One, the largest, was directly opposite the centre of the landing-place at the top of the great stairs which gave access to the platform from the plain.

This consisted of a noble apartment, eighty-two feet square, with a roof supported by four magnificent columns, each between fifty and sixty feet high.

The walls of the apartment were from sixteen to seventeen feet thick.

Two grand portals, each twelve feet wide by thirty-six feet high, led into this apartment, one directly facing the head of the stairs, and the other opposite to it, towards the east.

Both were flanked with colossal bulls, those towards the staircase being conventional representations of the real animal, while the opposite pair are almost exact reproductions of the winged and human-headed bulls, with which the Assyrian discoveries have made us so familiar.