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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:khorsabad:91ab940150ad",
    "title": "KHORSABAD",
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    "verified_text": "khorsabad, a turkish village in the vilayet of mosul, 121⁄2 m. n.e. of that town, and almost 20 m. n. of ancient nineveh, on the left bank of the little river kosar. here, in 1843, p. e. botta, then french consul at mosul, discovered the remains of an assyrian palace and town, at which excavations were conducted by him and flandin in 1843-1844, and again by victor place in 1851-1855. the ruins proved to be those of the town of dur-sharrukin, \"sargon's castle,\" built by sargon, king of assyria, as a royal residence. the town, in the shape of a rectangular parallelogram, with the corners pointing approximately toward the cardinal points of the compass, covered 741 acres of ground. on the north-west side, half within and half without the circuit of the walls, protruding into the plain like a great bastion, stood the royal palace, on a terrace, 45 ft. in height, covering about 25 acres. the palace proper was divided into three sections, built around three sides of a large court on the south-east or city side, into which opened the great outer gates, guarded by winged stone bulls, each section containing suites of rooms built around several smaller inner courts. in the centre was the _serai_, occupied by the king and his retinue, with an extension towards the north, opening on a large inner court, containing the public reception rooms, elaborately decorated with sculptures and historical inscriptions, representing scenes of hunting, worship, feasts, battles, and the like. the harem, with separate provisions for four wives, occupied the south corner, the domestic quarters, including stables, kitchen, bakery, wine cellar, &c., being at the east corner, to the north-east of the great entrance court. in the west corner stood a temple, with a stage-tower (_ziggurat_) adjoining. the walls of the rooms, which stood only to the height of one storey, were from 9 to 25 ft. in thickness, of clay, faced with brick, in the reception rooms wainscoted with stone slabs or tiles, elsewhere plastered, or, in the harem, adorned with fresco paintings and arabesques. here and there the floors were formed of tiles or alabaster blocks, but in general they were of stamped clay, on which were spread at the time of occupancy mats and rugs. the exterior of the palace wall exhibited a system of groups of half columns and stepped recesses, an ornament familiar in babylonian architecture. the palace and city were completed in 707 b.c., and in 706 sargon took up his residence there. he died the following year, and palace and city seem to have been abandoned shortly thereafter. up to 1909 this was the only assyrian palace which had ever been explored systematically, in its entirety, and fortunately it was found on the whole in an admirable state of preservation. an immense number of statues and bas-reliefs, excavated by botta, were transported to paris, and formed the first assyrian museum opened to the world. the objects excavated by place, together with the objects found by fresnel's expedition in babylonia and a part of the results of rawlinson's excavations at nineveh, were unfortunately lost in the tigris, on transport from bagdad to basra. flandin had, however, made careful drawings and copies of all objects of importance from khorsabad. the whole material was published by the french government in two monumental publications. see p. e. botta and e. flandin, _monument de ninive_ (paris, 1849-1850; 5 vols. 400 plates); victor place, _ninive et l'assyrie, avec des essais de restauration par f. thomas_ (paris, 1866-1869; 3 vols.). (j. p. pe.) khotan (locally ilchi), a town and oasis of east turkestan, on the khotan-darya, between the n. foot of the kuen-lun and the edge of the takla-makan desert, nearly 200 m. by caravan road s.e. from yarkand. pop., about 5000. the town consists of a labyrinth of narrow, winding, dirty streets, with poor, square, flat-roofed houses, half a dozen _madrasas_ (mahommedan colleges), a score of mosques, and some _masars_ (tombs of mahommedan saints). dotted about the town are open squares, with tanks or ponds overhung by trees. for centuries khotan was famous for jade or nephrite, a semi-precious stone greatly esteemed by the chinese for making small fancy boxes, bottles and cups, mouthpieces for pipes, bracelets, &c. the stone is still exported to china. other local products are carpets (silk and felt), silk goods, hides, grapes, rice and other cereals, fruits, tobacco, opium and cotton. there is an active trade in these goods and in wool with india, west turkestan and china. the oasis contains two small towns, kara-kash and yurun-kash, and over 300 villages, its total population being about 150,000. khotan, known in sanskrit as kustana and in chinese as yu-than, yu-tien, kiu-sa-tan-na, and khio-tan, is mentioned in chinese chronicles in the 2nd century b.c. in a.d. 73 it was conquered by the chinese, and ever since has been generally dependent upon the chinese empire. during the early centuries of the christian era, and long before that, it was an important and flourishing place, the capital of a kingdom to which the chinese sent embassies, and famous for its glass-wares, copper tankards and textiles. about the year a.d. 400 it was a city of some magnificence, and the seat of a flourishing cult of buddha, with temples rich in paintings and ornaments of the precious metals; but from the 5th century it seems to have declined. in the 8th century it was conquered, after a struggle of 25 years, by the arab chieftain kotaiba ibn moslim, from west turkestan, who imposed islam upon the people. in 1220 khotan was destroyed by the mongols under jenghiz khan. marco polo, who passed through the town in 1274, says that \"everything is to be had there [at cotan, i.e. khotan] in plenty, including abundance of cotton, with flax, hemp, wheat, wine, and the like. the people have vineyards and gardens and estates. they live by commerce and manufactures, and are no soldiers.\"[1] the place suffered severely during the dungan revolt against china in 1864-1875, and again a few years later when yakub beg of kashgar made himself master of east turkestan. the khotan-darya rises in the kuen-lun mountains in two headstreams, the kara-kash and the yurun-kash, which unite towards the middle of the desert, some 90 m. n. of the town of khotan. the conjoint stream then flows 180 m. northwards across the desert of takla-makan, though it carries water only in the early summer, and empties itself into the tarim a few miles below the confluence of the ak-su with the yarkand-darya (tarim). in crossing the desert it falls 1250 ft. in a distance of 270 m. its total length is about 300 m. and the area it drains probably nearly 40,000 sq. m. see j. p. a. remusat, _histoire de la ville de khotan_ (paris, 1820); and sven hedin, _through asia_ (eng. trans., london, 1898), chs. lx. and lxii., and _scientific results of a journey in central asia_, 1899-1902, vol. ii. (stockholm, 1906). (j. t. be.) footnote: [1] sir h. yule, _the book of ser marco polo_, bk. i. ch. xxxvi. (3rd ed., london, 1903).",
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