[PLATE XLIV.] [Illustration: PLATE 44] The situation of the town, whereof the palace of Sargon formed a part, has been already described in a former part of this volume.

The shape, it has been noted, was square, the angles facing the four cardinal points.

Almost exactly in the centre of the north-west wall occurs the palace platform, a huge mass of crude brick, from 20 to 30 feet high, shaped like a T, the upper limb lying within the city walls, and the lower limb (which is at a higher elevation) projecting beyond the line of the walls to a distance of at least 500 feet.

At present there is a considerable space between the ends of the wall and the palace mound; but anciently it is provable that they either abutted on the mound, or were separated from it merely by gateways.

The mound, or at any rate the part of it which projected beyond the walls, was faced with hewn stone, carried perpendicularly from the plain to the top of the platform, and even beyond, so as to form a parapet protecting the edge of the platform.