The foundation trenches still exist, containing some scanty remains of good brickwork, which permit us to recognise a ground-plan of the type of an apadana, as it appears in the well-known palaces of Persepolis (Fig. 77), a pillared hall with a pillared fore-hall, flanked, in front, by two towers. It is remarkable that the distinctive character of this beautiful type of building should always have been mistaken in a most unaccountable manner. The reconstructions which have been so widely circulated even in the most recent handbooks show only the pillars, while the whole of the surrounding walls and the fronting towers are omitted. When confronted with such a representation the scholar receives much the same impression that a naturalist would experience if a boned turkey were offered him for serious study. The pavements in the chambers as well as on the square to the north of the building consist of a flooring of lime mortar and pebbles in three layers: a coarse thick bottom layer—the festucatio of Vitruvius,—a fine shallow layer, and lastly a thin overlay of a fine red colour. This is entirely Greek, and it is a pleasure to meet with this fine coating we know so well in Athens, in Babylon of the fifth century. There are remains of a pavement made in exactly the same fashion in the ruins of Babil, where, according to the parallel inscription to the great _Steinplatten_ inscription (_K.B._ iii. 2, p. 31), Nebuchadnezzar also built an _appa danna_. Among the scanty but varied remains of this building, fragments of a plinth of black limestone found on the ruins show sufficient cuneiform signs to enable us to recognise without difficulty the remains of the name of King Darius (Fig. 78), and bases of columns of the same material reproduce precisely the forms of the bases of Persepolis (Fig. 79). Bricks, which like those of Persepolis are not made of clay, but of an artificial mass of lime mixed with sand, bear representations in coloured enamels (Fig. 80). Here, as in the enamelled bricks of the Ishtar Gate, the fields are separated by lines of black glaze. There are ornaments and figures both flat and in relief, the figures with rich garments decorated with the woven patterns of the Persian guard of Persepolis. A woman’s face in white enamel is the only piece of the sort that we possess up to the present time. [Illustration: FIG. 78.—Inscription from the Persian building. ] [Illustration: FIG. 79.—Base of column from Persian building. ] We can here recall what Diodorus, whose description was derived from Ctesias, the body surgeon of King Artaxerxes Mnemon, reports of the polychrome decorations of the royal castle of Babylon. To begin with, he quotes (ii. 8) that there were two castles, one on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, on the modern mound “Babil,” and the other on the western bank, the modern “Kasr.” He continues: