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Excerpt from The Ninevah Court in the Crystal Palace This entire disappearance of Nineveh, whilst the other great capitals of the ancient world had left some visible traces of their principal monuments, by which their site could be determined, is chiefly to be attributed to the materials of which it was constructed. The Assyrians did not, like the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, build their palaces and temples either of granite, precious marbles, or durable stone, but even their public edifices, as well as their humblest habitations, were of bricks made of clay mixed with chopmd straw, and merely dried in the sun. Without the chopped straw the clay would not have been bound together, or have had sufficient consistency for use hence the meaning of the passage in the book of Exodus (chap. V. Which describes the hardships of the Jews when the Egyptians refused to supply them with straw to make their bricks. Other materials, such as marble, alabaster, stone, and kiln-burnt bricks, generally painted or glazed, were used by the Assyrians in their principal edifices, but to a com putatively limited extent, and only by way of ornament. Hence, when the buildings were once deserted, the upper walls and stories soon fell in and buried the lower. The bricks of clay became earth again, and the ruins would assume the appearance of more natural heaps and mounds rising in the plain, upon which the grass grew and corn might be sown. And such have been the ruins of Nineveh for more than two thousand years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This book describes the Nineveh court of Assyrian art and architecture on display at the Crystal Palace.

Geoffrey Turner has written the definitive study of the mid-19th century excavations sponsored by the British Museum at the ancient Assyrian site of Nineveh in Iraq. Based on exhaustive analysis of unpublished archives combined with his own extensive knowledge of Assyrian architecture, Turner’s work documents the complete history of these excavations. Turner also draws on the archives and numerous additional sources to provide a detailed reconstruction of the architecture and relief sculpture in the building that was the primary focus of these excavations, the Southwest Palace of Sennacherib (ruled 705-681 BC). The result constitutes the final report both on the results of these excavations and on the original appearance of one of the ancient world’s most famous buildings.

A detailed exploration of Layard's famous lithograph of the interior of an Assyrian palace