Chapter II (1)

THE CITY OF BABYLON AND ITS REMAINS: A DISCUSSION OF THE RECENT EXCAVATIONS

The actual site of Babylon was never lost in popular tradition. In spite of the total disappearance of the city, which followed its gradual decay under Seleucid and Parthian rule, its ancient fame sufficed to keep it in continual remembrance. The old Semitic name Bâb-ilî, "the Gate of the Gods," lingered on about the site, and under the form Babil is still the local designation for the most northerly of the city-mounds. Tradition, too, never ceased to connect the exposed brickwork of Nebuchadnezzar's main citadel and palace with his name. Ḳaṣr, the Arab name for the chief palace-mound and citadel of Babylon, means "palace" or "castle," and when in the twelfth century Benjamin of Tudela visited Baghdad, the Jews of that city told him that in the neighbouring ruins, near Hilla, the traveller might still behold Nebuchadnezzar's palace beside the fiery furnace into which Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah had been thrown. It does not seem that this adventurous rabbi actually visited the site,[1] though it is unlikely that he was deterred by fear of the serpents and scorpions with which, his informants said, the ruins were infested.

In the sixteenth century an English merchant traveller, John Eldred, made three voyages to "New Babylon," as he calls Baghdad, journeying from Aleppo down the Euphrates. On the last occasion, after describing his landing at Faluja, and how he secured a hundred asses for lack of camels to carry his goods to Baghdad, he tells us that "in this place which we crossed over stood the olde mightie citie of Babylon, many olde ruines whereof are easilie to be scene by daylight, which I, John Eldred, have often behelde at my goode leisure having made three voyages between the New Citie of Babylon and Aleppo over this desert."[2] But it would seem probable from his further description that "the olde tower of Babell," which he visited "sundry times," was really the ruin of 'Akarkûf, which he would have passed on his way to Baghdad. Benjamin of Tudela, on the other hand, had taken Birs-Nimrûd for the Tower of Babel,[3] and had noted how the ruins of the streets of Babylon still extend for thirty miles. In fact, it was natural that several of the early travellers should have regarded the whole complex of ruins, which they saw still standing along their road to Baghdad, as parts of the ancient city; and it is not surprising that some of the earlier excavators should have fallen under a similar illusion so far as the area between Bâbil and El-Birs is concerned.[4] The famous description of Herodotus, and the accounts other classical writers have left us of the city's size, tended to foster this conviction; and, although the centre of Babylon was identified correctly enough, the size of the city's area was greatly exaggerated. Babylon had cast her spell upon mankind, and it has taken sixteen years of patient and continuous excavation to undermine that stubborn belief. But in the process of shrinkage, and as accurate knowledge has gradually given place to conjecture, the old spell has reappeared unchanged. It may be worth while to examine in some detail the results of recent work upon the site, and note to what extent the city's remains have thrown light upon its history while leaving some problems still unsolved.

MAP OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BABYLON AND BIRS-NIMRÛD.

A: The mound Bâbil. B: The mound Ḳaṣr. C: The mound 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali. D: The mound Merkes. E: Inner City-wall of Babylon. F: Outer City-wall of Babylon. G: Ruins of western walls. H: Temple-tower of E-zida. K: Ruins of E-zida. L: Marsh. M: Hindîya Canal.

(After the India Office Map.)]

In view of the revolution in our knowledge of Babylonian topography, which has been one of the most striking results of recent work, no practical purpose would be served by tracing out the earlier but very partial examinations of the site which were undertaken successively by Rich in 1811,[5] by Layard in 1850,[6] by Oppert as the head of a French expedition in the years 1852-54,[7] and by Hormuzd Rassam, between 1878 and 1889, when he was employed on excavations for the British Museum.[8] During the last of these periods the British Museum obtained a valuable series of tablets from Babylon, some of the texts proving of great literary and scientific interest. In 1887, and again after a lapse of ten years, Dr. Robert Koldewey visited the site of Babylon and picked up fragments of enamelled bricks on the east side of the Ḳaṣr. On the latter occasion he sent some of them to Berlin, and Dr. Richard Schöne, at that time Director of the Royal Museums, recognized their artistic and archæological interest. Thus it was with the hope of making speedy and startling discoveries that the German Oriental Society began work upon the site at the end of March in the year 1899; and it is the more to the credit of the excavators that they have not allowed any difficulties or disappointments to curtail and bring to a premature close the steady progress of their research.

The extent of ground covered by the remains of the ancient city, and the great accumulation of _débris_ over some of the principal buildings rendered the work more arduous than was anticipated, and consequently the publication of results has been delayed. It is true that, from the very beginning of operations, the expert has been kept informed of the general progress of the digging by means of letters and reports distributed to its subscribers every few months by the society.[9] But it was only in 1911, after twelve years of uninterrupted digging, that the first instalment was issued of the scientific publication. This was confined to the temples of the city, and for the first time placed the study of Babylonian religious architecture upon a scientific basis.[10] In the following year Dr. Koldewey, the director of the excavations, supplemented his first volume with a second, in which, under pressure from the society, he forestalled to some extent the future issues of the detailed account by summarizing the results obtained to date upon all sections of the site.[11] It has thus been rendered possible to form a connected idea of the remains of the ancient city, so far as they have been recovered.

In their work at Babylon the excavators have, of course, employed modern methods, which differ considerably from those of the age when Layard and Botta brought the winged bulls of Assyria to the British Museum and to the Louvre. The extraordinary success which attended those earlier excavators has, indeed, never been surpassed. But it is now realized that only by minuteness of search and by careful classification of strata can the remains of the past be made to reveal in full their secrets. The fine museum specimen retains its importance; but it gains immensely in significance when it ceases to be an isolated product and takes its place in a detailed history of its period.

In order to grasp the character of the new evidence, and the methods by which it has been obtained at Babylon, it is advisable to bear in mind some of the general characteristics of Babylonian architecture and the manner in which the art of building was influenced by the natural conditions of the country. One important point to realize is that the builders of all periods were on the defensive, and not solely against human foes, for in that aspect they resembled other builders of antiquity. The foe they most dreaded was Hood. Security against flood conditioned the architect's ideal: he aimed solely at height and mass. When a king built a palace for himself or a temple for his god, he did not consciously aim at making it graceful or beautiful. What he always boasts of having done is that he has made it "like a mountain." He delighted to raise the level of his artificial mound or building-platform, and the modern excavator owes much to this continual filling in of the remains of earlier structures. The material at his disposal was also not without its influence in the production of buildings "like mountains," designed to escape the floods of the plain.

The alluvial origin of the Babylonian soil deprived the inhabitants of an important factor in the development of the builder's art: it produced for them no stone. But it supplied a very effective building-material in its place, a strongly adhesive clay. Throughout their whole history the Babylonian architects built in crude and in kiln-burnt brick. In the Neo-Babylonian period we find them making interesting technical experiments in this material, here a first attempt to roof in a wide area with vaulting, elsewhere counteracting the effects of settlement by a sort of expansion-joint. We shall see, too, that it was in this same medium that they attained to real beauty of design.

Brick continued to be the main building-material in Assyria too, for that country derived its culture from the lower Euphrates valley.[12] But in the north soft limestone quarries were accessible. So in Assyria they lined their mud-brick walls with slabs of limestone, carved in low relief and brightly coloured; and they set up huge stone colossi to flank their palace entrances. This use of stone, both as a wall-lining and in wall-foundations, constitutes the main difference between Babylonian and Assyrian architectural design. Incidentally it explains how the earlier excavators were so much more successful in Assyria than in Babylonia; for in both countries they drove their tunnels and trenches into most of the larger mounds. They could tunnel with perfect certainty when they had these stone linings of the walls to guide them. But to follow out the ground-plan of a building constructed only of unburnt brick, with mud or clay for mortar, necessitates a slower and more systematic process of examination. For unburnt brick becomes welded into a solid mass, scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding soil, and the lines of a building in this material can only be recovered by complete excavation.

An idea of the labour this sometimes entails may be gained from the work which preceded the identification of E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon. The temple lies at a depth of no less than twenty-one metres below the upper level of the hill of _débris_; and portions of two of its massive mud-brick walls, together with the neighbouring pavements, were uncovered by bodily removing the great depth of soil truck by truck. But here even German patience and thoroughness have been beaten, and tunnelling was eventually adopted to establish the outer limits of the ground-plan, much of the interior of which still remains unexplored.[13]

The Babylon which has now been partially cleared, though in its central portion it reaches back to the First Dynasty and to the period of Hammurabi, is mainly that of the Neo-Babylonian empire, when Nebuchadnezzar II., and Nabonidus, the last native Babylonian king, raised their capital to a condition of magnificence it had not known before. This city survived, with but little change, during the domination of the Achæmenian kings of Persia, and from the time of Herodotus onward Babylon was made famous throughout the ancient world. At that time Ashur and Nineveh, the great capitals of Assyria, had ceased to exist; but Babylon was still in her glory, and descriptions of the city have come down to us in the works of classical writers. To fit this literary tradition to the actual remains of the city has furnished a number of fascinating problems. How, for example, are we to explain the puzzling discrepancy between the present position of the outer walls and the enormous estimate of the city's area given by Herodotus, or even that of Ctesias? For Herodotus himself appears to have visited Babylon; and Ctesias was the physician of Artaxerxes II. Mnemon, who has left a memorial of his presence in a marble building on the Ḳaṣr.

Herodotus reckons that the walls of Babylon extended for four hundred and eighty stades, the area they enclosed forming an exact square, a hundred and twenty stades in length each way.[14] In other words, he would have us picture a city more than fifty-three miles in circumference. The estimate of Ctesias is not so large, his side of sixty-five stades giving a circumference of rather over forty miles.[15] Such figures, it has been suggested, are not in themselves impossible, Koldewey, for example, comparing the Great Wall of China which extends for more than fifteen hundred miles, and is thus about twenty-nine times as long as Herodotus's estimate for the wall of Babylon.[16] But the latter was not simply a frontier-fortification. It was the enclosing wall of a city, and a more apposite comparison is that of the walls of Nanking, the largest city-site in China, and the work of an empire even greater than Babylon.[17] The latter measure less than twenty-four miles in circuit, and the comparison does not encourage an acceptance of Herodotus's figures on grounds of general probability. It is true that Oppert accepted them, but he only found this possible by stretching his plan of the city to include the whole area from Babil to Birs-Nimrûd,[18] and by seeing traces of the city and its walls in every sort of intervening mound of whatever period.

As a matter of fact part of the great wall, which surrounded the city from the Neo-Babylonian period onward, has survived to the present day, and may still be recognized in a low ridge of earth, or series of consecutive mounds,[19] which cross the plain for a considerable distance to the south-east of Babil. The traveller from Baghdad, after crossing the present Nîl Canal by a bridge,[20] passes through a gap in the north-eastern wall before he sees on his right the isolated mound of Bâbil with the extensive complex of the Ḳaṣr and its neighbour, Tell 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali, stretching away in front and to his left.[21] The whole length of the city-wall, along the north-east side, may still be traced by the position of these low earthen mounds, and they prove that the city on this side measured not quite two and three-quarter miles in extent. The eastern angle of the wall is also preserved, and the south-east wall may be followed for another mile and a quarter as it doubles back towards the Euphrates. These two walls, together with the Euphrates, enclose the only portion of the ancient city on which ruins of any importance still exist. But, according to Herodotus and other writers, the city was enclosed by two similar walls upon the western bank, in which case the site it occupied must have formed a rough quadrangle, divided diagonally by the river. No certain trace has yet been recovered of the western walls,[22] and all remains of buildings seem to have disappeared completely on that side of the river. But for the moment it may be assumed that the city did occupy approximately an equal amount of space upon the western bank; and, even so, its complete circuit would not have extended for more than about eleven miles, a figure very far short of any of those given by Herodotus, Ctesias and other writers.

PLAN OF THE RUINS OF BABYLON.

A: The mound Babil. B: Outer City-wall. C: Inner City-wall. D: The Ḳaṣr mound. E: The mound 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali. F: E-makh, temple of the goddess Ninmakh. G: Temple of Ishtar of Akkad. H: E-tomen-anki, the Tower of Babylon. I: Ancient bed of the Euphrates. J: The mound Merkes. K: E-sagila, the temple of Marduk. L: The mound Ishin-aswad. M: Unidentified temple known as "_Z._" N: E-patutila, the temple of Ninib. P: Greek theatre. Q: Sakhn, the small plain covering the precincts of the Tower of Babylon. R: The mound Homera. S: Nîl Canal. T: Bridge over Nîl Canal. U: Former bed of Nîl Canal. V: Old Canal. W: Euphrates. X: Track from Baghdad to Hilla. Z: Mounds covering the ruins of walls. I: Village of Anana. 2: Village of Kweiresh. 3: Village of Jumjumma. 4: Village of Sinjar.

(After Koldewey and Andrae.)]

Dr. Koldewey suggests that, as the estimate of Ctesias approximates to four times the correct measurement, we may suspect that he mistook the figure which applies to the whole circumference for the measure of one side only of the square. But even if we accept that solution, it leaves the still larger figure of Herodotus unexplained. It is preferable to regard all such estimates of size, not as based on accurate measurements, but merely as representing an impression of grandeur produced on the mind of their recorder, whether by a visit to the city itself, or by reports of its magnificence at second-hand.

The excavators have not as yet devoted much attention to the city-wall, and, until more extensive digging has been carried out, it will not be possible to form a very detailed idea of the system of fortification. But enough has already been done to prove that the outer wall was a very massive structure, and consisted of two separate walls with the intermediate space filled in with rubble. The outer wall, or face, which bore the brunt of any attack and rose high above the moat encircling the city, was of burnt brick set in bitumen. It measured more than seven metres in thickness, and below ground-level was further protected from the waters of the moat by an additional wall, more than three metres in thickness, and, like it, constructed of burnt brick with bitumen as mortar. Behind the outer wall, at a distance of some twelve metres from it, was a second wall of nearly the same thickness. This faced inward towards the city, and so was constructed of crude or unburnt brick, as it would not be liable to direct assault by a besieger; and the mortar employed was clay.[23] The crude-brick wall cannot be dated accurately, but it is certainly older than the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and in his father's time it probably formed the outer city's sole protection.[24] The burnt-brick wall and the moat-lining in front of it date, in their present form, from the age of Nebuchadnezzar, for they are built of his square bricks, impressed with his usual stamp, which are so common over the whole site of Babylon.

GROUND-PLAN OF PART OF THE OUTER CITY-WALL.

A: Outer moat-lining of burnt-brick. B: Moat. C: Inner moat-lining of burnt-brick. D: Outer wall of burnt-brick. E: Rubble-filling. F: Inner wall of crude brick, with towers built at intervals across it. The figures on the plan give measurements in metres.

(After Koldewey and Andrae.)]

At intervals along the crude-brick wall were towers projecting slightly beyond each face.[25] Only the bases of the towers have been preserved, so that any restoration of their upper structure must rest on pure conjecture. But, as rubble still fills the space between the two walls of burnt and unburnt brick, it may be presumed that the filling was continued up to the crown of the outer wall. It is possible that the inner wall of crude brick was raised to a greater height and formed a curtain between each pair of towers. But even so, the clear space in front, consisting of the rubble filling and the burnt-brick wall, formed a broad roadway nearly twenty metres in breadth, which extended right round the city along the top of the wall. On this point the excavations have fully substantiated the account given by Herodotus, who states that "on the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another, leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn."[26] Even if smaller towers were built upon the outer edge, there would have been fully enough space to drive a team of four horses abreast along the wall, and in the intervals between the towers two such chariots might easily have passed each other. It has been acutely noted that this design of the wall was not only of protection by reason of its size, but was also of great strategic value; for it enabled the defence to move its forces with great speed from one point to another, wherever the attack at the moment might be pressed.[27]

In fact it is only in the matter of size and extent that the description given by Herodotus of the walls of Babylon is to be discounted; and those are just the sort of details that an ancient traveller would accept without question from his local guide. His total number for the city-gates is also no doubt excessive,[28] but his description of the wall itself as built of burnt-brick tallies exactly with the construction of its outer face, which would have been the only portion visible to any one passing outside the city. Moreover, in one portion of the wall, as reconstructed by Nebuchadnezzar, its inner as well as its outer half appears to have been formed of burnt-brick. This is the small rectangular extension, which Nebuchadnezzar threw out to protect his later citadel now covered by the mound known as Babil.[29]

The mound of Babil represents Nebuchadnezzar's latest addition to the city's system of fortification, and its construction in advance of the old line of the outer walls was dictated by the desire, of which we find increasing evidence throughout his reign, to strengthen the capital against attack from the north. The mound has not yet been systematically excavated, but enough has been done to prove that, like the great citadel upon the Ḳaṣr, it protected a royal palace consisting of a large number of chambers and galleries grouped around open courts. From this fact it is clear that a Babylonian citadel was not simply a fortress to be used by the garrison for the defence of the city as a whole: it was also a royal residence, into which the monarch and his court could shut themselves for safety should the outer wall of the city itself be penetrated. Even in times of peace the king dwelt there, and the royal stores and treasury, as well as the national armoury and arsenal, were housed in its innumerable magazines. In the case of the Southern Citadel of Babylon, on which excavations have now been continuously carried out for sixteen years, we shall see that it formed a veritable township in itself. It was a city within a city, a second Babylon in miniature.[30]

The Southern or chief Citadel was built on the mound now known as the Ḳaṣr, and within it Nebuchadnezzar erected his principal palace, partly over an earlier building of his father Nabopolassar. The palace and citadel occupy the old city-square or centre of Babylon, which is referred to in the inscriptions as the _irsit Babili,_ "the Bâbil place."[31] Though far smaller in extent than Nebuchadnezzar's citadel, we may conclude that the chief fortress of Babylon always stood upon this site, and the city may well have derived its name Bâb-ilî, "the Gate of the Gods," from the strategic position of its ancient fortress, commanding as it does, the main approach to E-sagila, the famous temple of the city-god.[32] The earliest ruins in Babylon, which date from the age of Hammurabi and the First Dynasty of West-Semitic kings, lie under the mound of Merkes[33] just to the east of E-sagila and the Tower of Babylon, proving that the first capital clustered about the shrine of the city-god. The streets in that quarter suffered but little change, and their main lines remained unaltered down through the Kassite period into Neo-Babylonian and later times.[34] It was natural that even in the earlier period the citadel should have been planted up-stream, to the north of city and temple, since the greatest danger of invasion was always from the north.

CONJECTURAL RESTORATION OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.

The view is reconstructed from the north, the conventional mound in the foreground covering the Central Citadel now partially excavated. The Sacred Road passes through the Ishtar Gate and along the east side of the palace; further to the east and within the fortifications is the small temple of Ninmakh. The innermost wall encloses the palace of Nebuchadnezzar with its four open courts; the façade of the Throne Room, with three entrances, is visible in the Great Court. The flat roofs of the palace are broken here and there by smaller courts or light-wells. Compare the ground-plan on p. 30, Fig. 6.

(After Andrae.)]

The outer city-wall, already described, dates only from the Neo-Babylonian period, when the earlier and smaller city expanded with the prosperity which followed the victories of Nabopolassar and his son. The eastern limits of that earlier city, at any rate toward the close of the Assyrian domination, did not extend beyond the inner wall, which was then the only line of defence and was directly connected with the main citadel. The course of the inner wall may still be traced for a length of seventeen hundred metres by the low ridge or embankment,[35] running approximately north and south, from a point north-east of the mound Homera.[36] It was a double fortification, consisting of two walls of crude or unburnt brick, with a space between of rather more than seven metres. The thicker of the walls, on the west, which is six and a half metres in breadth, has large towers built across it, projecting deeply on the outer side, and alternating with smaller towers placed lengthwise along it. The outer or eastern wall has smaller towers at regular intervals. Now along the north side of the main or Southern Citadel run a pair of very similar walls,[37] also of crude brick, and they are continued eastward of the citadel to a point where, in the Persian period, the Euphrates through a change of course destroyed all further trace of them.[38] We may confidently assume that in the time of Nebuchadnezzar[39] they were linked up with the inner city-wall to the north of Homeni and formed its continuation after it turned at right angles on its way towards the river-bank. This line of fortification is of considerable interest, as there is reason to believe it may represent the famous double-line of Babylon's defences, which is referred to again and again in the inscriptions.

PLAN OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.

A: East Court of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar. B: Central Court. C: Great Court. D: Private portion of palace built over earlier Palace of Nabopolassar. E: West extension of palace. F: Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar. G: Sacred Road, known as Aibur-shabû. H: Ishtar Gate. I: Continuation of Sacred Road with Lion Frieze. J: Temple of Ninmakh. K: Space between the two fortification-walls of crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl. L: Older moat-wall. M: Later moat-wall. N: Later fortification thrown out into the bed of the Euphrates. P: Southern Canal, probably part of the Libil-khegalla. R: Basin of canal. S: Persian building. T: Moat, formerly the left side of the Euphrates. V: River-side embankment of the Persian period, a: Gateway to East Court, b: Gateway to Central Court, c: Gateway to Great Court, d: Double Gateway to private part of palace, e, f: Temporary ramps used during construction of palace, g: Temporary wall of crude brick, h: Broad passage-way, leading northwards to Vaulted Building.

(After Koldewey, Reuther and Wetzel.)]

The two names the Babylonians gave these walls were suggested by their gratitude to and confidence in Marduk, the city-god, who for them was the "Bêl," or Lord, _par excellence._ To the greater of the two, the _dûru_ or inner wall, they gave the name _Imgur-Bêl,_ meaning "Bêl has been gracious"; while the _shaikhu,_ or outer one, they called _Nimitti-Bêl,_ that is, probably, "The foundation of Bêl," or "My foundation is Bêl."[40] The identification of at least one of the crude-brick walls near Homera with Nimitti-Bêl, has been definitely proved by several foundation-cylinders of Ashur-bani-pal, the famous Assyrian king who deposed his brother Shamash-shum-ukîn from the throne of Babylon and annexed the country as a province of Assyria.[41] On the cylinders he states that the walls Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl had fallen into ruins, and he records his restoration of the latter, within the foundation or structure of which the cylinders were originally immured. Unfortunately they were not found in place, but among the _débris_ in the space between the walls, so that it is not now certain from which wall they came. If they had been deposited in the thicker or inner wall, then Nimitti-Bêl must have been a double line of fortification, and both walls together must have borne the name; and in that case we must seek elsewhere for Imgur-Bêl. But it is equally possible that they came from the narrow or outer wall; and on this alternative Nimitti-Bêl may be the outer one and Imgur-Bêl the broader inner-wall with the widely projecting towers. It is true that only further excavation can settle the point; but meanwhile the fortifications on the Ḳaṣr have supplied further evidence which seems to support the latter view.

GROUND-PLAN OF QUAY-WALLS AND FORTIFICATION-WALLS IN THE N.W. CORNER OF THE S. CITADEL.

A: Sargon's quay-wall. B: Older moat-wall. C: Later moat-wall of Nebuchadnezzar. D: Intermediate wall. E: South fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl. F: North fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Nimitti-Bêl. G: North wall of the Southern Citadel. I: Ruins of building, possibly the quarters of the Captain of the Wall. J: Palace of Nabopolassar. K: West Extension of the Southern Citadel. L: Connecting wall. M: Later wall across channel with grid for water. N: Water, originally the left side of the Euphrates. P: Later fortification of Nebuchadnezzar in former bed of the Euphrates. 1-3: Nabopolassar's quay-walls. N.B. The quays and moat-walls are distinguished by dotting.

(After Koldewey.)]

The extensive alterations which took place in the old citadel's fortifications, especially during Nebuchadnezzar's long reign of forty-three years, led to the continual dismantling of earlier structures and the enlargement of the area enclosed upon the north and west. This is particularly apparent in its north-west corner. Here, at a considerable depth below the later fortification-walls, were found the remains of four earlier walls,[42] the discovery of which has thrown considerable light on the topography of this portion of Babylon. All four are ancient quay-walls, their northern and western faces sloping sharply inwards as they rise. Each represents a fresh rebuilding of the quay, as it was gradually extended to the north and west. Fortunately, stamped and inscribed bricks were employed in considerable quantities in their construction, so that it is possible to date the periods of rebuilding accurately.

The earliest of the quay-walls, which is also the earliest building yet recovered on the Ḳaṣr, is the most massive of the four,[43] and is strengthened at the angle with a projecting circular bastion. It is the work of Sargon of Assyria,[44] who states the object of the structure in a text inscribed upon several of its bricks. After reciting his own name and titles, he declares that it was his desire to rebuild Imgur-Bêl; that with this object he caused burnt-bricks to be fashioned, and built a quay-wall with pitch and bitumen in the depth of the water from beside the Ishtar Gate to the bank of the Euphrates; and he adds that he "founded Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl mountain-high upon it."[45] The two walls of Sargon, which he here definitely names as Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl, were probably of crude brick, and were, no doubt, demolished and replaced by the later structures of Nabopolassar's and Nebuchadnezzar's reigns. But they must have occupied approximately the same position as the two crude brick walls above the quay of Sargon,[46] which run from the old bank of the Euphrates to the Ishtar Gate, precisely the two points mentioned in Sargon's text. His evidence is therefore strongly in favour of identifying these later crude-brick walls, which we have already connected with the inner city-wall, as the direct successors of his Imgur-Bêl and his Nimitti-Bêl, and therefore as inheritors of the ancient names.

SECTION OF THE QUAY-WALLS AND FORTIFICATION-WALLS ALONG THE NORTH FRONT OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.

A: Sargon's quay-wall. B: Older moat-wall. O: Later moat-wall of Nebuchadnezzar. D: Intermediate wall. E: South fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl. F: North fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Nimitti-Bêl. G: North wall of Southern Citadel. H: Remains of older crude brick wall.

(After Andrae.)]

We find further confirmation of this view in one of the later quay-walls, which succeeded that of Sargon. The three narrow walls already referred to[47] were all the work of Nabopolassar, and represent three successive extensions of the quay westward into the bed of the stream, which in the inscriptions upon their bricks is given the name of Arakhtu.[48] But the texts make no mention of the city-walls. No inscriptions at all have been found in the structure of the next extension, represented by the wall B, which, like the latest quay-wall (C), is not rounded off in the earlier manner, but is strengthened at the corner with a massive rectangular bastion. It was in this latest and most substantial of all the quay-walls that further inscriptions were found referring to Imgur-Bêl. They prove that this wall was the work of Nebuchadnezzar, who refers in them to Nabopolassar's restoration of Imgur-Bêl and records that he raised its banks with bitumen and burnt-brick mountain-high. It is therefore clear that this was the quay-wall of Imgur Bêl, which it supported in the manner of Sargon's earlier structure. That the less important Nimitti-Bêl is not mentioned in these texts does not necessitate our placing it elsewhere, in view of Sargon's earlier reference.

We may therefore provisionally regard the two crude-brick walls along the Ḳaṣr's northern front[49] as a section of the famous defences of Babylon, and picture them as running eastward till they meet the inner city-wall by Homera. The point at which they extended westward across the Euphrates can, as yet, only be conjectured. But it is significant that the angle of the western walls, which may still be traced under mounds to the north of Sinjar village,[50] is approximately in line with the north front of the Ḳaṣr and the end of the inner wall by Homera. Including these western walls within our scheme, the earlier Babylon would have been rectangular in ground-plan, about a quarter of it only upon the right bank, and the portion east of the river forming approximately a square. The Babylon of the Kassite period and of the First Dynasty must have been smaller still, its area covering little more than the three principal mounds; and, though part of its street net-work has been recovered, no trace of its fortifications has apparently survived.

The evidence relating to the city's walls and fortifications has been summarized rather fully, as it has furnished the chief subject of controversy in connexion with the excavations. It should be added that the view suggested above is not shared by Dr. Koldewey, whose objections to the proposed identification of Imgur-Bêl rest on his interpretation of two phrases in a cylinder of Nabopolassar, which was found out of place in _débris_ close to the east wall of the Southern Citadel. In it Nabopolassar records his own restoration of Imgur-Bêl, which he tells us had fallen into decay, and he states that he "founded it in the primæval abyss," adding the words, "I caused Babylon to be enclosed with it towards the four winds."[51] From the reference to the abyss, Dr. Koldewey concludes that it had deep foundations, and must therefore have been constructed of burnt, not crude, brick; while from the second phrase he correctly infers that it must have formed a quadrilateral closed on all sides. But that, as we have seen, is precisely the ground-plan we obtain by including the remains of walls west of the river. And, in view of the well-known tendency to exaggeration in these Neo-Babylonian records, we should surely not credit any single metaphor with the accuracy of a modern architect's specification. If a single section of the wall had been furnished, during restoration, with a burnt-brick substructure, it would have been enough to justify the royal claim.

The manner in which the Euphrates was utilized for the defence and water-supply of the citadel has also been illustrated by the excavations. The discovery of Sargon's inscriptions proved that in his day the river flowed along the western face of his quay-wall;[52] while the inscriptions on bricks from the three successive quay-walls of Nabopolassar[53] state, in each case, that he used them to rebuild the wall of a channel he calls the "Arakhtu," using the name in precisely the same way as Sargon refers to the Euphrates. The simplest explanation is that in Nabopolassar's time the Arakhtu was the name for that section of the Euphrates which washed the western side of the citadel, and that its use in any case included the portion of the citadel-moat, or canal, along its northern face, which formed a basin opening directly upon the river.[54] The "Arakhtu" may thus have been a general term, not only for this basin, but for the whole water-front from the north-west corner of the citadel to some point on the left bank to the south of it. It may perhaps have been further extended to include the river frontage of the Tower of Babylon, since it was into the Arakhtu that Sennacherib cast the tower on his destruction of the city. Within this stretch of water, particularly along the northern quays, vessels and _keleks_ would have been moored which arrived down stream with supplies for the palace and the garrison. The Arakhtu, in fact, may well have been the name for the ancient harbour or dock of Babylon.

Some idea of the appearance of the quays may be gathered from the right-hand corner of the restoration in Fig. 5.[55] It is true that the outer quay-wall appears to have been built to replace the inner one, while in the illustration both are shown. But since the height of the citadel and of its walls was continually being raised, the arrangement there suggested is by no means impossible. But in the later part of his reign Nebuchadnezzar changed the aspect of the river-front entirely. To the west of the quay-walls, in the bed of the river, he threw out a massive fortification with immensely thick walls, from twenty to twenty-five metres in breadth.[56] It was constructed entirely of burnt-brick and bitumen, and, from his reference to it in an inscription from Sippar, it would seem that his object in building it was to prevent the formation of sandbanks in the river, which in the past may have caused the flooding of the left bank above E-Sagila.[57] A narrow channel[58] was left between it and the old quay, along which the river water continued to flow through gratings. This no doubt acted as an overflow for the old northern moat of the citadel, since the latter fed the supply-canal, which passed round the palace and may still be traced along its south side.[59] It is possible that the subsequent change in the course of the Euphrates may be traced in part to this huge river-fortification. Its massive structure suggests that it had to withstand considerable water-pressure, and it may well have increased any tendency of the stream to break away eastward. However that may be, it is certain that for a considerable time during the Persian and Seleucid periods it flowed round to the eastward of the Ḳaṣr, close under three sides of the citadel and rejoined its former bed to the north of Marduk's temple and the Tower of Babylon. Its course east of the Ishtar Gate is marked by a late embankment sloping outwards, which supported the thicker of the crude-brick walls at the point where they suddenly break off.[60] Beyond this embankment only mud and river sediment were found. The water-course to the south of the citadel is probably the point where the river turned again towards the channel it had deserted. A trench that was dug here showed that the present soil is formed of silt deposited by water, and beyond the remains of the earlier canal no trace of any building was recovered. This temporary change in the river's course, which the excavations have definitely proved, explains another puzzle presented by the classical tradition--the striking discrepancy between the actual position of the principal ruins of Babylon in relation to the river and their recorded position in the Persian period. Herodotus,[61] for example, places the fortress with the palace of the kings (that is, the Ḳaṣr), on the opposite bank to the sacred precinct of Zeus Belus (that is, E-temen-anki, the Tower of Babylon). But we have now obtained proof that they were separated at that time by the Euphrates, until the river returned to its former and present bed, probably before the close of the Seleucid period.

The greater part of the Southern Citadel is occupied by the enormous palace on which Nebuchadnezzar lavished his energies during so many years of his reign. On ascending the throne of Babylon, he found the ancient fortress a very different place to the huge structure he bequeathed to his successors. He had lived there in his father's life-time, but Nabopolassar had been content with a comparatively modest dwelling. And when his son, flushed with his victory over the hosts of Egypt, returned to Babylon to take the hands of Bêl, he began to plan a palace that should be worthy of the empire he had secured. Of the old palace of Nabopolassar, in which at first he was obliged to dwell, very little now remains. What is left of it constitutes the earliest building of which traces now exist within the palace area. Nebuchadnezzar describes it, before his own building operations, as extending from the Euphrates eastward to the Sacred Road; and the old palace-enclosure undoubtedly occupied that site. Traces of the old fortification-wall have been found below the east front of the later palace, and the arched doorway which gave access to its open court, afterwards filled up and built over by Nebuchadnezzar, has been found in a perfect state of preservation.[62]

The old palace itself[63] did not reach beyond the western side of Nebuchadnezzar's great court.[64] The upper structure, as we learn from the East India House Inscription,[65] was of crude brick, which was demolished for the later building. But Nabopolassar, following a custom which had survived unchanged from the time of Hammurabi, had placed his crude-brick walls upon burnt-brick foundations. These his son made use of, simply strengthening them before erecting his own walls upon them. Thus this section of the new palace retained the old ground-plan to a great extent unchanged. The strength and size of its walls are remarkable and may in part be explained by the crude-brick upper structure of the earlier building, which necessarily demanded a broader base for its walls.

When Nebuchadnezzar began building he dwelt in the old palace, while he strengthened the walls of its open court on the east and raised its level for the solid platform on which his own palace was to rise.[66] For a time the new and the old palace were connected by two ramps of unburnt-brick,[67] which were afterwards filled in below the later pavement of the great court; and we may picture the king ascending the ramps with his architect on his daily inspection of the work. As soon as the new palace on the east was ready he moved into it, and, having demolished the old one, he built up his own walls upon its foundations, and filled in the intermediate spaces with earth and rubble until he raised its pavement to the eastern level. Still later he built out a further extension[68] along its western side. In the account he has left us of the palace-building the king says: "I laid firm its foundation and raised it mountain-high with bitumen and burnt-brick. Mighty cedars I caused to be stretched out at length for its roofing. Door-leaves of cedar overlaid with copper, thresholds and sockets of bronze I placed in its doorways. Silver and gold and precious stones, all that can be imagined of costliness, splendour, wealth, riches, all that was highly esteemed, I heaped up within it, I stored up immense abundance of royal treasure therein."[69]

A good general idea of the palace ground-plan, in its final form, may be obtained from Fig. 6. The main entrance was in its eastern front, through a gate-way,[70] flanked on its outer side by towers, and known as the Bûb Bêlti, or "Lady Gate," no doubt from its proximity to the temple of the goddess Ninmakh.[71] The gate-house consists of an entrance hall, with rooms opening at the sides for the use of the palace-guard. The eastern part of the palace is built to the north and south of three great open courts,[72] separated from each other by gateways[73] very like that at the main entrance to the palace. It will be noticed that, unlike the arrangement of a European dwelling, the larger rooms are always placed on the south side of the court facing to the north, for in the sub-tropical climate of Babylonia the heat of the summer sun was not courted, and these chambers would have been in the shade throughout almost the whole of the day.

Some of the larger apartments, including possibly the chambers of the inner gateways, must have served as courts of justice, for from the Hammurabi period onward we know that the royal palace was the resort of litigants, whose appeals in the earlier period were settled by the king himself,[74] and later by the judges under his supervision. Every kind of commercial business was carried on within the palace precincts, and not only were regular lawsuits tried, but any transaction that required legal attestation was most conveniently carried through there. Proof of this may be seen in the fact that so many of the Neo-Babylonian contracts that have been recovered on the site of Babylon are dated from the Al-Bît-shar-Bâbili, "the City of the King of Babylon's dwelling," doubtless a general title for the citadel and palace-area. All government business was also transacted here, and we may provisionally assign to the higher ministers and officials of the court the great apartment and the adjoining dwellings on the south side of the Central Court of the palace.[75] For many of the more important officers in the king's service were doubtless housed on the premises; and to those of lower rank we may assign the similar but rather smaller dwellings, which flank the three courts on the north and the Entrance Court upon the south side as well. Even royal manufactories were carried on within the palace, to judge from the large number of alabaster jars, found beside their cylindrical cores, in one room in the south-west corner by the outer palace-wall.[76]

It will be seen from the ground-plan that these dwellings consist of rooms built around open courts or light-wells; most of them are separate dwellings, isolated from their neighbours, and having doors opening on to the greater courts or into passage-ways running up from them. No trace of any windows has been found within the buildings, and it is probable that they were very sparsely employed. But we must not conclude that they were never used, since no wall of the palace has been preserved for more than a few feet in height, and, for the greater part, their foundations only have survived. But there is no doubt that, like the modern houses of the country, all the dwellings, whether in palace or city, had flat roofs, which formed the natural sleeping-place for their inhabitants during the greater part of the year. Towards sunset, when the heat of the day was past, they would ascend to the house-tops to enjoy the evening breeze; during the day a window would have been merely a further inlet for the sun. The general appearance of the palace is no doubt accurately rendered in the sketch already given.[77]

PLAN OF THE THRONE ROOM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND PART OF THE PRIVATE PALACE.

C: Great Court. F: Throne Room, _a:_ Recess in back-wall for throne, _b-d:_ Entrances to Throne Room from Court, _e-g_: Entrances from side and back. 1-3: Open courts, surrounded by rooms for the royal service. 4, 5: Open courts in the south-east corner of the Private Palace. (After Koldewey.)]

The most interesting apartment within the palace is one that may be identified as Nebuchadnezzar's Throne Room. This is the room immediately to the south of the Great Court.[78] It is the largest chamber of the palace, and since the walls on the longer sides are six metres thick, far broader than those at the ends, it is possible that they supported a barrel-vaulting. It has three entrances from the court,[79] and in the back wall opposite the centre one is a broad niche, doubly recessed into the structure of the wall, where we may assume the royal throne once stood. During any elaborate court ceremony the king would thus have been visible upon his throne, not only to those within the chamber, but also from the central portion of the Great Court. It was in this portion of the palace that some traces of the later Babylonian methods of mural decoration were discovered. For, while the inner walls of the Throne Room were merely washed over with a plaster of white gypsum, the brickwork of the outer façade, which faced the court, was decorated with brightly-coloured enamels.

DESIGN IN ENAMELLED BRICK FROM THE FAÇADE OF THE THRONE ROOM

In the drawing light and dark blue are indicated by light and heavy horizontal shading; yellow by a dotted surface.]

Only fragments of the enamelled surface were discovered, but these sufficed to restore the scheme of decoration. A series of yellow columns with bright blue capitals, both edged with white borders, stand out against a dark blue ground. The capitals are the most striking feature of the composition. Each consists of two sets of double volutes, one above the other, and a white rosette with yellow centre comes partly into sight above them. Between each member is a bud in sheath, forming a trefoil, and linking the volutes of the capitals by means of light blue bands which fall in a shallow curve from either side of it. Still higher on the wall ran a frieze of double palmettes in similar colouring, between yellow line-borders, the centres of the latter picked out with lozenges coloured black and yellow, and black and white, alternately. The rich effect of this enamelled façade of the Throne Room was enhanced by the decoration of the court gateway, the surface of which was adorned in a like fashion with figures of lions. So too were the gateways of the other eastern courts, to judge from the fragments of enamel found there, but the rest of the court-walls were left undecorated or, perhaps, merely received a coat of plaster. The fact that the interior of the Throne Room, like the rest of the chambers of the palace, was without ornamentation of any sort favours the view that heat, and light with it, was deliberately excluded by the absence of windows in the walls.

The chambers behind the Throne Room, reached by two doorways in the back wall,[80] were evidently for the king's service, and are ranged around three open courts; and in the south-west corners of two of them, which lie immediately behind the Throne Room wall, are wells, their positions indicated on the plan by small open circles. The walls of each of these small chambers are carried down through the foundations to water-level, and the intermediate space is filled in around the wells with rubble-packing. This device was evidently adopted to secure an absolutely pure supply of water for the royal table. But the private part of the palace, occupied by the women and the rest of the royal household, was evidently further to the west, built over the earlier dwelling of Nabopolassar. It will be seen from the ground-plan that this is quite distinct from the eastern or official portion of the palace, from which it is separated by a substantial wall and passage-way running, with the Great Court, the whole width of the palace-area. The character of the gateway-building, which formed its chief entrance and opened on the Great Court, is also significant.[81] For the towers, flanking the gateways to the official courts, are here entirely absent, and the pathway passes through two successive apartments, the second smaller than the first and with a porters' service-room opening off it. The entrance for the king's own use was in the southern half of the passage-way, and lies immediately between the side entrance to the Throne Room[82] and another doorway in the passage leading to one of the small courts behind it.[83] In two of the chambers within the private palace, both opening on to Court 5, are two more circular wells, walled in for protection, and here too the foundations of each chamber are carried down to water-level and filled in with brick-rubble, as in the case of the wells behind the Throne Room.