[PLATE LIV., Fig.

2.] Its position was exactly half-way between the tower's northern and southern faces, and with these it ran parallel, its height in the tower being such that its floor was exactly on a level with the top of the stone masonry, which again was level with the terrace or platform whereupon the Nimrud palaces stood.

There was no trace of any way by which the gallery was intended to be entered; its walls showed no signs of inscription, sculpture, or other ornament; and absolutely nothing was found in it.
Mr.Layard, prepossessed with an opinion derived from several confused notices in the classical writers, believed the tower to be a sepulchral monument, and the gallery to be the tomb in which was originally deposited "the embalmed body of the king." To account for the complete disappearance, not only of the body, but of all the ornaments and vessels found commonly in the Mesopotamian tombs, he suggested that the gallery had been rifled in times long anterior to his visit; and he thought that he found traces, both internally and externally, of the tunnel by which it had been entered.

But certainly, if this long and narrow vault was intended to receive a body, it is most extraordinarily shaped for the purpose.

What other sepulchral chamber is there anywhere of so enormous a, length?
Without pretending to say what the real object of the gallery was, we may feel tolerably sure that it was not a tomb.
The building which contained it was a temple tower, and it is not likely that the religious feelings of the Assyrians would have allowed the application of a religious edifice to so utilitarian a purpose.
[Illustration: PLATE 54] Besides the ziggerat or tower, which may commonly have been surmounted by a chapel or shrine, an Assyrian temple had always a number of basement chambers, in one of which was the principal shrine of the god.
[PLATE LIV.,Fig.