The Assyrian system of panelling the lower portions of their buildings
with slabs of alabaster, may be considered as the first step towards
construction in hewn stone, and towards the introduction of the “_coupe
de pierre_” into the number of architectural and ornamental elements.
_It is only in the terraces, and the sub-basements of buildings, in the
primitive ages of art, that hewn stone and its construction appeared to
the eye._ These parts of the buildings were the mason’s oldest domain.
The Persian monuments of Murgaub and Istakir, afford us the means of
observing the second step which decorative art made towards the
principle of construction. They were composed, like their models in
Assyria, of unbaked bricks, of which nothing remains, whilst however,
the direction of the walls is still indicated by marble pillars, which
originally served to strengthen the angles of the walls, and by the
jambs of doors and windows and by niches, with which the walls were
ornamented.
All these parts were ornamented in the Assyrian manner, and testify to
the principles of which we have been speaking. But here we have no
longer slabs, but hewn masses of stone of enormous dimensions,
frequently monoliths. Nevertheless, in spite of their solidity, they
betray their type, in a most remarkable manner, inasmuch as they form a
kind of framework hollowed out internally to receive the mass of masonry
in unbaked brick, which they were designed to cover and to protect, and
which, in the interspaces of the pillars and jambs above-named, were
covered with slabs of marble, or more probably, with panels of
cypress-wood, covered in turn by plates of gold and silver, or it may be
also with richly embroidered stuffs.