No edifices in the world -- not even the Pyramids--are more deficient in external ornament.

The buttresses and the air-holes, which alone break the flat uniformity of the walls, are intended simply for utility, and can scarcely be said to be much embellishment.

If any efforts were made to delight by the ordinary resources of ornamental art, it seems clear that such efforts did not extend to the whole edifice, but were confined to the shrine itself--the actual abode of the god--the chamber which crowned the whole, and was alone, strictly speaking, "the temple." Even here there is no reason to believe that the building had externally much beauty.

No fragments of architraves or capitals, no sculptured ornaments of any kind, have been found among the heaps of rubbish in which Chaldaean monuments are three-parts buried.
The ornaments which have been actually discovered, are such as suggest the idea of internal rather than external decoration; and they render it probable that such decoration was, at least in some cases, extremely rich.

The copper nails and blue enamelled tiles found high up in the Mugheir mound, have been already noticed.