To the south lies the largest chamber of the Citadel, the throne-room of the Babylonian kings. It is so clearly marked out for this purpose that no reasonable doubt can be felt as to its having been used as their principal audience chamber. If any one should desire to localise the scene of Belshazzar’s eventful banquet, he can surely place it with complete accuracy in this immense room. It is 17 metres broad and 52 metres long. The walls on the longest side are 6 metres thick, considerably in excess of those at the ends, and lead us to suppose that they supported a barrel-vaulting, of which, however, there is no proof. A great central door and two equally important side doors open upon the court. Immediately opposite the main door in the back wall there is a doubly recessed niche in which doubtless the throne stood, so that the king could be visible to those who stood in the court, an arrangement similar to that of the Ninmach temple, where the temple statue could be clearly seen from the court. The pavement does not consist in the usual manner of a single layer of brick, but of at least six, which were laid in asphalt and thus formed a homogeneous solid platform which rested on a projecting ledge built out from the walls. As we have already seen from the east gate, the walls of these chambers were washed over with white gypsum. The façade of the court was very strikingly decorated with richly ornamented enamelled tiles (_M.D.O.-G._ No. 13). On a dark blue ground are yellow columns with bright blue capitals, placed near together and connected by a series of palmettos. The capitals with the bold curves of their double volutes remind us of the forms long known to us in Cyprus (Fig. 64). Above was a frieze of white double palmettos, bordered below by a band of squares, alternately yellow, black, and white. The various colours of the decoration were effectively heightened on the dark background by means of white borders. This fantastic representation of a pillared building, such as the king and his followers would naturally have seen in their military expeditions, must have appeared strangely foreign to the Babylonian countryman, who was unaccustomed to either capitals or entablatures. [Illustration: FIG. 64.—DECORATION OF THE THRONE-ROOM. ] [Illustration: FIG. 65.—Position marks on the enamelled bricks. ]