the great castle of Nebuchadnezzar that he built for a palace,
completing the work of his father, Nabopolassar. The modern name Kasr
thus expresses the purpose for which it was built. By Greek historians
it was called the Acropolis, by Romans the Arx. In area it is three or
four times as large as Babil, but it is not so high, and when observed
from that hill the greater part is hidden by palms. This Acropolis,
built on what is called the _Irsit Babylon_ (_Steinplatten_ inscription,
col. 7 l. 40), the piazza or town square of Babylon, is actually the
original Babylon, the _Bab-Ilani_, the Gate of the Gods. It commanded
the approach to the greatest and most renowned sanctuary of Babylonia,
the temple of Marduk called Esagila. This lies somewhat farther to the
south, buried 20 metres deep under the great hill, the third of the
three great mounds of Babylon, Amran Ibn Ali, a name acquired from the
sanctuary which is upon it, the tomb of Amran the son of Ali. It is 25
metres high, the highest of all the mounds, and owes this to the fact
that after all the other sites were abandoned it was occupied for
habitation right up to the Middle Ages, under Arab rule. Close by to the
north lies the rectangular ruin of the tower of Babylon, E-temen-an-ki,
on a small plain called Sachn, that represents its sacred precincts. Due
east of the Kasr a smaller but unmistakably higher mound rises from the
plain, called from its red colour Homera. It conceals no buildings, but
from top to bottom it consists of brick fragments. We shall return to it
later. Close by, almost due north and south, extends the low ridge of
ruins of the inner city wall that encircled the inner portion of the
city in a line not yet fully traced. Between Homera and Amran, as well
as to the south of the latter, and between the Kasr and Babil, we see
the plain broken by a number of low mounds distributed in groups. Here
clustered the dwellings of the citizens of Babylon, and the recollection
of them has so far survived to the present day that one of these groups
south-east of the Kasr is called by the Arabs Merkes, the city or centre
of the dwellings. It is here that the dwellings and streets of the city
of the time of the Persian kings, and as far back as that of the
earliest Babylonian kings, have survived in the mass of ruins.
Externally these remains present the appearance of mountainous country
in miniature; heights, summits, ravines, and tablelands are all here. At
Merkes there is a sharp hill visible from a distance, due to an
excavation previous to our expedition when the rubbish dug out was
collected there. There are also public buildings buried in the ruins.
Thus between Homera and Merkes there is a Greek temple, on Merkes itself
is a temple, and there are two in the so-called Ishin aswad, the
district south-east of Amran.
Where there are no mounds, husbandry is carried on to some extent. In
the eastern corner, in the angle of the outer wall, the overflow of
water collects in a lake during the period of irrigation. But even in
this low quarter of the city there were once dwellings, which the course
of centuries has covered with the enveloping shroud of the shifting and
levelling sands.
IV
THE EUPHRATES AND ITS COURSE
Although the Euphrates lies for the greater part of the year shrunken in
its arid bed (Fig. 7), yet at the commencement of our expedition its
full flood covered the entire bed from 100 to 200 metres wide (Fig. 8).
In comparison with its boisterous relative the Tigris, it appears very
sluggish, but it entirely fulfils its mission as an alluvial river. At
each bend it removes the superfluous matter from one bank to deposit it
as a valuable asset on the other bank lower down, and by this assiduous
and steady work it gradually alters its course. As far back as the time
of Nebuchadnezzar its general direction was from north to south, but not
precisely as to-day. Its course took it close by Babil, which commanded
its entrance into the city, and it certainly washed the west front of
the Kasr exactly where the village of Kweiresh stands to-day. From here
we can trace its ancient course in the long, shallow depression that
runs close under Amran. Here we have found the stone bridge mentioned by
Greek authors as spanning the river. The Kasr lay then, as now, on the
left bank of the Euphrates, but there was a period under the Persian and
Greek kings when it lay on the right bank, and its north, east, and
south sides were more or less washed by those waters.
It is easy to understand that the continuous shifting of the river must
have altered both its bed and its level. To-day, when very little water
comes into the river, ground water is reached 1 or 2 metres lower than
10 years ago, when it was at about the same level as in the time of
Nebuchadnezzar, but it must have been considerably lower under the first
kings of Babylon, when the houses in Merkes were built, as these now
stand below water-level.
[Illustration:
FIG. 7.—The Euphrates in 1911.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 8.—The Euphrates, seen looking north from the Expedition House in
1907.
]
These variations are comparatively trifling. There are more important
ones arising from other causes. As the river-bed rises, the banks also
rise. This is brought about by the more luxuriant vegetation and the
activity of the husbandmen in the neighbourhood of the banks, as well as
by an occasional overflow, when naturally the largest share of sediment
is deposited near the river. Thus the river flows over what may be
termed an artificially raised bed between two raised banks; the surface
of the water is actually higher than the plain beyond the banks, a
difference which the unaided eye can scarcely detect as it deals with a
rise of only a few metres over an extent of several hundred. At a
specially high flood, however, or owing to carelessness in dealing with
the canals, the river bursts its banks, rushes out over the lower plain,
and, unhindered by any obstacles, makes its way lower down into its
ancient bed. This happened in modern times in Musseyib, when the
Euphrates left its ancient bed, from Musseyib to Samaua, and transferred
itself to the western Hindiyeh branch. It appears to have flowed
appreciably more to the west in the neighbourhood of Divaniyeh in
ancient times. According to a plan of the city found on the spot, Nippur
seems to have lain on the Euphrates. Fara also, the ancient Shuruppak,
where the Babylonian Noah built his ark, and which we have excavated, is
represented on the border of the river, though it now lies 12 hours from
Divaniyeh. These great shiftings of the river must have altered the
geographical and topographical aspect of the country to an extraordinary
degree in the course of hundreds and thousands of years. When we attempt
to discover the reason for selecting a particular site for an ancient
town we are confronted by the difficulty of not knowing where the
ancient canals lay. The ruined canals of to-day go back, perhaps without
exception, to the Middle Ages of Arab rule. The great “Habl Ibrahim” is
on the whole no older than this. Whether an ancient canal of similar
extent ran in its immediate neighbourhood we do not know; there are no
remains of one. Certain ancient watercourses, as those at Nippur or
Fara, can no longer be recognised on the surface. The river bank at Fara
was first brought to light by excavation.
The walk from Babil to Kasr along the river bank takes one entirely
among characteristic Babylonian scenery. Gardens, palms, and fields are
sometimes all grouped together, forming a scene of rich luxuriance. It
is, however, no more than a strip about 600 metres wide. For the first
year after their planting the palms require regular watering, after that
they grow of themselves and the roots of a fully grown tree are supposed
to reach ground water. Gardens and fields must be watered, since we are
in the almost rainless subtropical zone, and have scarcely 7 centimetres
of downfall in the whole year. The canals are not directly available for
the irrigation of the river banks as the level of the water rarely rises
to their height. Here artificial elevators, the _djird_, are required. A
huge leather bag is raised to the top of a short incline of about 30
grades by an ox, where its funnel end, closed during the ascent by a
cord at the top, automatically empties itself into the irrigating
channel. The cord on which the leather bag is suspended works over a
cylinder supported on two projecting palm trees laid horizontally. Its
rotation produces a resounding noise which penetrates the solemn
stillness of the palm grove. Each djird possesses a characteristic
melody of its own, to which the Arab attendant adapts his own song.
These djirds are always under the shade of a mulberry tree, which is
often of gigantic size (Fig. 9). The _na’ura_, the water-wheel so common
on the upper Euphrates, is never used here as the stream is not
sufficiently powerful. The _dolab_, a chain pump driven by a whim, is
occasionally used, and the motor pump has been recently introduced by
certain up-to-date farmers.
It is clear that this continual watering, together with the shifting of
the river and the flooding of the land, must raise the level of the
ground, but it is difficult to estimate to what extent. Our only
opportunity of observing it is among ruins, and there the process of
elevation is, of course, far more rapid owing to the continual
demolition of the buildings. In historical times, which we may here
reckon as beginning with the invention of writing somewhere in the
fourth millennium B.C., the measurable rise of the land has certainly
been only slight. With regard to the totally unknown period of the
prehistoric culture, it may safely be affirmed that the entire level of
the land probably rose many metres.
[Illustration:
FIG. 9.—A djird, opposite Kweiresh.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 10.—Arab at work on a canal, in the neighbourhood of Babylon.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 11.—The hooked plough in Babylon.
]
The entire method of irrigation, particularly that of the djird, bears a
distinctly ancient character, it cannot have changed much since the time
of Nebuchadnezzar; neither can the fashion in which the people divide
their land by low embankments into rectangles and then lay them under
water by alternately piercing and closing up the trenches (Fig. 10); the
primitive hooked plough (Fig. 11) and the trampling in of corn by
animals must be equally ancient. All these seem to carry one back many
thousands of years.
At the bend of the Euphrates, between Babil and Kasr, lie the ruins of
the former village of Kweiresh, whose population migrated elsewhere a
hundred years ago. The walls of mud brick still overtop the heaps of
debris.
[Illustration:
FIG. 12.—Doorway of the Expedition House in Kweiresh.
]
The modern village of Kweiresh lies close to the Kasr, to which we must
now turn our attention. The most northerly house of Kweiresh is the
headquarters of our expedition (Fig. 12), called by the Arabs “Kasr
abiad.”
V
THE KASR. THE ASCENT AND PROCESSION STREET
[Illustration:
FIG. 13.—Plan of the Kasr.
]
The Kasr presents so many different aspects that it is not easy to give
a clear representation of it (Fig. 13). We will first traverse the whole
of it and try to give some account of what is to be seen there, before
classing together the buildings of different periods. Almost all that is
visible at a first glance is of the time of Nebuchadnezzar, who
throughout his reign of 43 years must have been unremitting in his work
of building and extending his castle.
The ascent was from the north in the north-east corner. All uncertainty
on this point has been removed by our recent excavations. Here we had to
uncover walls of great extent and deeply buried, and discover their
connection with each other. To do this, almost the whole of our men were
set to work on the site. We regularly employ from 200 to 250 men,
divided into gangs. The leader breaks up the ground with a pickaxe, and
16 men carry away the earth in baskets which are filled by three men
with broad axes. This is the usual method, which is necessarily varied
according to circumstances. The leader receives 5 piastres daily, the
basket-fillers 4, and the carriers 3, as wages. At the diggings we adopt
various methods according to the nature of the site and the object aimed
at.
Here the workmen descend abreast in a broad line down a slanting incline
to the prescribed verge. Having reached it, they draw back to a distance
of 5 metres and recommence work. In this way sloping layers of earth are
successively peeled off and the walls gradually emerge. By means of a
field railway the earth is removed some distance to a site which
provisionally we decide to be unimportant. When one of these slopes
reaches the lowest level, which is generally the water-level, the
workmen face in the opposite direction and remove the remainder in a
similar fashion, only leaving a portion of the slope on the edge of each
excavation available for transport.
At this point the ends of two parallel walls came to light running
south, which we shall describe later with the fortification walls.
Between them is a broad street or roadway, which leads direct to the
Ishtar Gate, made by Nebuchadnezzar as a processional road for the God
Marduk, to whose temple of Esagila it eventually leads. It still
possesses the brick pavement covered with asphalt which formed a
substratum for the immense flagged pavement. The central part was laid
with mighty flags of limestone measuring 1.05 metres each way, and the
sides with slabs of red breccia veined with white, 66 centimetres
square. The bevelled edges of the joints were filled in with asphalt. On
the edges of each slab (Fig. 14), which, of course, were not visible,
was an inscription, “Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, son of
Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I. The Babel Street I paved with
blocks of shadu stone for the procession of the great Lord Marduk.
Marduk, Lord, grant eternal life.” On the flags of breccia the word
_Turminabanda_, breccia, has been substituted for _Shadu_, mountain. The
fine hard limestone may have been brought from the neighbourhood of Hit
or Anah, where a similar stone is quarried, and transport by river would
present little difficulty; of the provenance of the turminabanda I have
not been able to acquire any knowledge. The great white paving-stones
give the impression of being intended for wheeled traffic, but those
that are still _in situ_ do not show the slightest traces of being used
for any such purpose, they are merely polished and slippery with use.
[Illustration:
FIG. 14.—Paving block of the Procession Street.
]
The Kasr roadway lies high, 12.5 metres above zero,[2] and slopes gently
upwards from the north to the Ishtar Gateway. A later restoration,
possibly of the Persian (?) period in brick, rendered it horizontal.
Before the time of Nebuchadnezzar it was considerably lower, but as he
placed the entire palace on a level higher than that of its predecessor,
he was forced also to raise the roadway. In consequence of this we can
to-day enjoy the glorious view over the whole city as far as the outer
walls. It is clearly of this work of his that Nebuchadnezzar speaks in
his great _Steinplatten_ inscription (col. 5): “From Dul-azag, the place
of the decider of fates, the Chamber of Fate, as far as Aibur-shabu, the
road of Babylon, opposite the gateway of Beltis, he (Nabopolassar) had
adorned the way of the procession of the great lord Marduk with
turminabanda stones. Aibur-shabu, the roadway of Babylon, I filled up
with a high filling for the procession of the great lord Marduk, and
with turminabanda stone and with shadu stone I made Aibur-shabu, from
the Illu Gate to the Ishtar-sakipat-tebisha, fit for the procession of
his godhead. I connected it together with the portions that my father
had built and made the road glorious” (trans. by H. Winckler).
Ishtar-sakipat-tebisha is the Ishtar Gate, and from this we find that
the inscription does not refer to the whole of the Kasr Street, but only
to part of it, either that which adjoined the Ishtar Gate on the north
or on the south.
Footnote 2:
See p. 167.
The fine view now obtainable from the street of Kasr was certainly not
visible in antiquity, for the roadway was bordered on both sides with
high defensive walls. They were 7 metres thick and formed the junction
between the northern advanced outworks and the earlier defences, of
which the Ishtar Gateway is part. They guarded the approach to the gate.
Manned by the defenders, the road was a real pathway of death to the foe
who should attempt it. The impression of peril and horror was heightened
for the enemy, and also for peaceful travellers, by the impressive
decoration of long rows of lions advancing one behind the other with
which the walls were adorned in low relief and with brilliant enamels.
The discovery of these enamelled bricks formed one of the motives for
choosing Babylon as a site for excavation. As early as June 1887 I came
across brightly coloured fragments lying on the ground on the east side
of the Kasr. In December 1897 I collected some of these and brought them
to Berlin, where the then Director of the Royal Museums, Richard Schöne,
recognised their significance. The digging commenced on March 26, 1899,
with a transverse cut through the east front of the Kasr (Fig. 15). The
finely coloured fragments made their appearance in great numbers, soon
followed by the discovery of the eastern of the two parallel walls, the
pavement of the processional roadway, and the western wall, which
supplied us with the necessary orientation for further excavations.
[Illustration:
FIG. 15.—Beginning of the excavations on March 26, 1899, with the
pavement of the Procession Street on the east side of the Kasr.
]
The tiles represented lions advancing to right or to left (Fig. 16)
according to whether they were on the eastern or the western wall. Some
of them were white with yellow manes, and others yellow with red manes,
of which the red has now changed to green (see p. 106) owing to
decomposition. The ground is either light or dark blue, the faces,
whether seen from the left or the right, are all alike, as they have
been cast in a mould. None have been found _in situ_. The walls were
plundered for brick, but they were not so completely destroyed as to
prevent our observing that they were provided with towers that projected
slightly and were obviously placed at distances apart equal to their
breadth. Black and white lines in flat enamel on the edges of the towers
divided the face of the two walls into panels, defining the divisions
made by the towers in the two long friezes of 180 metres, the plinth was
decorated with rows of broad-leaved rosettes. As the lions are about 2
metres long, it is possible that each division contained two lions. That
would give 60 lions at each side, a total of 120 that agrees well with
the number of fragments found.
We must now consider the reliefs and their colouring. For the reliefs a
working model must first have been obtained of which the several parts
could be used for making the mould. The most natural method would be to
build a temporary wall the size of one of these lions with bricks of a
plastic clay, and with a strong mortar compounded with sand, on which
the relief could be modelled. The jointing was carefully considered, for
it is so arranged as not to cut through the figures too obviously, and
each brick bears a considerable share of the relief. The joints serve an
actual purpose in regulating the proportions, and take the place of the
squaring lines with which Egyptian artists prepared their work.
[Illustration:
FIG. 16.—THE LION OF THE PROCESSION STREET.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 17.—Cross-section of a lion relief (B) and of an Assyrian relief
(A).
]
With the help of these models, moulds could be made for each separate
brick. They were probably of burnt pottery similar to the moulds made
for the abundant terra-cottas of Babylonia. The mould would form one
side of the frame in which the brick was struck, and, according to the
regular method of bonding, a course of whole bricks (33 × 33
centimetres) would be followed by a course of half bricks (33 × 16½).
Thus the ground of the reliefs and the wall surface were actually
identical, and there is not even a projecting base on which the paws of
the great beasts might appear to rest, as would be the case with stone
reliefs. This is art in clay, a specialised art, distinguished from all
other kinds of relief. The edges of the figures do not project more or
less squarely as they do in Assyrian alabaster reliefs (Fig. 17 A), but
in an obtuse angle (Fig. 17 B). Also there are no even upper surfaces as
there are on Assyrian stone carvings. Both peculiarities would
considerably facilitate the withdrawal of the tile from the mould.
The same conception of art influenced the marvellous, highly developed,
glyptic art of Babylonia. The style of the gem reliefs during the time
of Hammurabi was also transferred to stone, while the older Babylonian
stone reliefs distinctly show their direct derivation from the previous
flat bas-reliefs, to which Assyrian art of the later period still
adhered. Previous to our excavations no example of the plastic art of
the time of Nebuchadnezzar was known.
The brick when moulded and before it was enamelled was burnt like any
ordinary brick; the contours were then drawn on it with black lines of a
readily fusible vitreous composition, leaving clearly marked fields.
These were filled with liquid coloured enamels, the whole dried and then
fused, this time apparently in a gentler fire. As the black lines had
the same fusing-point as the coloured portions they often mixed with the
colours themselves, thus giving the work that marvellous and harmonious
brilliancy and life which we admire to-day. With the Persian enamels
which we shall meet with in connection with the Persian buildings these
black lines have a higher melting-point and therefore remain distinct
and project above the coloured enamels after the firing.
The bricks had then to be arranged according to the design. In order to
facilitate this and to ensure an accurate distribution of them on the
building site, the bricks were marked on the upper side in rough glaze
with a series of simple signs and numerals. The sign on the side of a
brick and on that which was to be placed next it are identical. We shall
learn more of the system in the Southern Citadel, where it was employed
in the enamelled decorations of the great court.
A complete study of these details could not be made in Babylon as we
were cramped for space and could not spread out the pieces. The chemical
preservation of them was carried out in Berlin with great care under the
able direction of Professor Rathgen. The antiquities from the ruined
sites, more especially the pottery, were completely permeated with
salts, saltpetre, and the like. These materials, owing to long exposure
to air, had formed hard crystals on the surface, which had to be removed
by long-continued soaking. Here in Babylon also we numbered each piece
so that we could be certain at what part of the Processional Street each
fragment had been found. The transverse cut in the wall _u_ 13 of the
plan of Kasr (Fig. 13) gives an excellent insight into the method of
construction. Over every course of brick is a thin layer of asphalt, and
above this an equally thin layer of mud and then another course of
bricks. The joints of the course, which are from 1 to 1½ centimetres
thick, are also formed of asphalt and mud. In every fifth course a
matting made of reeds, the stalks of which have been split and rendered
flexible by beating, is substituted for the mud. The matting itself has
rotted, but the impression left on the asphalt is still perfectly fresh
and recognisable. In appearance it corresponds exactly with the ordinary
matting in use in the neighbourhood to-day.
A determined and very remarkable effort was obviously made to separate
the courses, to prevent their adhering to each other, overlaid as they
were with asphalt. This separation occurs in other parts of the city
effected by reed straw instead of mud. Only in some few detached
instances were the bricks laid immediately on the bitumen, where they
fitted together as firmly as a rock, as in the wall 17 metres thick
which in _k_ 13 runs through the great Principal Citadel, in the
southern strongest part of the Ishtar Gateway, and also in the postament
of the cella in the temple of Borsippa. We may add that asphalt and mud,
or asphalt and reed straw are regularly used for joints throughout the
period of the Babylonian kings. Only in his latest buildings, the Kasr,
the Principal Citadel, and Babil, did Nebuchadnezzar change to lime
mortar, while Nabonidus for his Euphrates wall turned once more to
asphalt. The later builders, Persians, Greeks, and Parthians, employed
mud for mortar.
The asphalt mortar in the great defensive walls of Babylon and the
inserted mats are mentioned by Herodotus (i. 179): he records that after
every 30 courses of bricks a plaited mat was inserted. So large a number
has not yet been observed by us. The lowest number is 5, the highest 13.
In the Babylonian, inscriptions on buildings, especially on those of
Nebuchadnezzar, asphalt is very often mentioned in connection with burnt
brick, but never mud, lime, or reeds.
VI
THE ISHTAR GATE