space than the _hareem_; the treasury or _bit kutalli_, the cellars, granaries, and storehouse of domestic utensils, have been distinctly recognized, as well as magazines of objects of all sorts, carried off as plunder by Sargon in his expeditions, and weapons of the chase and of war: in the very stables, the presence of iron rings fixed in the wall has been ascertained, to which horses and camels were attached: lastly, the small but numerous rooms of the servants and slaves have been excavated. Ctesias brings the number of persons attached to the service of the palace of the [Illustration: Fig. 52.--Bird’s-eye view of the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad (restoration by Place, pl. 18 _bis_).] kings of Persia up to fifteen thousand: it may easily be supposed that an equal number of hands was employed at the court of the haughty king of Nineveh. The palace of Sargon, the best-preserved of Assyrian edifices, and that of which the excavation was directed with the greatest consistency and method, deserved to be taken as the most perfect type of the Ninevite palaces. The researches of the English explorers, Sir A. H. Layard, Sir H. Rawlinson, G. Smith, and H. Rassam, have procured, it is true, for the British Museum the incomparable galleries of Assyrian monuments known as those of Nimroud and Kouyunjik from the name of the principal tells explored; they have made known the site of the royal residences of Assur-nasir-pal, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Assur-bani-pal, and exhumed the fine sculptures which decorated their halls; but from the architectural point of view these excavations teach us nothing remarkable and original, or rather they only confirm what we know of the art of building among the Assyrians from the study of Khorsabad; the elements and principles of building show themselves to be identical throughout, and, save for secondary modifications and variable proportions, it may be said that the arrangement and adornment of Assyrian palaces were everywhere the same, and issued from an uniform type created in Chaldæa, which was never remarkably modified. § III. TEMPLES AND STAGED TOWERS.