could stand uninjured through thousands of years. The narrow valley of
the Nile is enclosed by the cliffs of the desert border, which seemed
directly to encourage, by the excellence of the building-stone there
procured, the erection of immense and indestructible works. The plain of
Mesopotamia, on the other hand, spread far beyond the courses of the two
streams, losing itself in deserts without any line of eminences as a
demarcation. The remote mountains offered no quarries at all comparable
to those of Egypt. The soil was of good clay for the manufacture of
bricks, but fuel was lacking with which to burn and harden them. The
inhabitants of the land were generally obliged to content themselves
with drying the clay in the sun, making up by the great thickness of the
masonry for the firmness lacking to the material. They further
strengthened the massive walls with a facing, or with buttress-like
piers of burnt brick, or solidified the interior with alternate courses
of this harder substance. The bitumen which still flows at Hit, on the
Euphrates, north of Bagdad at the southern border of the higher alluvial
terrace of Assyria, was an excellent substance for cementing the bricks;
in more important works it was used alternately with lime-mortar: in
common buildings, or in the interior of the thickest walls, clay kneaded
with straw answered the purpose of a cement.
It is natural that little should now remain of such structures. They
could only survive the thousands of years that have elapsed since their
building, when an immense thickness secured at least the kernel of the
wall, or when the ruins of other buildings early covered and protected
them. The remains of ancient Chaldæa are generally nothing more than
formless heaps of rubbish, many of which have not yet been opened.
Taylor, Loftus, and their predecessors, Ainsworth, Chesney, and Layard,
discovered the ruins of over thirty cities in the lower half of the
Mesopotamian plain. Of these, Mugheir (the ancient Ur), Warka (Erech),
Niffer (Nipur), and Abou-Sharein offered the most important remains of
great age; while the ruins of Sura, Tel Sifr, Calvadha, and Ackercuf are
mainly of the later Chaldæan period.
[Illustration: Fig. 37.--Ruins of Warka.]
[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Patterned Wall. Warka.]
Recognizable among the rubbish-hills of Mugheir are the remains of a
terrace which consisted of two oblong steps, the lowest measuring 60.35
by 40.54 m. in length and breadth, and about 12 m. in height, standing
upon a platform raised 6 m. above the surrounding country. The greater
part of this is overthrown and buried beneath its own material. The
kernel of the solid structure is of sun-dried bricks; the facing, which
is divided by buttresses, being of burnt brick cemented with bitumen.
The whole is perforated by numerous small air-channels. The second step
is only about half preserved, and that which it must once have supported
has entirely disappeared. A remarkable inscription, repeated upon the
four corners of the upper terrace, explained the purpose of the
structure and the time of its erection. According to Sir H. Rawlinson’s
interpretation of the cuneiform legend, this was dedicated to the deity
Sin (Hurki) as a temple, and was first founded by King Urukh (about 2230
B.C.). The name of the spot is given as Ur, a city known from Biblical
tradition. The inscriptions were not, however, contemporaneous with the
foundation of the building, for, after giving a long line of kings, they
at last name Nabonetos, the last King of Babylon, as the restorer of the
temple--a fact which is further attested by the bricks themselves, those
of the lower terrace having the name of Urukh, those of the upper of
Nabonetos. The temple remains of Warka and of Abou-Sharein unite with
these ruins of Mugheir to show that the Chaldæan temple consisted of a
simple and massive terrace of few steps, crowned, without doubt, by a
chapel, which must be supposed richly decorated with colors and gold
ornaments from the fragments of agate, alabaster, and fine marbles, of
gold-plating and gilded nails, found in Abou-Sharein, and from the blue
enamelled clay tiles of Mugheir. The sides of the great steps were
either plainly buttressed or treated with projections, as is the case
with the terrace wall of a palace at Warka, shown by _Fig._ 37. There
was here a complicated system of reeded projections and stepped
incisions--cylinders and prisms which cannot be called pilasters, as
they were without capitals, and probably also without base-mouldings.
Another ruin of Warka (_Fig._ 38) has a colored wall-facing, made by
driving conical pegs of terra-cotta about 0.1 m. long into the clay, so
that the red, black, and whitish base surfaces form different patterns.
This ruin is further interesting as giving some insight into the private
architecture of the Chaldæans. Rooms were there found separated from one
another by walls fully as thick as the enclosed spaces themselves were
broad--a clumsy heaviness which shows what massive masonry the poor
crumbling material necessitated. The existing remains suggest so
strongly the arrangement of the later Assyrian palaces that there can be
but little doubt that they, in some degree, served as a model for these
latter; although the palace wall, with its revetment of alabaster, might
be erected with less thickness. No trace of window-like openings can be
observed in the ruins of Warka or in those of Abou-Sharein.
[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Tomb of Mugheir.]
The principle of the arch, though not extensively employed, was well
understood and occasionally introduced in Assyria. From a small
grave-chamber discovered at Mugheir, we may conclude that it was not
known in the ancient Chaldæan period. The roofing was then effected by a
gradual projection of the horizontal courses of bricks until the
opposite sides nearly touched each other at the top of the gable thus
formed. (_Fig._ 39.) It may perhaps be assumed that this manner of
covering by the so-called false arch and vault was only employed for
very narrow spaces, while larger rooms were more naturally ceiled by
wooden beams. The ruins of Warka, though they do not give a very clear
understanding of the fortifications of ancient Chaldæa, at least show
that the city walls were not necessarily square, as had been concluded
from the testimony of ancient writers, but, as in this case, followed
the irregular outline of the city.
The political history of Chaldæa was from the earliest times greatly
disturbed by internal divisions. At first the city Nipur, celebrated for
its worship of Bel, appears to have been the most important place, at
least of Southern Chaldæa. To this followed Ur or Hur, the city
worshipping Hurki or Sin, then Nisin or Carrac, and, finally, Larsa, the
present Senkereh. Upper Chaldæan Babylon, originally Ca-dimirra, does
not seem to have become the only capital until the age of King
Cammurabi, about 1500 B.C. A hundred years later Northern Mesopotamia,
Assyria, began to gain predominance, and in the thirteenth century B.C.
Babylon was conquered (for the first time?) by Tiglathi-Nin, a son of
King Salmaneser of Assyria. Chaldæa soon regained its independence, but
only to fall again into the power of the conqueror Tiglath-Pileser, and
to remain for five centuries subjugated to Nineveh. The attempts to
throw off this yoke of Assyrian authority were in vain; even the
uprising under the bold Merodach-Baladan, 731 B.C., was not of long
duration, and finally led to the depopulation and total destruction of
the prominent Chaldæan cities by Sennacherib. The Assyrian Esar-haddon
rebuilt Babylon; but it did not recover its ancient importance until the
Satrap Nabopolassar revolted from his allegiance, and, with the help of
the Medes, made an end of the kingdom of Nineveh; and until his son
Nebuchadnezzar, after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., reduced even
distant Egypt to vassalage, thus taking into possession the full
heritage of the Assyrian empire in both south and west.
[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Bors-Nimrud. Temple-terrace of Borsippa.]
[Illustration: Fig. 41.--Plan and Elevation of the Temple at Borsippa.
(From Oppert’s Measurements.)]
Though the subjugation of the land by Assyria had not been without
effect upon the civilization of Chaldæa, the general character of
Babylonian art remained much the same through all these political
changes. The last king, Nabonetos, could complete the temple of Ur,
which Urukh had founded seventeen centuries before, as though there had
been no interruption in the work. The terraced ruins show that there was
no great difference in the architectural treatment of ages so removed.
Other city ruins show such an intermixture of ancient Chaldæan and
Babylonian walls that their date can be determined only by inscriptions
or by stamps upon the bricks. The earlier remains are predominant in
Mugheir, Warka, and Abou-Sharein; but the later capital of the country,
Babylon, the city of Nebuchadnezzar, is known almost exclusively by the
imposing structures of the modern kingdom. Greek antiquity, up to the
time of Alexander, was acquainted with this city of wonders only by
fables. Even the explicit description of Herodotos is in great degree
mythical, especially his astonishing account of the city walls: 480
stadia (96.557 m.) in length, 200 ells (100 m.) high, and 50 ells (25
m.) broad. The ruins have also proved the account of the famed hundred
gates of the city walls, and the square network of straight streets
which ran from these, to be hyperbolical. Such immense masses of masonry
would, as Layard has maintained, certainly have left heaps of rubbish;
and, in fact, the ruins of a much smaller city enclosure have been
traced. The irregular orientation of the palace plan is also
incompatible with the conception that the city was divided up into
squares with the regularity of a chess-board. The traditional account
that the enormous terraced temple of Bel was built on the borders of the
stream opposite the palace structures is certainly incorrect; for, while
these latter are still represented by extensive brick ruins, there is
not a trace upon the other bank, the supposed site, of massive terraces
which could not possibly have so entirely disappeared. Nor could the
stream have swept away so colossal a building; for a little north of
Hillah, in the immediate vicinity of the spot where Herodotos describes
the temple of Bel, there have been found the remains of a small Mylitta
temple, which would have offered almost no resistance to an inundation.
Yet Herodotos undoubtedly related, besides his fables, much that was
correct about Babylon. His account of the temple of Bel seems only
questionable in so far as the site is concerned; the rest of his
description agrees perfectly with ruins which have been found about
eleven kilometers westward, and are known by the name Bors-Nimrud.
(_Fig._ 40.) The temple thus could not have belonged to the city proper
of Babylon; and inscriptions mention the place as Borsippa, spoken of by
Greek writers as a separate town, which could at best be regarded as a
distant suburb of the extended Babylon. The immense hill of rubbish
standing entirely isolated in the desert has a lower circumference of
685 m. This dimension agrees tolerably well with the six stadia given by
Herodotos as the measure of the first step of the terraced pyramid. The
regularly diminished seven steps, the “towers” of Herodotos, 7.5 m.
high, reaching altogether a total altitude of 75 m., rose from a square
substructure with a side of two stadia (180 m.) and a height of 22.5 m.
The diagonals of these different terraces were not directly above one
another, the steps being 9 m. broad in front and only 3.9 m. broad
behind, while the sides were equal--6.3 m. This peculiarity of the ruin
agrees with the flights of stairs described by Herodotos, which,
notwithstanding the analogy of the palace temple of Kisr-Sargon, may
here naturally be supposed to have been upon the front, where the
terraces were sufficiently broad for this purpose. _Fig._ 41 is an
attempt to restore the chief lines of the structure by means of the
dimensions given by Oppert. Upon the summit of this terraced pyramid
stood the necessarily small temple, which, according to Herodotos,
contained a spacious couch and a golden table, but no statue of the
deity. The sides of the terraces are directed to the cardinal points of
the compass, as was the case also with the ancient Chaldæan temple of
Ur; and, as at Ur, inscribed cylinders were here walled in at the
angles. These relate that Nebuchadnezzar had magnificently completed
the structure--“the temple-pyramid of the seven spheres, the wonder of
Borsippa,” begun by a former king. Rawlinson and Oppert have concluded,
from the remains of glazed bricks of different colors, that each of the
seven terraces was dedicated to one of the seven planets of the
ancients, and was characterized by its color--the upper, gold; the
second, silver; the next, red, blue, yellow, white; and the lowest,
black--according to the hues assigned to the sun, the moon, Mars,
Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The lowest terrace has a panelled
architectural treatment similar to that noticed in the ruins at Warka
and the palace temple at Kisr-Sargon. It is probable that these high
terraces in the flat plains of Mesopotamia were elevations which served
the Chaldæan astronomers for their celebrated observatories, as the
pylons of temples upon the banks of the Nile were similarly used by the
Egyptian priests. As Strabo speaks especially of an astronomical school
at Borsippa, there can be little doubt that it was in some way connected
with the terraced pyramid of the seven spheres.
The ruins of Hillah, Casr, Mudjelibeh, and Jumjuma give even less
information concerning the palace buildings than the hill of Bors-Nimrud
does concerning the form of the Chaldæan temple. These masses of masonry
have for centuries served as quarries, and, as far distant as Bagdad,
bricks, bearing the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, betray that the material
has been transported from the ruins of Babylon. Though the supply is by
no means exhausted, this excavation has rendered much unrecognizable,
and has so greatly increased the destruction that Layard held it
impossible to discover a clew to the plan of the palace structure in the
confusion of its overthrown and rifled rubbish. Oppert assumes the hill
of Jumjuma, or Amran-ibn-Ali, as it is called from the Mohammedan chapel
now standing upon it, to be the remains of the celebrated Hanging
Gardens known as those of Semiramis, the wonder of the ancient world.
But, plausible as his supposition is, it will hardly be possible to
prove by existing remains the correctness of the description given by
Diodoros of the Hanging Gardens, in itself more probable than the report
followed by Strabo. Diodoros speaks of the Gardens as a terraced
structure, the side of the square plan being about 120 m. in length,
with separate steps which ascended from the land side, while upon the
banks of the river a steep wall formed the back of the highest terrace,
measuring 15 m. vertically, and closing the gardens towards the water.
The steps were constructed by the help of thirteen thick parallel walls,
each being higher than the one next below it. They left between them
twelve narrow corridors, the ceilings of which, like those over Assyrian
canals, were probably vaulted, and were then covered with rushes and
bitumen, burnt brick pavements and lead sheathing, so as to bear the
stairways which connected the different terraces, the reservoirs for
cascades and fountains, and the imposed garden--earth with large trees,
etc. Pumping works in the highest of these covered corridors supplied
the garden with the necessary water from the Euphrates.
The ruined terraces of Mudjelibeh (Babil), avoided by the Arabs as the
scene of the punishment of the fallen angels, are so completely
overthrown that it is not possible to determine whether the remains are
those of a temple or of a palace. It is probable that they had some
connection with the great pyramidal tomb of Belus, a structure which may
be assumed to have been much like the stepped pyramid of Nimrud to be
described below. The monument of Mudjelibeh was destroyed as early as
the time of Xerxes II. It has since served as a quarry for the
neighboring cities Seleucia and Ctesiphon, and has been demolished to
the lowest terrace.
The enormous river embankments and dikes which protected Lower
Mesopotamia from flood and drought, though now only to be traced by
inconsiderable remains, are of the greatest importance and interest. The
neglect of these invaluable works, and of the sluices and irrigating
canals in connection with them, has reduced to a deserted and
pestilential swamp that most fertile land known to Herodotos--where once
a harvest of two and three hundredfold was returned to the tiller of the
soil. Though there are vestiges of some ancient bridges in the land, it
is not possible to decide whether the account given by Diodoros of the
great tunnel constructed by Semiramis be true or fabulous.
There seems to have been no reason for the erection of such tall
edifices in the vastly extended Babylon as the three and four storied
houses described by Herodotos, and no analogy to such a peculiarity
exists in the great modern cities of the Orient. It must be remembered
in this connection that the crumbling bricks to which the Mesopotamians
were restricted would, in such high buildings, have demanded clumsily
massive substructures and lower-story walls.
Though the ruins of Babylon have only recently been thoroughly examined,
their existence has long been known. Benjamin of Tudela speaks of
Bors-Nimrud as the Biblical Tower of Babel, and this local tradition has
been handed down to the present day. The palace ruins of the great city
have always been readily recognizable, and the one has been called
Babel, the other Casr (palace), from time immemorial.
[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Plan of Babylon. (According to Rich.)]
It is otherwise with the second great centre of Mesopotamia--Nineveh,
the famed capital of the kingdom of Assyria, in the upper land of the
great streams. As early as the beginning of this century, Carsten
Niebuhr expressed the conviction that the remains of the overthrown city
were to be sought among the hills of rubbish which lie opposite the
present Mosul, beyond the Tigris; but the energetic Rich, who devoted so
much time and labor to the barren ruins of Babylon, paid no attention to
the site. Nineveh had entirely disappeared, and was only traditionally
known from the Book of Jonah and from the legend of Sardanapalos. It was
during two visits to Mosul, in the years 1840 and 1842, that the eminent
English traveller and statesman Sir A. H. Layard conceived the plan of
undertaking investigations in the vicinity. He expressed his convictions
at the time to the French consul, M. P. E. Botta, and in 1843 that
gentleman commenced the excavation of the hill Coyundjic, which lay next
to Mosul. The natives, becoming aware of the nature of the search,
directed his attention to the hill of Corsabad, situated at a distance
of about twenty-five kilometers from Mosul; the excavations were removed
thither, and carried on with most gratifying results. A few days’
digging laid bare a number of walls reveted with huge slabs of
alabaster. The wonderful sculptures in relief upon these excited
redoubled activity, and soon entire chambers of the palace structure
were freed from the overthrown rubbish which had covered it for
well-nigh three thousand years. The French government purchased the
entire village of Corsabad: in M. V. Place was provided a worthy
successor to M. Botta. The inscriptions discovered have proved the ruins
to be those of a palace founded by Sargon about 710 B.C. in the city
Kisr-Sargon or Dur-Sargina.
In the year 1845, Layard obtained, through Sir Stratford Canning, then
ambassador to Turkey, the necessary means for the English government to
take part in the promising undertaking. He at first directed his
attention to Nimrud, a hill of ruins about a day’s journey south of
Mosul, the great size of which promised the existence of important
remains. An immense terrace platform was there found to have supported a
number of palaces, several of which were excavated, the more valuable
sculptures and other objects of interest being transported to the
British Museum. At Nimrud were discovered the most ancient and the most
modern of Assyrian buildings known--namely, the northwestern palace,
temple, and tower built by Assur-nazi-pal shortly after 885 B.C., as
well as the Temple of Assur-ebil-ili, presumably the last Assyrian king,
dating to about 610 B.C. Besides these, there were the southeastern and
central palaces built by Shalmaneser II. after 860, the latter having
been restored by Tiglath-pileser II., from 745 to 727, as Sargon
rebuilt the northwestern palace after 722; and, finally, there was the
southwestern palace of Esar-haddon, from 681 to 668 B.C. The city itself
(Calah) corresponded in grandeur and extent with the palace terrace. It
was founded by Shalmaneser, and long rivalled Nineveh, especially after
its reconstruction by Assur-nazi-pal.
[Illustration: Fig. 43.--Plan of Nineveh.]
It is now beyond a doubt that the chief capital of the country is buried
beneath the hills of Coyundjic and Nebbi-Jonas, the latter so called
from a Mohammedan chapel to the prophet Jonah which traditionally marks
the site of Nineveh. Both these mounds of ruins were examined by Layard.
In the southwestern palace of Coyundjic, built by Assur-bani-pal, from
668 to 626 B.C., was discovered the most extensive among these dwellings
of Oriental despots. The most elaborate of Assyrian palaces was the
northern one of this site, built by Assur-bani-pal about 640 B.C., a
monarch who devoted certain chambers of the southwestern palace,
originally erected by his grandfather, to the reception of inscribed
clay tablets--an inexhaustible wealth for the study of Assyrian history,
of which hardly a third part seems to have been recovered intact. In
Nebbi-Jonas were found traces of the palaces of Vulnirari III., from 812
to 783; of Sennacherib, from 705 to 681; and of Esar-haddon, from 681 to
668 B.C. The line of the city walls, still recognizable among the hills
of rubbish, is shown by the plan at _Fig._ 43. These fortifications
could hardly have enclosed the entire city, and it is probable that only
the inner town, with the palaces and public buildings, was thus
protected, and that the dwelling-houses of the many inhabitants formed
suburbs which extended far around the enclosed centre, gradually losing
themselves in gardens and groves of date-trees, as is the case with
modern capitals of the East. The comparatively small walls of Babylon,
at variance with the report given by Herodotos, lead to the same
conclusion in regard to that city.
The ruins of Calah-Shergat, situated about 100 kilometers down the
stream from Nineveh, are identified with Assur, the oldest capital of
the land, which maintained its pre-eminence until Nineveh, in the
fourteenth century B.C., became the great centre of power. Reson is
thought to be recognized in the ruins of Selamiyeh, lying between Nimrud
and Nineveh, and Erbil in Arbola. These sites have not been sufficiently
examined to be of direct importance in the history of art.
[Illustration: Fig. 44.--Palace of Kisr-Sargon, Corsabad.]
[Illustration: Fig. 45.--Ornamented Pavement from the Northern Palace of
Coyundjic.]