It is not easy to understand the exact object of Sargon in building himself this new residence.  Dur-Sargina was not the Windsor or Versailles of Assyria—­a place to which the sovereign could retire for country air and amusements from the bustle and heat of the metropolis.  It was:  as we have said, a town, and a town of considerable size, being very little lees than half as large as Nineveh itself.  It is true that it possessed the advantage of a nearer vicinity to the mountains than Nineveh:  and had Sargon been, like several of his predecessors, a mighty hunter, we might have supposed that the greater facility of obtaining sport in the woods and valleys of the Zagros chain formed the attraction which led him to prefer the region where he built his town to the banks of the Tigris.  But all the evidence that we possess seems to show that this monarch was destitute of any love for the chase; and seemingly we must attribute his change of abode either to mere caprice, or to a desire to be near the mountains for the sake of cooler water, purer air, and more varied scenery.  It is no doubt true, as M. Oppert observes, that the royal palace at Nineveh was at this time in a ruinous state; but it could not have been more difficult or more expensive to repair it than to construct a new palace, a new mound, and a new town, on a fresh site.

Previously to the construction of the Khorsabad palace, Sargon resided at Caleb.  He there repaired and renovated the great palace of Asshur-izir-pal, which had been allowed to fall to decay.  At Nineveh he repaired the walls of the town, which were ruined in many places, and built a temple to Nebo and Merodach; while in Babylonia he improved the condition of the embankments, by which the distribution of the waters was directed and controlled.  He appears to have been to a certain extent a patron of science, since a large number of the Assyrian scientific tablets are proved by the dates upon then:  to have been written in his day.

The progress of mimetic art under Sargon is not striking but there are indications of an advance in several branches of industry, and of an improved taste in design and in ornamentation.  Transparent glass seems now to have been first brought into used and intaglios to have been first cut upon hard stones.  The furniture of the period is greatly superior in design to any previously represented, and the modelling of sword-hilts, maces, armlets, and other ornaments is peculiarly good.  The enamelling of bricks was carried under Sargon to its greatest perfection:  and the shape of vases, goblets, and boats shows a marked improvement upon the works of former times.  The advance in animal forms, traceable in the sculptures of Tiglath-Pileser II., continues:  and the drawing of horses’ heads, in particular, leaves little to desire.