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Web Development
For beginners
Chapter 1: Websites
Chapter 2: Understanding HTML elements, tags, and attributes
Chapter 3: Paragraphs and headings
<h1> and other heading tags
Chapter 4: Text formatting
Chapter 5: Hyperlinks
Chapter 6: Images
Chapter 7: Tables
Chapter 8: Lists
Chapter 9: Forms
Chapter 10: Media
Chapter 11 - Cascading style sheets
Chapter 12 - Syntax and ways of using CSS
Chapter 13: CSS selectors
Chapter 14: CSS text and font
Chapter 15 - CSS borders, margin, and padding
Chapter 16 - CSS backgrounds
Chapter 17 - What is JavaScript?
Chapter 18 - Basics of Javascript
Chapter 3 - DOM
Chapter 20 - HTML events and JavaScript
Chapter 21 - Finding elements
Chapter 22 - Content and CSS with JavaScript
Chapter 23 - Creating and removing elements
Chapter 1: Websites
Today, the internet is accessible in almost every part of the world. In
the last two decades, the internet and web have grown rapidly, so
the websites. If you go two decades back, the websites were very
different. They were not at all attractive, of course, and most
importantly, they were static. By static, I mean, everything on a web
page was fixed. But nowadays, websites are dynamic, generated by
web applications.

Static and dynamic websites

In a static website, everything is fixed until someone
changes it manually from behind. Such websites are created
using HTML and are the most straightforward part of website
development. All the users visiting a static website have the same
view. But the content on a dynamic website can be different
for every user. For example, amazon's homepage is a bit different
for a signed-in user and a non-signed in user. If you are not signed
in, you cannot see your account information, order history, and other
stuff. It appears only when you sign in with your credentials.

A dynamic website is linked with at least one database

where all the dynamic information is stored. There is no
such database in the case of static websites. User-
interaction is another essential part of a dynamic website.

The main focus of this book is on the development part. There are
many differences. As I mentioned earlier, HTML is used to create a
static website. HTML is one of the core technologies of the
World Wide Web(WWW). The other two technologies are
CSS and JavaScript. You can also use CSS and JavaScript on a
static website to make it more attractive and a bit intractable. But
the central concept, i.e. data is fixed and does not change. But using
these three technologies more effectively, especially, JavaScript can
create beautiful and high performing dynamic websites.

Don't worry; We will discuss all these three technologies in depth

after this chapter. But before moving further, let's talk HTML, CSS,
and JavaScript in brief so you can have an idea of what you are
going to learn.

HTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It does not matter
how big or complicated your website is going to be; you will
always start with HTML. It is the standard language to create
structures for the web. While CSS and Javascript have changed a lot
over the years, HTML of the 1990s and 2010s is not much different.

The basic structure of a web page is created using HTML. There are
several HTML elements, and they are the building block of these
pages. HTML elements are used in the form of tags. The tags are
angular brackets with HTML names written inside them. For
example, the HTML tag for image is <img/>. Most of these tags
have a closing tag like <p> and </p>. However, some tags, such as
<img/> does not require a closing tag. CSS and JavaScript are
further applied to HTML to change its appearance and to
make it dynamic, respectively.

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets or commonly known as CSS is the
presentation part of a web page. HTML creates a structure, and
CSS converts it into an attractive and more readable version. No
website is complete without CSS today. Users expect a website to be
appealing, engaging, and above all, properly readable.

With CSS, you can change the font, color, size, positions, layouts,
and many more things. There are multiple ways of using CSS in an
HTML file, each having its own advantage.

JavaScript
JavaScript is considered the most crucial part of a website. It is the
most popular language of the year 2019 according to
StackOverflow insights. Well, most of the websites you visit are
created using javascript.

It is a scripting language that is used on client-side as well

as server-side. Earlier, javascript can only run in a browser, but
with the introduction of node.js, it can run outside too. Web
frameworks and libraries such as Angular, React, Vue are built using
javascript. As node.js, it is also used to create backend services.

Summary
● There are two types of websites - static and dynamic.
● Static websites have fixed content that does not change.
● Content in a dynamic website can change, either by users or
automatically for different users.
● HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are the three core technologies of
the World Wide Web(WWW).
● HTML elements are accessed using angular brackets, or
commonly known as tags. These tags are used to create the
structure for a web page.
● CSS is used to enhance the appearance of a web page.
● JavaScript is a scripting language that plays a vital role in
developing dynamic websites. It is used for user interaction,
content management, manipulating databases, and many
more.
Chapter 2: Understanding HTML
elements, tags, and attributes
As discussed in the last chapter, HTML elements are the building
blocks of a web page. These elements are enclosed in angular
brackets. Many HTML tags have corresponding closing tags. There
are also a few tags that do not require such closing tags. We will
discuss all these tags in the upcoming chapter, but first, you need to
understand how HTML tags work.

Basic HTML tags

Let's start with the most basic tag, i.e. <html> tag. Every HTML
document starts with <html> tag and ends with its
corresponding closing tag, </html> tag. Other HTML tags are
nested inside this tag only.

Other two basic HTML tags are <head> and <body> tags.

HTML files can render in a browser. The visible part in the browser
window is written inside the <body> tag. It can contain several
elements, such as paragraphs, headings, images, videos, sections,
divisions, etc.

Another basic tag is the <head> tag. All the information regarding
the document is listed in the <head> tag. It include HTML tags such
as <link>, <title>, <meta>, <style>, etc. In the early versions, the
<head> tag was mandatory but in HTML 5, It can be omitted.
This is how usually an HTML document is structured, the <head>
tag first, followed by the <body> tag.

HTML attributes
All the HTML tags are built for a specific purpose. For example, the
<p> is used to for paragraphs and <img/> is used for images. Most
of the HTML tags have additional properties or
characteristics that are defined by attributes. A tag may or
may not have mandatory attributes. The <img/> tag, for example,
must contain src and alt attributes. Further, you can place height and
width attributes, but they are not mandatory. Have a look at the
below HTML code.

A <img> tag is defined with two attributes - src and alt. Value for an
attribute is written inside the double-quotes. As of now, these two
attributes do not have any values.
Closing and opening tags
As I have mentioned above, Many tags have corresponding closing
tags. The difference between the opening and closing tags is
that the closing tag has a forward slash.

Some tags such as <img/> have a forward slash within itself only.

<!DOCTYPE html>
You can run HTML documents in a browser. The <HTML> tag
defines that, it is an HTML document. But the browser needs to
interpret the type of file. The <!DOCTYPE html> is the
declaration that informs the browser that it is an HTML
document.

<!DOCTYPE html> is not an HTML tag. You must declare it at

the top of every HTML document. Also, to create an HTML file, you
should save the file with the .html extension.

Summary
● The <html> tag is used to define an HTML document that
contains all other tags.
● The content of an HTML document is defined inside the
<body> tag.
● The <head> tag has all the information regarding the
document.
● The attributes define the additional properties or
characteristics for an HTML tag.
● The closing tag has a forward slash in it.
● Declare the <!DOCTYPE html> at the top and always save the
file with .html extension.
Chapter 3: Paragraphs and headings
We can add a variety of content in an HTML document. The most
common content you can find on any web page is the simple
text. The text can be in any form or style. We can create
paragraphs of any length, headings of any size, and you can
change color, font size, font style, background-color.

A paragraph in HTML is added using the <p> tag. For headings, we

have multiple tags. These include <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>,
<h5>, and <h6>, each of them having a different size.

<p> tag
A paragraph is a block of text that is created using the <p> tag.

It has the corresponding closing tag on line 6 while the content is

written between the tags. Let's check in the browser.
The content inside the tags is displayed on the browser. Let's add a
couple of more paragraphs below it.

Now, there are three paragraphs in the document. Remember, each

paragraph starts from a new line.
Line break
So each paragraph starts from a new line. But what if you want to
add a new line inside a particular paragraph. Suppose we have the
following text.

My name is Tommy. I am 25 years old. I belong to London, England.

I came to USA for higher studies.
I graduated from Harvard university in 2016.

The lines 6,7, and 8 have new lines. Do you think it will display
correctly in the browser?
It does not display the text in the same format as written in the <p>
tag. Why? The reason is simple. It does not matter how we format
the text in the <p> tag. It will always consider the whole content of
a <p> tag as a single paragraph. To add a new line, HTML
provides the <br> tag. Just place the tag at the end of the line
where you want a new line to start.

You can see, the <br> tag does not have a closing tag. It is an
empty tag. It does not require a closing tag. Let's see what it
displays in the browser.
This is how I wanted the text.

<h1> and other heading tags

To give headings and subheadings, HTML provides the heading tags.
They include <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6>. The size
is the only difference between each of these tags.

Lines 5 to 10 contain different types of headings.

The <h1> has the largest size while the <h6> has the
smallest.

These tags are meant to provide headings and subheadings in a

webpage. Headings are different from paragraphs. They are bold
and big. But that does not mean we should use them
between paragraphs to make the text bold or big. Use these
tags efficiently.

Summary
● The <p> tags are used to write paragraphs.
● Each paragraph starts with a new line.
● To add a new line within a paragraph, use the <br> tag. This
tag does not have any closing tag.
● There are six tags for headings. Each of them differs in size.
● Never use the heading tags between the paragraphs.
Chapter 4: Text formatting
While adding text in an HTML document, you may need to define
special meaning for some parts. By special meaning, I mean,
pointing out a part of the text that appears different.

HTML provides several tags for formatting the text.

<b> and <strong> tags

The <b> tag defines bold text.

In the paragraph, one word, i.e. 'name' is enclosed within the <b>
tag.

The text enclosed within the <b> tag is bold now. Similarly, there is
another tag that behaves in the same. It is called the <strong> tag.
But, the <strong> also defines that the text has extra
importance.

Let's see what happens when the text is enclosed within the
<strong> tag.

You may not find any difference between <b> and <strong>, but
the strong text has an extra meaning while the bold don't.

<i> and <em> tags

The <i> tag defines italic text.
In the paragraph, one word, i.e. 'name' is enclosed within the <i>
tag.

Similarly, there is another tag, <em>, which also define italic

text, but with extra importance.

Let's see what happens when the text is enclosed within the <em>
tag.
There does not appear any difference, but the text within the <em>
tag has extra importance, similar to the <strong> tag.

<small> tag
Sometimes, you may need to define a text in a small size when
compared to other text. The <small> tag in HTML define small
text.
You can see, the word - 'name', appears smaller than the rest of the
text.

<del> tag
Did you ever cut a word or sentence while writing? Similarly, HTML
provides the <del> tag to present a deleted or removed
text.
<mark> tag
Highlighting is one of the most common ways of pointing out a
subtext from a text. In HTML, highlighting or marking text can
be achieved by using the <mark> tag.
The highlighted text is visible in yellow.

<sub> and <sup> tags

The <sub> tag defines subscripted text while the <sup> tag defines
superscripted text.

Summary
● The <b> and <strong> tag defines bold text but the
<strong> tag also means extra importance.
● The <i> and <em> tag defines italic text but the <em> tag
also means extra importance.
● The <small> tag defines a smaller text in comparison with
other text.
● The <del> tag is used to represent a deleted or removed text.
● The <mark> tag defines highlighted or marked text in yellow.
● The <sub> and <sup> tags defines subscripted and
superscripted text respectively.
Chapter 5: Hyperlinks
There are multiple web pages on a website, right? We can navigate
from one page to another. The links in HTML allow a user to
navigate from one web page to another. Such links in HTML
are called hyperlinks.

The <a> is used to create hyperlinks in HTML. In this chapter,

we will discuss how to use the <a> tag to move from one HTML
document or web page to another.

<a> tag
The <a> tag has few attributes. One of these attributes - href,
is a mandatory attribute that holds the link of the document
or web page that will open when clicked. Observe the syntax
of the <a> tag.

The URL should be written within the quotes. The text will
appear on the screen and when clicked on it, the URL specified for
the href attribute will open. Observe the following HTML code.

In the paragraph, the word - 'here' is a hyperlink. The href is

'https://google.com'. This means the homepage of Google will open
when clicked on the hyperlink.
Did you notice something different with the appearance of the
hyperlink? It is underlined and blue. There is a way to remove
this styling by using CSS. We will discuss it later in the CSS section.

You can also move locally from one HTML document to another. In
the href attribute, you have to provide the proper path for the
document you want to navigate.

In the above <a> tag, the name of a document is specified that

happens to be in the same folder. Clicking on the hyperlink will open
the demo.html document.

target attribute
The target attribute is an optional attribute of the <a> tag. It
specifies where to open the document or web page. It can have the
following four values:
 ● _self : To open the document or web page in the same
tab/window. The target is set to _self by default.
● _blank : To open the document or web page in a new
tab/window.
● _top : To open the document or web page in the full body of
the window.
● _parent : To open the document or web page in the parent
frame.

You can also provide a framename as the value of the target

attribute to open the document in a particular frame.

The hyperlink in the above paragraph will open in a new

tab/window.

title attribute
The title attribute provides a title for a hyperlink. Whenever
the mouse hovers over the hyperlink, it will display a text which is
called the title. By default, it does not show anything.

The title is usually extra information about the hyperlink in a very

short form.
More with <a> tag
The <a> tag is not limited to text. You can also use images and
buttons as hyperlinks. Even, you can use a part of an image as a
hyperlink.

Summary
● The <a> tag in HTML is used to create hyperlinks.
● The href attribute is mandatory because it holds the URL of
the document or web page that will open.
● The target attribute specifies where the document or web
page will open.
● Use '_blank' as the value of the target attribute to open the
document in a new tab/window.
● The title holds the extra information that will appear when
hovered over the hyperlink.
● Images and buttons can also work as hyperlinks.
Chapter 6: Images
Images are the most common part of a website after the text.
Today, almost every website you visit has images. Images improve
the appearance of a website and attract more audiences.

To simply add an image, use the <img> tag. But, it is not always
just adding an image. The image should have proper alignment,
position, and size.

<img> tag
The <img> tag has the following syntax.

The <img> tag does not have a corresponding closing.

The src attribute is mandatory because it holds the URL of

the image. The image can be present locally or it can be
another server. Let's discuss how to add local images in an HTML
document.

The image is present in the 'images' folder. This folder is in the same
location as the HTML file. It needs to be a proper path or the image
won't appear on the screen. Moreover, the extension of the
image should also be present after the name.

Similarly, we can add images from another server.

Just remember, the link should be working.

Image size
Have a look at the following image.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
five, and a salience of rather more than thirteen feet.[85] These were
separated from each other by intervals of ninety feet, or double the
front of a tower. Only the lower parts of the towers are now in
existence, and we have to turn to the representations of fortresses in
the reliefs before we can restore their super-structures with any
certainty. In these sculptures what we may call the head of the tower
equals on an average from a fourth to a fifth of the height of the
curtain. By adopting an elevation half way between these two
proportions, M. Place has given to his towers a total height of 105
feet to the top of their crenellations, a height which is near enough to
the 100 Grecian feet attributed by Diodorus to the Nineveh walls.
The description borrowed by that writer from Ctesias, is, as we have
shown, in most respects quite imaginary, but it may have contained
this one exact statement, especially as a height of about 100 feet
seems to have been usually chosen for cities of this importance.
The parapets of the towers were corbelled out from their walls
and pierced with loopholes, as we know from the reliefs. Each
doorway was flanked by a pair of towers, the wall between them
being only wide enough for the entrance. Our Plate V. will give a very
exact idea of the general appearance of the whole enceinte.
Including those of the palace mound, it has been calculated that the
city of Sargon had one hundred and sixty-seven towers. Was there a
ditch about the wall like that at Babylon? We are tempted to say yes
to this, especially when we remember the statement of Herodotus
that the earth taken from the ditch served to afford materials for the
wall. Moreover such a ditch could have been easily kept full of water
by means of the two mountain streams that flow past the mound. But
the explorers tell us they could find no trace of such a ditch.[86] If it
ever existed it has now been so completely filled up that no vestige
remains.
Upon each of its south-eastern, south-western and north-eastern
faces the city wall was pierced with two gates. One of these,
decorated with sculptures and glazed bricks, is called by Place the
porte ornée, or state entrance, the other, upon which no such
ornament appears, he calls the porte simple. On the north-western
face there is only a porte simple, the palace mound taking the place
of the state gateway. The plinth and the lower courses of burnt brick
are continued up to the arches of these gates; the latter are also
raised upon a kind of mound which lifts them about eight and a half
feet above the level of the plain.
In size and general arrangement these gateways were repetitions
of each other. Our Figs. 50 in the first volume, 24 and 25 in this,
show severally the present condition, the plan and the restored
elevation of a porte simple.

Fig. 24.—Plan of one of the ordinary gates at Khorsabad; from Place.

The entrance was covered by an advanced work, standing out
some eighty-three feet into the plain. Each angle of this sort of
barbican was protected by a low tower, about forty feet wide.
Through the centre of the curtain uniting these towers there is a first
vaulted passage, leading to a large courtyard (A in Fig. 24), beyond
which are the space (B) between the great flanking towers of the
gate proper and the long vaulted passage (C—G) which gives
access to the town. This passage is not a uniform tunnel. The mass
through which it runs is 290 feet thick, and in two places it is crossed
at right angles by transepts wider than itself (D and F). The tunnel
ends in a kind of open vestibule interposed between the inner face of
the wall and the commencement of the street. All these courts,
passages and transepts are paved with large limestone slabs except
the small chamber that opens from one end of the outer transept (I).
This small apartment was not a thoroughfare, but it has been thought
that signs of a staircase leading either to upper rooms or to the
battlements could be traced in it. We have seen that the Egyptian
pylons had such staircases and upper chambers.[87] It would be
curious to find the arrangement repeated here, but we cannot
certainly say that it was so. On the other hand the situation of the
doors by which the entrance into the city was barred is very clearly
marked. At the point where the passage C opens into the transept D
the sockets in which the metal feet of the door pivots were set, are
still in place.[88]
 Fig. 25.—Restoration in perspective of one of the ordinary gates of Khorsabad;
from Place.
The state doorways are distinguished from their more humble
companions, in the first place by a flight of eleven brick-built steps
which have to be mounted before the court A can be reached from
the outside; in the ordinary gateways a gentle inclination of the whole
pavement of the court makes such steps unnecessary. A second
difference is of more importance. At the entrance to the passage
marked C on our plan the state doorways have a pair of winged bulls
whose foreparts stand out a little from the wall while their backs
support the arch. The latter is decorated with the semicircle of
enamelled bricks of which we have already spoken at length in our
chapter upon decoration (Vol. I., Figs. 123 and 124, and below, Fig.
26). Behind the bulls there are two winged genii facing each other
across the passage and about thirteen feet high (Fig. 27).
 Fig. 26.—State gateway at Khorsabad. Elevation; from Place.
That these monumental doorways with their rich decorations
were reserved for pedestrians, is proved by the flight of steps. It was
not thought desirable to subject their sculptures to the dangers of
vehicular traffic. In the portes simples the marks of wheels can be
distinctly traced on the pavements.[89]
 Each of these gateways, whether for carriages or foot
passengers, was a complicated edifice, and the arrangement of their
10,000 square yards of passage and chamber could scarcely have
been explained without the use of plans. Military necessities are
insufficient to explain such elaborate contrivances. The existence of
barbican and flanking towers is justified by them, but hardly the size
of the court and the two great transepts. We cease to be surprised at
these, however, when we remember the part played by the city gates
in the lives of the urban populations of the Levant.
 Fig. 27.—Longitudinal section through the archway of one of the city gates,
Khorsabad; from Place.
In the East the town gate is and always has been what the agora
was to the cities of Greece and the forum to those of Italy. Doubtless
it was ill-adapted to be used as a theatre of political or judicial
debate, like the public places of the Græco-Roman world. But in the
East the municipal life of the West has never obtained a footing. The
monarchy and patriarchal régime have been her two forms of
government; she had no need of wide spaces for crowds of voters or
for popular tribunals. Nothing more was required than a place for
gossip and the retailing of news, a place where the old men could
find themselves surrounded by a circle of fellow townsmen crouched
upon their heels, and, after hearing plaintiffs, defendants and their
witnesses, could give those awards that were the first form of justice.
Nothing could afford a better rendezvous for such purposes than the
gate of a fortified city or village. Hollowed in the thickness of a wall of
prodigious solidity it gave a shelter against the north wind in winter,
while in summer its cool galleries must have been the greatest of
luxuries. Husbandmen going to their fields, soldiers setting out on
expeditions, merchants with their caravans, all passed through these
resounding archways and had a moment in which to hear and tell the
news. Those whom age or easy circumstances relieved from toil or
war passed much of their time in the gates talking with all comers or
sunk in the sleepy reverie in which orientals pass so much of their
lives.
All this is painted for us with the most simple fidelity in the Bible.
“And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot seeing them,
rose up to meet them.”[90] When Abraham buys a burying place in
Hebron he addresses himself to Ephron, the owner of the ground,
“and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the
children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city.”[91] So
too Boaz, when he wishes to marry Ruth and to get all those who
had rights over the young Moabitess to resign them in his favour,
“went up to the gate, and sat him down there ... and he took ten men
of the elders of the city, and said, sit ye down here. And they sat
down.”[92] And these old men were called upon to witness the acts of
resignation performed by Ruth’s nearest relatives.[93]
So too, in later ages, when the progress of political life led kings
to inhabit great separate buildings of their own, the palace gates
became for the courtiers what the city gates were for the population
at large. At Khorsabad they were constructed on exactly the same
plan as those of the town; they are even more richly decorated and
the chambers they inclose are no less spacious. In them servants,
guards, military officers, foreign ambassadors and wire-pullers of
every kind could meet, lounge about, and await their audiences.
Read the book of Esther carefully and you will find continual
allusions to this custom. “In those days, while Mordecai sat in the
king’s gate, two of the king’s chamberlains, Bigthan and Teresh, of
those which kept the door, were wroth, and sought to lay hands on
the king Ahasuerus.”[94] The gates of the palace must have been
open to all comers for a man of despised race and a butt for the
insults of Haman, like Mordecai, to have been enabled to overhear
the secret whispers of the king’s chamberlains. In the sequel we find
Mordecai hardly ever moving from this spot.

Assis le plus souvent aux portes du palais,

as Racine says, he thence addresses to Esther the advice by which

she is governed. He did not stand up, as he must have done in a
mere passage, for Haman complains that he did not rise and do him
reverence.[95]
This use of gates has not been abandoned in the East. At
Mossoul, for instance, the entrances to the city are buildings with
several rooms in them, and in the gate opening upon the Tigris M.
Place often saw the governor of the province seated among his
officers in an upper chamber and dispensing justice.[96] In the same
town the doorways of a few great private houses are frequented in
the same fashion by the inhabitants of the quarter. This was the case
with the French Consulate, which was established in a large house
that had been the ancestral home of a family of independent beys,
now extinct. At the entrance there was a chamber covered with a
depressed cupola and surrounded by stone benches. Right and left
were four lodges for porters, and on one side a staircase leading to
four upper rooms built over the vault. One of these served as a
divan. All this was separated by a large courtyard from the dwelling
place proper, and even after the building had become a part of
France, the neighbours kept up their habit of coming to sit and
gossip under its dome.[97]
 The word porte has thus acquired a significance in every
European language that could hardly be understood but for the light
thrown upon it by such customs as those illustrated by the remains
of Assyrian architecture, and alluded to so often in the sacred
writings. Every one who has visited Stamboul, has seen in the first
court of the Old Seraglio, that arched doorway (Bab-i-Houmaioun) in
whose niches the heads of great criminals and rebellious vassals
used once to be placed; it formerly led to the saloons in which the
Ottoman sultans presided at the great council, listened to the reports
of their officers, and received foreign ambassadors. The doorway
through which the august presence was reached ended by
representing in the imagination of those who passed through it; first,
the whole of the building to which it belonged, and secondly, the
sovereign enthroned behind it. The decrees in which the successors
of Mohammed II. made known their will ended with these words:
“Given at our Sublime Gate, at our Gate of Happiness.” In later years
the Old Seraglio was abandoned. The different public departments
were removed into a huge edifice more like a barracks than an
eastern palace, but the established formula was retained. In the
Constantinople of to-day “to go to the Porte” means to go to the
government offices, and even the government itself, the sultan, that
is, and his ministers, are known in all the chancelleries of Europe as
the Porte, the Sublime Porte, the Ottoman Porte.
It was, no doubt, by a metonomy of the same kind that the capital
of ancient Chaldæa, the town into which the principal sanctuaries of
the national gods were gathered, was called Bab-ilou, the Gate of
God, which was turned by the Greeks into Βαβυλών, or Babylon.
After our careful description of the remains left by the city of
Sargon we need enter into few details as to the other fortified
enceintes that have been explored in Mesopotamia. The same
rectangular plan, the same thick walls and carefully arranged
gateways are to be found in them all. With the Assyrians as with their
neighbours, every town was fortified. The square form seems to
have been universally employed for the flanking towers. It is quite by
exception that we find in one of the pictures of a siege on the
Balawat gates, tall and slender towers that appear to be round on
plan and to be much higher than the curtain they defend (Fig. 28).
Besides these town walls there were, no doubt, at the mouths of the
valleys opening into the basin of the Tigris, strong forts and isolated
towers, perched upon some abrupt rock or ridge: the siege of such a
fortress seems to be going on in the relief figured on the next page
(Fig. 29). The platform at the top of the tower seems to be raised and
strengthened by a structure of wood, which stands out beyond the
crenellations and is protected by a row of shields, like the bulwarks
of a Roman galley. This contrivance resembles those ourdeys of
which the military engineers of the middle ages made such constant
use. The garrison still show a bold front from behind their defences,
but the women and old men, foreseeing the fall of their stronghold,
are decamping while there is yet time.

Fig. 28.—Fortified wall; from the Balawat gates. British Museum.

The military successes of the Assyrians are partly to be explained
by their engineering skill. In all that concerned the attack and
defence of places they seem to have left the Egyptians far behind. In
addition to mines and battering rams they employed movable towers
which they pushed forward against such walls as they wished to
attack point blank, and thought either too high or too well lined with
defenders to be open to escalade (Vol. I., Fig. 26). In the relief partly
reproduced on page 75, the defenders have not ceased their
resistance, but in the lower section, in what we may call the predella
of the picture, we see a long band of prisoners of both sexes being
led off by soldiers. These we may suppose to be captives taken in
the suburbs of the beleaguered city, or in battles already won.[98]

Fig. 29.—Siege of a fort; from Layard.

 The Assyrians not only understood how to defend their own
cities, and to destroy those of their foes, they were fully alive to the
necessity for good carriage roads, if their armies and military
machines were to be transported rapidly from place to place. How far
these roads extended we do not know, but Place ascertained the
existence of paved causeways debouching from the gates of Dour-
Saryoukin,[99] and unless they stretched at least to the frontiers, it is
difficult to see how the Assyrians could have made such great use
as they did of war chariots. Not one of their series of military pictures
can be named in which they do not appear, and they are by no
means the heavy and clumsy cars now used in some parts both of
European and Asiatic Turkey. Their wheels are far from being those
solid disks of timber that are alone capable of resisting the
inequalities of a roadless country. They have not the lightness of a
modern carriage with its tires of beaten steel, but the felloes of their
wheels are light and graceful enough to prove that the roads of those
times were better than anything the Mesopotamia of to-day can
show. The spokes, which seem to have been fitted with great care
and nicety, are, as a rule, eight in number (Figs. 21 and 31).
 Fig. 30.—An attack by escalade; from Layard.
In the interior of the town—we are still speaking of the town of
Sargon—these same causeways formed the principal streets. They
were about forty feet wide. Their construction was, of course, far
inferior to that of a Roman road. There were no footpaths, either
within or without the cities; the stones were small, irregular in shape,
and not of a very durable kind. They were placed in a single layer,
and the pavement when finished looked like a mere bed of broken
stones. All Mesopotamia, however, cannot now show a road that can
be compared to these ancient ways. Wherever the traveller goes, his
beasts of burden and the wheels of his carts sink either into a bed of
dust or into deep and clinging mud, according to the season. It is no
better in the towns. Whoever has had the ill luck to be out, in the
rainy season, in the sloughs and sewers that the Turks call streets,
will be ready to acknowledge that the civilization of Assyria in the
time of Sargon was better furnished than that of Turkey in the days
of Abdul-Hamid.

Fig. 31.—Chariot for three combatants; from the palace of Assurbanipal. Louvre.
Height 16 inches. Drawn by Bourgoin.
At Khorsabad, where the main streets must, like those of
Babylon, have intersected each other at right angles, how were the
buildings, public and private, arranged? We might have had an
answer to this interesting question had M. Place been in command
of enough time and means to clear the whole interior of the enceinte.
Even as it was he found enough to justify him in asserting that the
great inclosure of some eight hundred acres was not, as we might be
tempted to imagine at first sight, a royal park attached to the palace,
but a city. He sunk trenches at three points where low mounds
suggested the presence of ruins, and all his doubts soon
disappeared. Several yards below the present level of the ground he
found the original surface, with the pavements of streets, courtyards
and rooms; doorways with their thresholds and jambs; walls covered
with stucco, cut stone and even alabaster slabs; potsherds,
fragments of brick and utensils of various kinds—decisive evidence,
in fact, that one of those agglomerations of civilized human beings
that we call towns, had formerly occupied the site.
 CHAPTER II.
SCULPTURE.

§ 1.—The principal themes of Chaldæo-Assyrian Sculpture.

The Egyptian notions as to a future life had much to do with the

rapidity with which the art of sculpture was developed during the
early years of their history. There was a close relation between their
religion and the rites it implied, on the one hand, and the peculiar
characteristics of the most ancient Memphite sculptures on the other.
We cannot say the same of Chaldæa. So far as our present
knowledge extends, we have no reason to suppose that the first
efforts of the Mesopotamian sculptor were directed to providing the
umbra, the immaterial inhabitant of the tomb, with a material support
which should resemble as closely as possible the body of flesh and
bones that, in spite of every precaution, would sooner or later end in
dust and nothingness. No monument has come down to us in which
we can recognize a portrait image executed for a sepulchre.[100]
And yet the basis of the Chaldæan religion was similar to that of
Egypt. Taken as a whole, the beliefs as to a posthumous life were
the same in both countries. Why then had they such different effects
upon the arts? For this we may give several reasons. The first is the
comparatively small importance forced upon the Chaldæan tomb by
the nature of the soil. In mere coffins of terra-cotta, and even in
those narrow brick vaults that are met with at certain points, at
Mugheir and Warka for instance, there is no room for a single statue,
still less for the crowds of images held by a Gizeh or Sakkarah
mastaba. Add to this that stone was rare and dear, that it had to be
brought from a great distance, and we shall comprehend why
funerary rites and the worship of the dead exercised no appreciable
influence over Chaldæan sculpture.
Here the beginnings of art are more obscure than in Egypt. In the
first place we cannot trace them back nearly so far, in the second
both statues and bas-reliefs are much less numerous. In spite of
recent discoveries, to which we owe much, Egypt still remains
unrivalled both by the prodigious antiquity into whose depths she
allows us to catch a glimpse, and by the ever-increasing multitude of
monuments and tombs that are found in her soil. The night that hides
the birth of civilization is darker in Mesopotamia than in the Nile
valley; it does not allow us to perceive how the plastic faculty was
first awakened, and why it took one direction more than another; we
cannot tell why the modeller of Lower Chaldæa set himself to handle
clay, or carve wood and stone into the shape of some real or
fantastic creature. On the other hand, when we study Chaldæan
sculpture in the oldest of those works that have come down to us, we
are struck by the fact that, even in the remote centuries to which
those carvings belong, Chaldæan art interested itself in all the
aspects of nature and in every variety of living form. It had
nevertheless its favourite themes, namely, the representations of
royal and divine personages.
When first called upon to suggest the ideas of divine power and
perfection, art had no other resource but to borrow features and
characteristics from those mortal forms that must always, in one
point or another, seem incomplete and unfinished. Of all
undertakings that could be proposed to it, this was at once the most
noble and the most difficult. To find a real solution of the problem we
must turn to the Greeks. Of all ancient peoples they were the first to
perceive the unrivalled nobility of the human form; they were the first
to decide that the notion of divine superiority, of a divine principle,
could be best suggested in all its infinite varieties, through that form.
We shall see them obtain the results at which they aimed by giving
to man’s body and features a charm, a grandeur, a purity of line—in
a word, a perfection, to which no single living member of the race
can attain. The Chaldæans had no sufficiently clear idea of such a
system, and, more especially, they never acquired enough familiarity
with the nude, to rival the grace and dignity given by the Greeks to
their divine types; but their art was more frankly anthropomorphic
than that of Egypt, and, as we shall have occasion to show, it
created many types that were transmitted to the Mediterranean
nations, and soon adopted by them. These types were perfected, but
not invented, by the Greeks.
 We have already given more than one example of how the
Chaldæan intellect set about the manifestation of its ideas as to gods
and demons, how it expressed their characteristics by
heterogeneous forms borrowed from various real animals. The
powers of evil were first embodied in this fashion (Vol. I. Figs. 6, 7,
161, 162). The sculptor went far afield to find the elements of
ugliness that he wished to combine in a single being; this is nowhere
to be better seen than in a bronze statuette belonging to the Louvre
(Fig. 32). Here too we are better informed than usual. An inscription
engraved on the back tells us that this is the demon of the south-
west wind, the most scorching and generally unpleasant of the winds
that visit Mesopotamia. The ring in the head served to hang it up in
front of the window or doorway of a house. Thanks to such a
precaution, the inhabitants of that dwelling would be protected
against the ill effects of the parching breath of the desert. The
sculptor has wished to make this tyrant of the atmosphere as
hideous and repulsive as possible, and he has only succeeded too
well. One can hardly imagine anything more frightful than his
grinning, quasi-human countenance, resembling a death’s head in
some of its lines; the great round eyes and goat’s horns with which it
is surrounded add to its deformity. Its meagre body has some hints
at hair on its right side. The hands are large and flat, the fingers
short and blunt, while the feet are a curious combination of human
extremities with the talons of a bird of prey.
On the other hand this mixture of forms is by no means repulsive
in the case of certain personages who appear to belong either to the
class of beneficent genii or to that of the great deities of the Chaldee
pantheon. The combination is especially well managed in the winged
bulls. The head is that of a man, but about the tiara with which it is
crowned several pairs of horns are bent. These horns are among the
attributes of the beast by whose nature this complex being is
dominated. They are part of the offensive armament of the one
animal which enjoys in popular esteem an equal reputation for
strength with the lion. The body and limbs, too, are those of a bull,
while the curly main recalls that of the king of beasts. The whole is
completed by a pair of large wings borrowed from the eagle.
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