BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. Babylonian archi tecture is less known, but there is enough infor mation about it to show that it reached its full development as an art long before the Egyptian, and that while the latter remained isolated, Babylonia stood at the head of a long architec tural genealogy: for Elam and Assyria literally copied it; Persia, the Hittites, and Phoenicians and other nations borrowed from it, and its influence was felt even to China and India. There could be no sharper contrast than that which exists between these two primitive architectures. In Babylonia vaults and arches were used in place of straight lintels and flat ceilings, and there were no long lines of columns, and consequently no larger interiors than could be secured by the span of a single dome or tunnel vault: brick was used in place of stone, thus increasing the heavi ness of wails and proportions. The Babylonian style appears to have existed at least (1000 years B.C., and to have lasted without essential change until the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The temples had no large interiors. hut were stepped pyra mids, remarkable mainly for their great height, their external mass, and the brilliant coloring of their receding stories, faced with glazed tiles.
Only in the royal palaces did the Babylonians excel, creating a type which the Assyrians de veloped with numerous hails and chambers grouped around three main courts. The palace at Tello, the temples at Erech and Ur, give the usual types; but the excavations at Nippur and Babylon ?ire disclosing other splendors. Mean while the better preservation and more thorough study of the Assyrian ruins enables to judge somewhat of the details of the earlier style. The temple observatory and the palace of Sargon at Kliorsabad were destroyed by some great catas trophe—probably by fire—when they were still occupied, perhaps at the time of the fall of Nineveh: and not only their plan. but also a large part of their structure and decoration in sculpture and color, can he reconstructed. Still, the Babylonian-Assyrian ruins suffer by compari son with the Egyptian, from their poor preserva tion, largely due to their easily disintegrated brickwork.