and indeed for millenniums. Their legendary connection with the name of
Semiramis has largely contributed to this, although it was directly
denied by Diodorus. Also the expression “hanging” has no doubt
heightened their fame, although the terms κρεμαστός and _pensilis_
conveyed no such marvellous ideas to ancient scholars as they do to us.
_Pensilia_ are the balconies of the Romans, and were nothing out of the
common for them. The reason why the hanging gardens were ranked among
the seven wonders of the world was that they were laid out on the roof
of an occupied building.
XV
THE PRINCIPAL COURT (H)
[Illustration:
FIG. 63.—The central part of the Southern Citadel.
]
The gate leading to the Principal Court (Fig. 63) is considerably larger
than the two previous ones; it is more spacious and the walls are
stronger, and therefore must have been carried higher. Here also we find
the two side-chambers. In the northern one there are the foundations of
an ascending stairway, which led to an upper storey, or to the roof. It
is one of the very few examples of its kind to be found in Babylon, and
with the outside steps in the canal wall on the south-east of the Kasr,
at the well, and on the transverse wall of the Ishtar Gate, the ascent
to the north-eastern bastion of the Kasr affords evidence of the way in
which these stairways were constructed. The long narrow passages in the
temples may quite possibly have contained the staircases. In private
houses we never find similar passages, and yet we can feel certain that
during the long summer heat the people must have had some means of
access to the roof, that exceedingly delightful and important part of
the house. We can therefore only imagine that in private houses they
used some wooden contrivance, made in the simplest fashion (see Fig.
238). The villagers of to-day often use a palm tree with steps roughly
cut in it, which they lean against the wall. This total absence of
staircases bears on the question of whether or not the Babylonian house
consisted of many storeys. Herodotus (i. 180) speaks of houses of three
or four storeys. Such do not now exist, and the mud walls of the private
houses in the town are scarcely strong enough to support even one upper
storey. The burnt-brick walls of the houses in the Southern Citadel, or
at any rate many of them, could undoubtedly have carried several
storeys. We cannot at present decide the question, but we shall not be
far wrong if we assume that the ordinary house was on one floor. Certain
dwellings, on the contrary, may have had upper storeys, in which case
wooden steps may have formed the means of communication.
The Principal Court occupies an imposing site 55 metres broad by 60
metres long. Like the others, it was paved with tiles, and towards the
close of the Sassanide period it was used for burials. Endless shallow
coffins either of trough or slipper shape, made of terra-cotta, and
frequently in blue glaze, were deposited in the soil as low as the
earliest floor-level, and frequently one above another. The brick
robbers have left them displaced and smashed to pieces.
Exactly in the centre is a somewhat small basin for water. It has been
cut through the brick pavement, and may therefore date back only to the
Persian period and not to Nebuchadnezzar. An outflow channel led the
water into the drain of the western passage; there are no signs of an
inflow. The sides are constructed of upright bricks, and the inside is
washed over first with asphalt and then with gypsum mortar. Gypsum
decomposes in water, but only very slowly. When our Expedition House was
built at Assur, the necessary reservoirs for water were made with gypsum
mortar, and the gypsum wash on the walls, the roof, and balustrades of
our house at Babylon has already lasted perfectly for twelve years. The
basin corresponds with the indispensable “Hudeh” of modern Persian
houses, in which everything employed for eating and drinking, and much
besides, is washed.
To the north lies a house of two courts (28 and 29) and one of four
courts (30, 31, 32, and 33); the bureau that adjoins the first is
connected with it by a door, while the two bureaus in front of the
second house are only accessible from the court. In the north-east
corner two parallel passages lead northwards. In one are the entrances
to 28 and 29, in the other are those to the eastern houses. These open
separately on to the passage, but the three northern houses are also
connected with each other by doors, and it thus appears that they could
be used if necessary either as separate dwellings or as one large one.
This passage, like the one yet farther to the east, led to a door in the
Citadel wall. In order to separate the two entrances to the Principal
Court as completely as possible, the dividing wall is reinforced by an
additional block that projects into the court.
To the south lies the largest chamber of the Citadel, the throne-room of
the Babylonian kings. It is so clearly marked out for this purpose that
no reasonable doubt can be felt as to its having been used as their
principal audience chamber. If any one should desire to localise the
scene of Belshazzar’s eventful banquet, he can surely place it with
complete accuracy in this immense room. It is 17 metres broad and 52
metres long. The walls on the longest side are 6 metres thick,
considerably in excess of those at the ends, and lead us to suppose that
they supported a barrel-vaulting, of which, however, there is no proof.
A great central door and two equally important side doors open upon the
court. Immediately opposite the main door in the back wall there is a
doubly recessed niche in which doubtless the throne stood, so that the
king could be visible to those who stood in the court, an arrangement
similar to that of the Ninmach temple, where the temple statue could be
clearly seen from the court. The pavement does not consist in the usual
manner of a single layer of brick, but of at least six, which were laid
in asphalt and thus formed a homogeneous solid platform which rested on
a projecting ledge built out from the walls. As we have already seen
from the east gate, the walls of these chambers were washed over with
white gypsum.
The façade of the court was very strikingly decorated with richly
ornamented enamelled tiles (_M.D.O.-G._ No. 13). On a dark blue ground
are yellow columns with bright blue capitals, placed near together and
connected by a series of palmettos. The capitals with the bold curves of
their double volutes remind us of the forms long known to us in Cyprus
(Fig. 64). Above was a frieze of white double palmettos, bordered below
by a band of squares, alternately yellow, black, and white. The various
colours of the decoration were effectively heightened on the dark
background by means of white borders. This fantastic representation of a
pillared building, such as the king and his followers would naturally
have seen in their military expeditions, must have appeared strangely
foreign to the Babylonian countryman, who was unaccustomed to either
capitals or entablatures.
[Illustration:
FIG. 64.—DECORATION OF THE THRONE-ROOM.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 65.—Position marks on the enamelled bricks.
]
The technique is similar to that of the flat enamels of the Ishtar Gate;
each colour is outlined in black, and the position marks are also
employed here in the same manner. They can be better studied here than
elsewhere, for the greater number of the bricks were found in their
original connection. After the destruction of the wall by brick robbers
the outer coating fell towards the north, and we could take them up, one
piece after another, as though no accident had befallen them. The system
of signs can be seen best on the capitals (Fig. 65). Here the markings
consist of numerals combined with dots. They are marked on the upper
edge of the bricks with a poor, somewhat blackened, glaze. The signs
that distinguish the courses are in the centre, those for the lateral
arrangement are close to the vertical joints. Each of the latter signs
is a counterpart of the sign near the vertical joint of the brick
adjoining it. Of the central signs that mark the courses the top course
of the upper row of volutes has one stroke, the second has two, and so
on up to seven. The seven courses of the lower row of volutes are
numbered in the same way, but the groups of strokes are preceded by a
dot to distinguish them from those of the upper series. For the sequence
of the bricks one of the intermediate ornaments forms a single unit with
the capital adjoining it on the right. All the bricks that belong to the
same unit bear the same number of strokes. The counting runs from left
to right. The numerals are crossed by a transverse stroke, which, in
order to mark the direction of the signs, has a dot attached to it. This
direction line is parallel to the vertical joint on the central
ornament, and parallel with the front of the brick on the volutes. It is
quite probable that the separate groups were first provisionally built
together, at any rate for the purpose of drawing the design, which is
still visible in red colour under the enamel, so as to secure that
boldness and freedom of outline which delights us with its beauty at the
present time. But when once the process of enamelling began—the
transportation of the bricks, the drying, the burning, and all the
unavoidable processes that had to be carried through before the bricks
could be placed in the wall—it would be impossible to keep them apart.
The marks would then afford the only means of placing them correctly on
the walls, and rendering it easy to deliver them in groups to the
respective masons.
In order to close the joints completely the bricks are slightly
wedge-shaped. The joints between the courses are laid in mud over
asphalt, which, as we observe in other careful building, does not extend
to the front of the building but stops at a distance of half a brick,
thus avoiding any blotching of the face of the wall.
In addition to the black outline and the dark blue ground, the colours
employed are white, light blue, yellow, and red. The red now has
everywhere the appearance of green, but where this colour is thickened,
as for instance where drops have trickled down, a core of brilliant red
is found coated with green, which must be the result of a superficial
change of colour that has occurred during the course of ages. We have
also some large pieces of enamel from ancient breakages in which we can
observe this same fact. The green coating extends to a depth of 2 to 3
millimetres, which in the ordinary enamel on the brick would entirely
supersede the original red colouring. This is an important point,
because the manufacture of opaque red enamel has been attended with
considerable difficulty even in recent times, while transparent red
glaze is made with ease at the present time. Thus in forming a judgment
on the sense of colour of the ancient Babylonian it must not be
forgotten that this fine red was included in their scheme. We can well
imagine a red-haired, but not a green-haired lion (see above, p. 28).
Beside the decoration already described we find other designs which
belonged to a floral frieze. This was undoubtedly placed on the façade
of the throne-room, but nothing definite has so far been found to show
its exact position. It must always be remembered that an exhaustive
study of these bricks and of other similar objects found in Babylon
requires far more space than our Expedition House can afford; the things
must be spread out, and that cannot be done here. We have always to be
careful to pack away the finds as quickly as possible, and that renders
them inaccessible for any further comparison, however desirable it may
be. The conditions of our work are by no means easy, and in dealing with
small objects such as terra-cottas, cylinder seals, implements, ceramics
and the like, I have experienced serious and unavoidable difficulties.
As the purpose of the principal hall is unusual, so also the chambers
behind differ considerably from the usual arrangement, but they show
some similarity to the inner chambers near the great hall of the central
court. They are three lofty chambers or courts each provided with a
side-chamber on the south side, which can also be entered from the open
passage behind the wall of the Citadel. The side courts are connected
with the throne-room by an intermediate chamber, and with the side
corridors by another apartment, while they communicate with each other
through the central court 35. In each of the two chambers that abut on
the rear wall of the throne-room there is a circular walled well, and
each of these chambers is completely walled in from the floor down to
water-level with broken brick, asphalt, and mud. The wells in each case
lie in the south-west corner of the chamber. The object of this solid
walling-off of the wells must have been to secure absolutely pure water
for the use of the royal household. The river water would naturally be
well filtered by the earth through which it passed before reaching the
wells. A peculiarity of this country at the present time is the fine
distinction made between the various kinds of drinking water, as a
natural result of the climate. The people distinguish the various kinds
of water, such as sweet, salt, flat or brackish, much as we distinguish
our alcoholic drinks, and as we speak of light or heavy beer, so the
Oriental speaks of light or heavy water. The water of the Euphrates is
famed, and is considered lighter than the water of the Tigris. One of
the earlier governors of Bagdad drank Euphrates water exclusively, and
had it sent daily from Musseyib. Another travelled from Bagdad to
Constantinople with a large supply of Euphrates water stored in leather
bottles, just as a celebrated modern traveller drank nothing but
champagne during a long journey to Haïl in Central Arabia. Nowadays the
water in most of the wells on the town site of Babylon, as in many other
ruined sites, is brackish or salt and not good. I still do not
understand fully why this should be the case; it certainly was not so in
early times, otherwise it would be difficult to explain the number of
wells found in all the ruins, where the soil is now so salt that the
Arabs in early summer collect the upper crust of earth and from it
obtain salt for cooking and saltpetre for gunpowder. As a result of this
the ruins are extremely bare of vegetation, and stand out grey and
barren in contrast with the surrounding plain, which is green, at any
rate during the spring-tide, when there is some slight rainfall.
At a later period, apparently during Persian times, two pillars formed
of two roughly hewn palm stems were set up in court 36 to support a roof
constructed either half way or completely over the court. They stood on
the brick pavement, which here as in the adjoining chambers is composed
of tiles measuring 40 × 41 centimetres. The lower end of the pillars was
encased in a socket of brickwork covered with plaster (Fig. 66). The
interior of this base still retains the impressions of the palm stems,
the upper portion of which was also plastered. Strabo describes this
kind of pillar (xvi. 1, 5): “διὰ δὲ τὴν τῆς ὕλης σπάνιν ἐκ φοινικίνων
ξύλων αἱ οἰκοδομαὶ συντελοῦνται καὶ δοκοῖς καὶ στύλοις· περὶ δὲ τοὺς
στύλους στρέφοντες ἐκ τῆς καλάμης σχοινία περιτιθέασιν, εἶτ’
ἐπαλείφοντες χρώμασι καταγράφουσι, τὰς δὲ θύρας ἀσφάλτῳ.” Nothing now
remains of the reed rope that was twisted round the palm stems, but it
is fairly certain that the stems were plastered over.
[Illustration:
FIG. 66.—Bases of late columns in court 36, Southern Citadel.
]
The rear wall of the group of chambers behind the throne-room is toothed
in a peculiar fashion. Since the wall joins the building at an oblique
angle the series of rooms must either have been oblique, or, if the
architects insisted on making them rectangular, the inner face of the
wall could not have been parallel with the outer face. The latter could
only have been effected by inserting wedge-shaped portions in the single
brick courses, which would have imperilled the cohesion of the bricks
and would have been very clumsy workmanship. If, on the contrary, the
wall were built in retreating steps, the inner chambers could be
rectangular and the rows of bricks laid straight, thus ensuring good
bonding of the wall. This very characteristic feature of the outside of
the building completely dominated the whole of the secular Babylonian
architecture of the later period (cf. Fig. 156). All the streets of the
town excavated by us in Merkes show these walls faced with remarkable
one-sided projections, a method which was still adhered to in the later
Graeco-Parthian period, when so much building was done with broken
brick, although it was not then justified by technical considerations.
It must not, therefore, be regarded as a mere requirement of the
workmen, but as a model arising from the technique of an early art,
unusual but very characteristic.
In the houses 28, 29, 30, a large chamber is interposed between the
court and the usual principal room lying to the south of it. This
additional chamber is a hall that opens with a wide arch on to the
court. This must have been a very pleasant room in summer, for the
entrance lies all day in shadow. These halls opening with wide arches
into the court played a prominent part in Parthian and Sassanide times
in the ground-plans of Ktesiphon, Hatra, Assur and other towns of that
period, especially in the palaces; and as _liwan_ they now play an
important part in modern oriental architecture. Visitors to Mossul,
Aleppo, and many other cities have a vivid recollection of them.
Here in Babylon the idea shows itself tentatively and timidly. The
houses 13, 14, and 16 have similar rooms. In 25, 26, 27, the entrance
hall opens in _liwan_ fashion on to the court. We can here observe the
uncertainty that attends a new idea, which only after the course of
centuries, and not without reiterated fertilisation from the west, has
at last emerged into glorious fruition.
In the north-west corner of the Principal Court a broad passage guarded
by a series of three arched doorways leads to a gate in the city wall.
Here the eastern portion of the Citadel wall, with its closely set
towers, adjoins the western portion, of which only the foundations
remain which show no traces of towers. In the passage is a large drain,
roofed over with corbelled brick courses, which carried off the surface
water from the Principal Court through the door in the wall past the
palace and then farther west to the Euphrates. The same drain also
branched off to the south, down through the southern wall of the
Citadel, where, as the wall was already in existence, an outlet was cut
for it. Thus it had a fall to the north and another to the south.
[Illustration:
FIG. 67.—Ramps between the Nebuchadnezzar and Nabopolassar Palaces.
]
The entire west front of the Principal Court was occupied by the façade
of the earliest part of the palace, which extended from north to south,
the building named by us the Nabopolassar Palace. This palace on its
older and lower level was still in use when the newer eastern portion on
its higher level was completed. In order, however, not to render
communication between the two buildings unnecessarily difficult, the
following method was adopted: the Principal Court was shut off on the
west by a mud wall, which left an intermediate space between it and the
old palace, of the same breadth as the northern passage, and a second
one lying at the same level as the old palace. A wide doorway, which
later was narrowed, led through the mud wall. Ramps led up to the higher
levels (Fig. 67). At first they were constructed in the shape of shallow
funnels which led upwards from the doorways in all directions. With the
first relaying of the pavement, however, they were ingeniously enclosed
on both sides with walls of mud brick. Finally, the old palace itself
was raised to the same level as the later one, the ramps were filled up,
and overlaid with fine large tiles bearing Nebuchadnezzar’s stamp on the
side. As a consequence of this the two ramps with their ancient pavement
of roughened limestone flags are in a state of perfect preservation. The
mud wall still remained and was only demolished on a further raising of
the pavement. This last pavement, which again had the usual bricks with
Nebuchadnezzar’s stamps, is almost destroyed owing to its later use as a
burial-place.
Such is the palace which Nebuchadnezzar in the Grotefend cylinder
(_K.B._ iii. 2, p. 39, col. 3 l. 27) specially designates as a palace
intended both for government and for administration, in these words: “In
those days I built the palace, the seat of my kingdom, the bond of the
vast assemblage of all mankind, the dwelling-place of joy and gladness,
where I ... the gifts, in Babylon anew, laid its foundations on Earth’s
wide breast with bitumen and bricks, mighty trunks of cedars I brought
from Lebanon, the bright forest, for its roofing, I caused it to be
surrounded with a mighty wall of bitumen and brick, the royal command,
the lordly injunction I caused to go forth from it” (trans. by Winckler
and Delitzsch).
XVI
THE PALACE OF NABOPOLASSAR
So far we have traced the eastern, official portion of the palace, which
is quite distinct from the private part on the western side of the
Principal Court. Here the lowest part represents the earliest palace of
those we can recognise on the Kasr. We have named this the palace of
Nabopolassar, without, however, having found written authority for it on
the site itself. Our grounds for the hypothesis are as follows. In the
great _Steinplatten_ inscription, 7, 34, Nebuchadnezzar says: “In Babil,
my favourite city, that I love, was the palace, the house the marvel of
mankind, the centre of the land, the shining residence, the dwelling of
Majesty, upon the Babil place in Babil, from Imgur-bel to the eastern
canal Libil-ḫigalla, from the bank of the Euphrates to Aiburšabû, which
Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, my father, my begetter, built of crude
bricks and dwelt in it—in consequence of high waters its foundations had
become weak, and owing to the filling up of the street of Babil the
gateways of that palace had become too low. I tore down its walls of
dried brick, and laid its corner-stone bare and reached the depth of the
waters. Facing the water I laid its foundation firmly, and raised it
mountain high with bitumen and burnt brick. Mighty cedars I caused to be
laid down 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
within it” (trans. by Delitzsch). Nebuchadnezzar undoubtedly speaks here
of the whole Southern Citadel. We need not infer from this, however,
that the palace of Nabopolassar was of the same extent, for the ancient
kings were not too exact with regard to such statements (cf. the
inscription of Neriglissar).
The walls of mud brick of which the ancient palace consisted can of
course no longer be found, as Nebuchadnezzar states that he destroyed
them, but the foundations remain, which he improved and strengthened,
and which therefore must have been built of burnt brick and not of crude
brick. This method adopted by Nabopolassar of building a wall of crude
brick on a foundation of burnt brick is actually seen on the north-west
corner of his Arachtu wall, and appears also in the houses in Merkes
that date from the time of Hammurabi. It is my opinion that these burnt
brick foundations of Nabopolassar still exist on the western part of the
Southern Citadel, and if so Nebuchadnezzar made use of them without any
alteration in laying out his new building.