepped pyramid as the typical form of Chaldæo-Assyrian architecture. Thick walls were necessary both for stability and for protection from the burning heat of that climate. The lack of stone for columns and the difficulty of procuring heavy beams for long spans made broad halls and chambers impossible. The plans of Assyrian palaces look like assemblages of long corridors and small cells (Fig. 18). Neither the wooden post nor the column played any part in this architecture except for window-mullions and subordinate members.[5] It is probable that the vault was used for roofing many of the halls; the arch was certainly employed for doors and the barrel-vault for the drainage-tunnels under the terraces, made necessary by the heavy rainfall. What these structures lacked in durability and height was made up in decorative magnificence. The interior walls were wainscoted to a height of eight or nine feet with alabaster slabs covered with those low-relief pictures of hunting scenes, battles, and gods, which now enrich the museums of London, Paris, and other modern cities. Elsewhere painted plaster or more durable enamelled tile in brilliant colors embellished the walls, and, doubtless, rugs and tapestries added their richness to this architectural splendor. [Footnote 5: See Fergusson, _Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis_, for an ingenious but unsubstantiated argument for the use of columns in Assyrian palaces.] [Illustration: FIG. 18.--PALACE OF SARGON AT KHORSABAD.]