elbows, laying her hands on her breasts. Those that are entirely early
Babylonian are wearing a necklace, the Graeco-Parthian examples have in
addition a diadem and ear-rings (Figs. 208–210).
[Illustration:
FIG. 205.—Woman and child, Graeco-Parthian style.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 206.—Woman and child, Graeco-Parthian style.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 207.—Seated woman and child.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 208. Woman with hands supporting breasts.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 209. Woman with hands supporting breasts.
]
5. By far the most common type is that of a nude woman with arms hanging
down, perhaps a second form of Gula (cf. p. 234). She is usually without
ornaments, her hair and figure are similar to the others (Fig. 211).
6. These five female deities are at present only counterbalanced by
three male types, at least so far as moulded terra-cottas are concerned.
The first is a standing bearded man clothed in a long flounced garment,
who holds a small vase to his breast with both hands. We have already
attempted (p. 234) to identify him with Ninib. He is distinguished from
Anu, who also holds a circular vessel with both hands, by the
overflowing water that is pouring out of the vessel held by the latter.
Of Anu we have in addition to seals a terra-cotta finely modelled by
hand, with a great horned hat (Fig. 212).
7. The second male type is less common. The hands are folded on the
breast like Ninmach, and the flounced garment and arrangement of the
hair are exactly the same as No. 6. It is possible that we may find it
surviving in a rare Parthian type (Figs. 213, 214).
[Illustration:
FIG. 210.—Woman with hands supporting breasts, Graeco-Parthian style.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 211.—Woman with arms hanging down.
]
8. The only seated divinity is represented as a man with an unusually
long beard, wearing a flounced garment, and holding some object in his
left hand which it has not been possible to identify from the few
specimens found; the right hand rests on the right knee (Fig. 215). The
temple statue of Marduk in Esagila, according to Herodotus (i. 183), was
also depicted as sitting, a resemblance with this type which can hardly
be regarded as merely accidental.
[Illustration:
FIG. 212.—Male figure with goblet (Anu?).
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 213.—Man with folded hands.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 214.—Man with folded hands, Parthian style.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 215.—Bearded male figure, seated (Marduk?).
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 216.—Man with flower in his hand.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 217.—Woman with flower in her hand.
]
9. Of the Parthian period there are numerous examples of a standing man
with a flower in the right hand, which is laid on the breast; the left
hand is hanging down and holds a wreath (?). He is clothed in a sleeved
garment that reaches to the knees, and wears trousers; in addition he
has a cloak with a hood that covers his head and chin, leaving his
moustache visible; round his hips is a girdle with the ends hanging
down. The cross ribbing on the sleeves and trousers is characteristic of
this period (Fig. 216).
[Illustration:
FIG. 218.—Woman holding palm branch (?).
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 219.—Woman holding palm branch (deity?).
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 220.—Woman holding palm branch, Greek style.
]
10. The female figure corresponding to this male type also holds a
flower in the right hand on the breast, and a wreath in the left hand
that hangs down, but the hood leaves the round hairless face uncovered;
long ringlets fall over the shoulders, and the sleeved garment is tucked
up above the knees and confined below the waist with a girdle. The legs
are bare (Fig. 217).
11. A rare type that belongs to the same period is the figure of a man
in exactly the same clothing, but with the arms crossed on the breast.
12. A clothed figure of a woman with Babylonian characteristics (Fig.
218) holds an upright palm branch (?) in her left hand. Some strands of
hair hang down her cheeks; the right hand is laid on the breast. The
same type occurs also roughly worked as an idol (Fig. 219), as well as
in good Greek workmanship (Fig. 220).
[Illustration:
FIG. 221.—Terra-cotta amulet.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 222.—Musician with double flute.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 223.—Lute-player.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 224.—Lute-player.
]
13. A head of appalling horror is either bored through at the top to be
worn as an amulet or hollowed out at the throat to be fixed on to a
stick. Two cross-ribbed horns stretch from the forehead over the skull;
the goggle eyes are widely open; the gaping muzzle shows all the teeth,
including four powerful canines. The bristly beard is either represented
by short locks or indicated by rows of holes in the smooth lower jaw
(Fig. 221).
[Illustration:
FIG. 225.—Woman with harp.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 226.—Woman with tambourine.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 227.—Woman reclining.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 228.—Woman reclining.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 229.—Pottery mask.
]
14. Musicians were less frequently represented in the Babylonian period
than in the Greek period. They play the double flute (Fig. 222) which is
in use among the Arabs at the present day and known as the _mutbak_; the
panpipe, a long lute with smaller or wider sounding-board (Figs. 223,
224); the oriental harp (Fig. 225), the tambourine (Fig. 226), the
cithara, and other instruments which will afford an interesting study
for connoisseurs of musical instruments.
15. The figure seated on the censer has already (p. 257) been described,
also.
16. The ape (p. 234).
17. Female figures, clothed and lying on the left side, belong
exclusively to the Greek and Parthian periods. With the left arm they
support themselves on a cushion, and the right arm rests on the hips.
Like similar figures in alabaster (Fig. 132), they are frequently found
in the graves (Figs. 227, 228).
[Illustration:
FIG. 230.—Pottery mask.
]
18. From the later graves come pottery masks with holes round the edge
by which they could be affixed to a binding of some material. Many of
these masks, with wide-open mouth and eyebrows drawn together in grief,
have the characteristics of professional mourners (Figs. 229, 230).
Satyrs, cupids, etc., also appear as masks.
[Illustration:
FIG. 231.—Greek terra-cotta.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 232.—Greek terra-cotta.
]
19. The number of Greek genre figures in terra-cotta is very remarkable.
In great measure they recall those of Tanagra and Myrina. They are
mostly of women and girls in ample clothing, and their inimitable grace
is almost as remarkable in the slightly executed examples as in those of
the finest and most careful workmanship (Figs. 231–233). These
inexpensive and charming figures, with the respective details of
position, drapery, and head-dress in never-ending variety, as well as
the costly and important examples, were widely distributed over the city
in inexhaustible abundance. A small winged cupid was popular as a jar
handle (Fig. 234).
20. The figures of horsemen we have already (p. 235) described.
[Illustration:
FIG. 233.—Greek terra-cotta.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 234.—Cupid as a jar handle.
]
We have thus enumerated some of the principal types from among the very
large number of small objects already found on the actual inhabited site
of Merkes, and this slight review of the luxuries and requirements and
the relative artistic feeling of the citizens of Babylon must suffice
for the present, until the material can be spread out and further
examined, when a more complete description may be rendered possible.
XLVI
THE GREAT HOUSE IN MERKES
In planning a Babylonian private house a square principal chamber on the
south side of a court appears under all circumstances to have been
indispensable. Everything else might vary according to circumstances and
temporary requirements; the side-chambers might be more or less
numerous, several courts with the chambers connected with them might be
added to the house, but the court and the principal chamber are always
there. Before the introduction of Greek art there were no pillars either
in the court or in the house.
[Illustration:
FIG. 235.—Reconstruction of the Great House in Merkes.
]
The largest house (Fig. 236) that we have yet found in Merkes possesses
three courts (4, 19, 26), each with its principal chamber on the south
(12, 23, 27), which corresponds in size with the court to which it is
attached. The wide doorway of the house on the north is in a flat length
of wall which has no toothed projections, such as all the other walls
have. Through this we enter the vestibule (1), and can turn either left
to the main portion with the large court, or right to the private or
secondary portion with two courts. The former part of the house was
certainly consecrated to business and to intercourse with the general
public. This is indicated by the fact that in this part only there was a
second outer door on the south side, which later was walled up. This
opened on a small room (13) that communicated immediately with the
principal chamber, and may have served as a shop. In any case, the owner
could here communicate with the outside world without being obliged to
use the ceremonious northern entrance. On entering by the latter, one
passed a very small room (2), the entrance chamber and porter’s lodge,
the cloak- or waiting-room (3) before reaching the court (4). To the
east of this lay the servants’ apartment (5), and to the south the
stately principal chamber, about 14 by 7 metres in size; with a smaller
series of four chambers to the right (17, 14, 15, 16) and a larger one
of six chambers (6–11) to the left of it. Both these series of rooms
communicated with the principal chamber by a corridor (14, 8) and with
the court by their most northerly chamber (17, 6), which was perhaps a
merchant’s office. The inner rooms (15, 16, 10, 11) must have been
perfectly dark unless they were lighted by windows on the street, which
is very improbable. In one of them (15) there was a well, constructed as
usual of pottery cylinders. They may have been store-rooms or sleeping-
and living-rooms for the people employed there. It is scarcely necessary
to warn our readers that all these suggestions as to the purpose of the
various rooms rest entirely on supposition. We have no other authority
for them than the arrangement of the ground-plan appears to afford.
[Illustration:
FIG. 236.—Ground-plan of the Great House in Merkes.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 237.—Section of the Great House in Merkes.
]
The secondary group of chambers was reserved apparently for the private
life of the owner. The rooms are grouped round two smaller courts (19
and 26) which communicated with the principal chamber of the northern
one (23), and with each other by means of a corridor (25). From this
corridor a door on the west led to an adjoining house, which had been
built previously, and of which, on the whole, the great house
represented an extension. The entrance chamber (18) and the two
principal chambers (23, 27) are also easily recognised. It is not
necessary at present to hazard conjectures as to the purpose of the
other rooms.
[Illustration:
FIG. 238.—Steps to roof in village of Kweiresh.
]
The original pavement of the house has twice undergone restoration (Fig.
237). Between the layers of brick, most of which bear Nebuchadnezzar
stamps, only a little earth is laid. No one was buried in the house
while it was occupied; the 21 graves that occur on the site are all of
the period when the building lay in ruins. This is shown by the way in
which the walls and pavement were cut through, and by the fact that the
pavements were not repaired in any way after the burials had taken
place. The graves are chiefly of brick, as they are exclusively of the
Parthian period. It is quite possible that the house was built during
the reign of Nebuchadnezzar; no difficulty is involved by the occurrence
of the bricks bearing his stamp, as it does not force us to infer any
complete destruction of one of Nebuchadnezzar’s buildings. The bricks
may very well be older material offered for sale by the king on the
occasion of one of his rebuildings. It is impossible to say how late
into Persian or Greek times the house existed; a poorer house was built
on its ruins after the heap of rubbish had reached a height of about 2
metres.
Before the main house was built the site must long have remained
unoccupied. Under the pavement lay 4 metres of rubbish above the floor
of an earlier house. Three metres deeper again there were tablets of the
time of Kadashmanturgu, Kadashmanbel, and Kurigalzu; and again, 2 to 3
metres deeper, were some of Samsuiluna, Ammiditana, and Samsuditana.
The mud-brick walls were plastered with mud, and over this was a wash of
white gypsum mortar.
[Illustration:
FIG. 239.—North-east corner of the Great House in Merkes.
]
Not one of the chambers showed any traces from which we could infer the
existence of a stairway to an upper storey. If there were steps, which
we cannot doubt, they were certainly of wood, something like the simple
stairways to the roof that are used at the present time by the people of
Kweiresh (Fig. 238).
When the house was built, the entire area was first surrounded by a
sloping wall without any toothed projections, filled up inside with
earth, this forming a substantial terrace on which the actual building
stood (Fig. 239). The top of the terrace was 1½ metres higher than the
brick pavement of the street on the north. The terrace wall is not so
thick as the outer walls of the superstructure, but it projects out on
the outer side about as far as the toothed projections above it stand
out, and thus forms a kind of plinth. Owing to the constant raising of
the street level this is little observable; the plinth disappeared with
the subsequent heightening of the street. The outer wall itself had more
than 90 of those toothed projections, to which we have frequently
referred, and is provided with a system of wooden braces, intended to
strengthen the projections. A beam lies on the outside, parallel with
each wall face, about the length of one projection, in the next brick
course this is gripped at one end by a beam placed more or less at right
angles to it. The outside must have appeared very much as it is figured
in the reconstruction (Fig. 235). The frontage of another house in
Merkes is given in Fig. 240.
[Illustration:
FIG. 240.—Façade of house with doorway, brick grave in front, Merkes.
]
For comparison we also give a ground-plan from Fara of about the fifth
millennium (Fig. 241). It will show how few changes the internal
arrangements of a Babylonian house underwent during the lapse of
thousands of years. Nothing shows more conclusively than these
ground-plans the immense age of Babylonian civilisation; for even in
this remote period, which is in part prehistoric, they give clear
indications of a yet earlier development from a presumably simpler and
more primitive building.
[Illustration:
FIG. 241.—Ground-plan of house in Fara (Shuruppak).
E, Entrance.
H, Court.
R, Principal chamber.
V, Vestibule.
]
The original Babylonian house, as we may assume it to have been from the
present state of our knowledge, was probably a rectangular roofed-in
space within a walled court. It is most desirable that we should obtain
explicit evidence as to the form of the early Babylonian house in one of
the prehistoric sites, but to do this is attended with difficulties.
They occur generally in narrow crosscuts, or in deep trenches where the
limited space renders the following up of these ancient sites very
difficult. It would be necessary to open up a much wider area down to a
considerable depth to afford sufficient material for arriving at
conclusions, and at Surgul and El-Hibba, as well as at Fara, there was
not time to do this.
[Illustration:
FIG. 242.—Ground-plan from Telloh.
]
In strange contrast to these Babylonian ground-plans is the palace of
Telloh. The reason why the account given of it by de Sarzec is so
difficult to understand, is because it was built at three different
periods, which should be clearly differentiated from each other, but
which are all placed together and attributed to Gudea as the builder.
Only a small part, on the contrary, the inner part B (Fig. 242), which
is not organically connected with the building as a whole, belongs to
Gudea. All the rest is later, most of it very much later. In 1886 I
examined and surveyed all that then survived of the palace. The dotted
portion of the plan I give here was then no more to be seen; these walls
had already been carried away by brick robbers. At my second visit in
1898 the work of destruction had not been carried much further. The
ancient portion, marked black on the plan, represents part of the facing
wall of a zikurrat that lay behind it to the south-east, with a stepped
and grooved façade and a large gutter for water, such as is usually
found in ancient zikurrats. This portion is built of Gudea bricks laid
in asphalt and mud. The grooved façade of a lower-lying wall that
belongs to it, which formed part of a lower floor, a terrace, or a later
kisu, is given by de Sarzec in the court (B); on the north-east various
chambers abut on it, the walls of which are built with re-used Gudea
bricks. The asphalt still clings in many places to the lower side of the
bricks, and the drops of asphalt which naturally when the bricks were
first used fell on the outer face of the bricks and left slight traces
pointing downwards, in their later use point upwards.
The north-western outer front of rooms 31, 29, show simple grooved work,
which disappeared behind the walls of the later building round court C,
and were cut off by the surrounding wall. In our plan these portions are
heavily scored. Of the third later building, lightly scored in the plan,
which was also built partly of re-used Gudea bricks, and partly of
unstamped bricks, laid in mud mortar, two courts can be recognised (C
and B). Here we do not find the unmistakably important principal
chamber, which is so remarkable a feature of genuine Babylonian
buildings. In chambers 11, 35, and 18 de Sarzec reports table-shaped
fireplaces, such as I have never found either in Old or Neo-Babylonian
buildings, while, on the contrary, such a flat raised hearth is found in
chamber XXXV of an unmistakably Parthian house in Nippur that has a
peristyle (Fisher, _Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America_,
vol. viii., 1904, No. 4, p. 411). In the pavement of the court adjoining
it, the well-known bricks of Adadnadinakhe are said to have been found.
An examination of the south-eastern quarter, which must evidently have
been already much destroyed at the time of de Sarzec, furnishes the
strongest evidence against his representations. Thus in front of 23, he
represents a door as constructed of a thick and a very thin wall, and at
24 and 25 he reports a door embrasure actually standing opposite a
door-opening. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that here also
buildings of entirely different and disconnected periods have been
erroneously placed together by the modern draughtsman as having formed
one complete building. The peristyle that we expect to find in
connection with the two courts (C and B) should be placed in A.
XLVII
THE TEMPLE OF ISHTAR OF AGADE
ACCORDING TO DELITZSCH: ê-kun (?)-da-ri
[Illustration:
FIG. 243.—Figure of Papsukal, from foundation casket of Ishtar temple.
]
The temple of Ishtar of Agade lies among the houses of the northern
group of Merkes (Fig. 244). The entrance façade faces the south, where
the street that passes it widens out into a somewhat lengthy piazza.
Through the principal portal, with its grooved towers, we enter the
vestibule (1), from which doors to right and left lead to the
side-chambers, and which opens directly on to the square court. In the
cella (18) with the adyton (19) the postament that stood in the niche
immediately opposite the entrance had been taken away, and only the
brick casket (_k_) that contained the statuette of Papsukal (Fig. 243)
was still there. Similar brick caskets lay in the court doorway that led
to the buildings connected with the cella, in the middle and on the
western side of the southern main entrance. The two small chambers (20
and 21) near the chamber in front of the cella are accessible from it,
as well as directly from the court. The entire cella building (17–22),
as in the temple of Borsippa (Fig. 246), forms a completely
self-contained block, separated from the enclosing wall of the temple by
a narrow passage (10). From this passage room 9 can be reached, and also
the southern series of rooms. This series (11–15) consists of four
rather small rooms and apparently a court (13), in which two circular
storage places are built.
[Illustration:
FIG. 244.—Ground plan of temple of Ishtar of Agade, Merkes.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 245.—Section of temple of Ishtar of Agade, Merkes.
]
There is a side entrance on the east which opens into the court through
a small vestibule (4) that communicates with the main vestibule through
chambers 3 and 2. Two small rooms (5 and 6) are accessible from the
court. The wall decoration is as usual composed of flat pillars on the
outside of the building and in the court. The main entrance on the
south, and the door from the court leading to the cella (Fig. 247), are
distinguished by a double framing. The three doors on the east side of
the court, the side entrance, and the actual cella door have a single
frame. The grooving on the front of the towers of the main entrance, and
of the door leading from the court to the cella is simply rectangular.
It was only during the last restoration of the building that the simple
grooves were elaborated by stepped additions, like those of the Ninib
temple.
[Illustration:
FIG. 246.—Ground-plan of Ezida, the temple of Nebo, in Borsippa.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 247.—Temple of Ishtar of Agade in Merkes; view of cella façade.
]
Three building periods can be recognised here (Fig. 245). Of the
earliest building only the 7 lower courses remain. The ground-plan is in
the main the same as that of the later building that rests upon it, but
the wall fronts everywhere deviate slightly from the lines of the
latter. The pavement of the later building consists of one plain layer,
that lies almost at the level at which the walls begin. The gypsum wash
still adheres to the walls. At several of the more important places,
such as the main entrance to the temple, the entrance from the court to
the cella, the cella door, and the postament niche, instead of a gypsum
wash there is a thin wash of black asphalt, which near the edges is
broken with ornamental vertical lines of white gypsum. Similar
decorations, though not so well preserved and recognisable, were visible
in temple “Z,” and in the temples of Ninib and Ninmach. These portions
stood out from the white walls with mysterious and startling effect.
The temple was raised and a new double pavement of Nebuchadnezzar bricks
was laid at a height of 4 to 4½ metres above zero. To this pavement, of
course, all the brick caskets belong which lay close to the pavement of
the earlier periods but above it, as, for instance, the casket in the
door from the court to the cella.
An additional raising with a new brick pavement at 5 metres above zero,
belongs apparently to a rebuilding undertaken by Nabonidus, according to
the inscription on his foundation cylinder which was found here. The
cylinder lay at about the height of the last-mentioned pavement, in the
middle of the northern enclosing wall, between the first two pillars on
the west, and exactly at the place where it was deposited by Nabonidus.
It stood upright in a sort of basket of plaited work, of which the
remains were still quite recognisable, and which had formerly shielded
it from damage in the small aperture within the mud-brick wall. In the
inscription the king speaks of the ruinous condition of this “Temple of
Ishtar of Agade,” and the work undertaken by him for its restoration.