The apartments, though wider than in other palaces, were still narrow for their length, never much exceeding forty feet; while the courts were much better proportioned.
It was in the size and the number of his rooms, in his use of passages, and in certain features of his ornamentation, that Sennacherib chiefly differed from former builders.

He increased the width of the principal state apartments by one-third, which seems to imply the employment of some new mode or material for roofing.

In their length he made less alteration, only advancing from 150 to 180 feet, evidently because he aimed, not merely at increasing the size of his rooms, but at improving their proportions.

In one instance alone--that of a gallery or passage-room, leading (apparently) from the more public part of the palace to the hareem or private apartments--did he exceed this length, uniting the two portions of the palace by a noble corridor, 218 feet long by 25 feet wide.

Into this corridor he brought passages from the two public courts, which he also united together by a third passage, thus greatly facilitating communication between the various blocks of buildings which composed his vast palatial edifice.
The most striking characteristic of Sennacherib's ornamentation is its strong and marked realism.