An image of gold

Daniel 3:1 - King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, ninety feet high and nine feet wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

It was 90 feet high and 9 feet wide, or so. That is, about 10 stories tall and the width of a smallish room across. I wonder what it was an image of. I think we sometimes assume it was a likeness of Nebuchadnezzar himself -- perhaps a bust of him or a smaller statue on top of a pillar. And that could make sense, considering that kings sometimes thought of themselves as gods worthy of worship. Was Nebuchadnezzar thinking of literally putting his dream into practice? But it doesn't say that's what the image was. You'd think it would say so if it were something as basic as that.

So what was it? Something too complex to warrant description? Something too simple to warrant description? It does say image, which conjures up a picture of something -- a face, a body, even a scenic view, as opposed to just a plain pillar or obelisk (like the Washington Monument).

The there's also the question of how they got it to stay standing. Did it also go 10 stories underground? Were there guy-wires holding it in place like those around a TV, radio, or cell phone tower? Was it 9 feet square from bottom to top? Did it narrow (to a point) as it went up? From a distance it might easily have looked like a big, shiny pencil sticking out of the ground.