Under these circumstances, it is fortunate that the Persians did for these temples exactly what they accomplished for the palace forms of Assyria. They repeated in stone in Persia what had been built in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris with wood or with crude bricks. It thus happens that the so-called tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadæ enables us to verify and to supply much that is wanting in the buildings at Babylon, and to realise much that would be otherwise indistinct in their forms.
The oldest temple we know of at present is the Bowariyeh at Wurka (Erek), erected by Urukh, at least 2000 years B.C.; but now so utterly ruined, that it is difficult to make out what it originally was like. It seems, however, to have consisted of two storeys at least: the lowest about 200 feet square, of sun-dried bricks; the upper is faced with burnt bricks, apparently of a more modern date. The height of the two storeys taken together is now about 100 feet, and it is nearly certain that a third or chamber storey existed above the parts that are now apparent.[68]
The Mugheyr Temple[69] is somewhat better preserved, but in this case it is only the lower storey that can be considered old. The cylinders found in the angles of the upper part belong to Nabonidus, the last king of the later Babylonian kingdom; and the third storey only exists in tradition. Still, from such information as we have, we gather that its plan was originally a rectangle 198 feet by 133, with nine buttresses in the longer and six in the shorter faces. The walls slope inwards in the ratio of 1 in 10. Above them was a second storey 119 feet by 75, placed as is usual nearer one end of the lower storey, so as to admit of a staircase being added at the other. It is 47 feet distant from the south-eastern end, and only 28 or 30 from the other; but whether the whole of this was occupied by a flight of steps or not is by no means clear. Taken altogether, the plan and probable appearance of the building when complete may have been something like that represented in Woodcuts Nos. 48 and 49, though there are too many elements of uncertainty to make it a restoration which can altogether be depended upon.
[Illustration: 48. Diagram of Elevation of Temple at Mugheyr. 100 ft. to 1 in.]