In Front Of This Door
Is A Vestibule Supported By Five Columns, Whose Capitals Are Of The
Annexed Form.
This vestibule joins, towards the north, several other
apartments; their roofs, some of which were supported by pillars, have
now all fallen down.
The abovementioned wide door opens into the
principal apartment of the edifice, which is twenty-two paces in breadth
by twenty-five in length. From each side of the entrance, through the
middle of the room, runs a row of seven pillars, like those described
above; at the further end, this colonnade is terminated by two
Corinthian columns. All the sixteen columns are twenty spans high, with
pedestals two feet and a half high. In the wall on the left side of this
saloon are three niches, supported by short pillars. To the west is
another vestibule, which was supported by five Corinthian columns, but
four of them only are now standing. This vestibule communicates through
an arched gate with an area, on the W. side of which are two Corinthian
pillars with projecting bases for statues. On the S. side of the area is
a large door, with a smaller one on each side. That in the centre is
covered with sculptured vines and grapes, and over the entrance is the
figure of the cross in the midst of a bunch of grapes. I observed
similar ornaments on the great gate at Shakka, and I have often seen
them since, over the entrances of public edifices. In the interior of
the area, on the E. side, is a niche sixteen feet deep, arched at the
bottom, with small vaulted rooms on both its sides, in which there is no
other opening than the low door.
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