The ruins of Babylon are deeply interesting, not only on account of
their great antiquity, but from the associations connected with them.
They have been visited and described by Mr. Rich, resident for the East
India company at Bagdad; and the result of his researches is given by
the Rev. Mr. Maurice, author of “Indian Antiquities,” and assistant
librarian to the British museum, in his elaborate work entitled
“Observations connected with Astronomy and Ancient History, Sacred and
Profane, on the Ruins of Babylon.”
[Illustration: TOWER NEAR BABYLON.]
Babylon was situated in a plain of vast extent, and bisected by the
noble river Euphrates. Over this river was thrown a bridge of massive
masonry, strongly compacted with iron and lead, by which the two sides
of the city were connected; and the embankments on each side, to
restrain its current, were lofty, and formed of the same durable
materials as the walls of the city. The city itself is represented by
Herodotus to have been a perfect square, inclosed by a wall in
circumference four hundred and eighty furlongs. It is stated to have
abounded in houses three or four stories in hight, and to have been
regularly divided into streets, running parallel to each other, with
tranverse avenues occasionally opening to the river. It was surrounded
with a wide and deep trench, the earth dug out of which was formed into
square bricks and baked in a furnace. With these, cemented together with
heated bitumen, intermixed with reeds to bind the viscid mass, the sides
of the trenches were lined; and of the same solid materials the walls of
the vast dimensions above described were formed. At certain regular
distances on them, watch-towers were erected; and below they were
divided and adorned with a hundred immense gates of brass. As you float
down the river from Bagdad, you pass a plain that hears the name of
Dura, which tradition says, is the very place where Nebuchadnezzar set
up the golden image, and commanded all to bow down and worship it: it is
now a wilderness, with here and there a shapeless mound, the remains of
some ancient habitation. And still further down, as you approach the
city, is a tower, some two hundred feet high, on the east bank of the
river, with an ascending way winding round it on the outside, like the
spiral of a screw, as seen in the cut below, reminding the traveler of
the common ideal pictures of the tower of Babel. It marks the site of
the ancient city of Samarrah, where the Roman army under Jovian rested
after marching and fighting a long summer’s day. It was afterward the
capital of the eighth caliph of the Abbasside dynasty.
In the center of each of the grand divisions of the city itself, a
stupendous public fabric was erected. In one (the eastern side) stood
the temple of Belus, and in the other, (or western division,) in a large
or strongly fortified inclosure, the royal palace, intended, doubtless,
for defense as well as for ornament. The temple of Belus was a square
pile, on each side of the extent of two furlongs. The tower erected in
its center was a furlong in breadth, and as much in hight, the latter of
which (taking the furlong at only five hundred feet) is enormous, being
higher, by twenty feet, than the great pyramid of Memphis. On this
tower, as a base, seven other lofty towers were erected in regular
succession; and the whole was crowned, we are told by Diodorus, with a
brazen statue of Belus, forty feet high! The palace, intended also as a
citadel, was erected on an area a mile and a half square, and was
surrounded with three vast circular walls, which, as we are informed by
Diodorus Siculus, were ornamented with sculptured animals resembling
life, richly painted in their natural colors on the bricks of which they
were composed, and afterward burnt in. This may be mentioned as nearly
the earliest specimen of enameling on record. Indeed, it was scarcely
possible for a nation, who were so well practiced in the burning of
bricks even to a vitreous hardness, to have been ignorant of this fine
art; and that they could also engrave upon them, is evident, as we may
soon see, from the characters at this day sculptured upon those that
have been dug up and brought to Europe, many of which are preserved in
the British museum. On the far-famed hanging gardens, and the
subterraneous vault or tunnel constructed by Semiramis, or Nitocris, or
the founder of Babylon, whoever he was, there is no necessity to dilate,
as every trace of them, except what the idle fancy of travelers has
surmised, must long since have disappeared; but such, in its general
outline, was the _mighty Babylon_—BABYLON THE GREAT.
Mr. Rich, whose residence at the court of Bagdad, with the powerful
protection of the pacha, afforded him every facility for comprehensive
investigation, describes the whole country between Bagdad and Hella, a
distance of forty-eight miles, as a perfectly flat, and, for the greater
part, uncultivated waste; though it is evident, from the number of
canals by which it is traversed, and the immense ruins that cover its
surface, that it must formerly have been both well peopled and
cultivated. About two miles above Hella, the more prominent ruins
commence, among which, at intervals, are discovered, in considerable
quantities, burnt and unburnt bricks and bitumen: two vast mounds in
particular attract attention from their size, and these are situated on
the eastern bank of the Euphrates. At the time of his visit, there were
scarcely any remains of ruins visible, immediately opposite on the
western bank, but there were some of stupendous magnitude on that side,
about six miles to the south-west of Hella.
The first grand mass of ruins described by Mr. Rich, extends one
thousand one hundred yards in length, and eight hundred in its greatest
breadth, its figure nearly resembling that of a quadrant; its hight is
irregular; but the most elevated part may be about fifty or sixty feet
above the level of the plain, and it has been dug into for the purpose
of procuring bricks. On the north is a valley of five hundred and fifty
yards in length, the area of which is covered with tussocks of rank
grass, and crossed by a line of ruins of very little elevation. To this
succeeds the second grand heap of ruins, the shape of which is nearly a
square, seven hundred yards in length and breadth, and having its
south-west angle connected with the north-west angle of the mounds of
Amran, by a ridge of considerable hight, and nearly one hundred yards in
breadth. This he thought the most interesting part of the ruins of
Babylon; every vestige discoverable in it declaring it to have been
composed of buildings far superior to all the rest which had left traces
in the eastern quarter: the bricks were of the finest description; and,
notwithstanding this was the grand storehouse of them, and that the
greatest supplies had been and then were constantly drawn from it, they
appeared still to be abundant. But the operation of extracting the
bricks had caused great confusion, and contributed much to increase the
difficulty of deciphering the original design of this mound, as, in
search of them, the workmen had pierced into it in every direction,
hollowing out deep ravines and pits, and throwing up the rubbish in
heaps on the surface. In some places they had bored into the solid mass,
forming winding caverns and subterraneous passages, which, from their
being left without adequate support, sometimes fell and buried the
workmen in the rubbish. In all these excavations, walls of burnt brick,
laid in lime mortar of a very good quality, are seen; and, in addition
to the substances generally strewed on the surfaces of all these mounds,
here are found fragments of alabaster vessels, fine earthenware, marble,
and great quantities of varnished tiles, the glazing and coloring of
which are surprisingly fresh. In a hollow near the southern part, Mr.
Rich found a sepulchral urn of earthenware, which had been broken in
digging, and near it lay some human bones, which pulverized with the
touch.
“Not more than two hundred yards,” he says, “from the northern extremity
of the above mound is a ravine hollowed out by those who dig for bricks,
in length nearly a hundred yards, and thirty feet wide, by forty or
fifty deep. On one side of it, a few yards of wall remain standing, the
face of which is very clean and perfect, and which appears to have been
the front of some building. The opposite side is so confused a mass of
rubbish, that it would seem as if the ravine had been worked through a
solid building. Under the foundations at the southern end an opening is
made, which discovers a subterraneous passage seven feet in hight, and
winding to the south, floored and walled with large brick, laid in
bitumen and covered over with pieces of sandstone, a yard thick, and
several yards long, on which the whole pressure is so great as to have
given a considerable degree of obliquity to the side walls of the
passage. The superstructure is cemented with bitumen, other parts of the
ravine with mortar, and the bricks all have writing on them. The
northern end of the ravine appears to have been crossed by an extremely
thick wall of yellowish brick, cemented with a brilliant white mortar,
which has been broken through in hollowing it out; and a little to the
north is sculptured a lion of colossal dimensions, standing on a
pedestal, of a coarse kind of gray granite, and of rude workmanship; in
the mouth is a circular aperture, into which a man may introduce his
fist.”
The next considerable mass to that of Amran is the Kasr, or palace, as
it is called by the natives, and it is thus described by Mr. Rich.
“It is a very remarkable ruin, which, being uncovered, and in part
detached from the rubbish, is visible from a considerable distance, but
so surprisingly fresh in its appearance, that it was only after a minute
inspection I was satisfied of its being in reality a Babylonian remain.
It consists of several walls and piers, (which face the cardinal
points,) eight feet in thickness, in some places ornamented with niches,
and in others, strengthened by pilasters and buttresses, built of fine
burnt brick, (still perfectly clean and sharp,) laid in lime cement, of
such tenacity, that those whose business it is have given up working, on
account of the extreme difficulty of extracting them whole. The tops of
these walls are broken, and may have been much higher. On the outside,
they have in some places been cleared nearly to the foundations; but the
internal spaces, formed by them, are yet filled with rubbish, in some
parts almost to their summit. One part of the wall has been split into
three parts, and overthrown, as if by an earthquake; some detached walls
of the same kind, standing at different distances, show what remains to
have been only a small part of the original fabric; indeed, it appears
that the passage in the ravine, together with the wall which crosses its
upper end, were connected with it. There are some hollows underneath, in
which several persons have lost their lives; so that no one will now
venture into them, and their entrances have become choked up with
rubbish. Near this ruin is a heap of rubbish, the sides of which are
curiously streaked by the alternation of its materials, the chief part
of which, it is probable, was unburnt brick, of which I found a small
quantity in the neighborhood; but no reeds were discoverable in the
interstices.
“A mile to the north of the Kasr, or full five miles distant from Hella,
and nine hundred and fifty yards from the river bank, is the last ruin
of this series, which has been described by Pietro Della Valle, who
determines it to have been the tower of Belus, an opinion adopted by
Rennel. The natives call it Mukallibe, or, according to the vulgar Arab
pronunciation of these parts, Mujelibe, meaning _overturned_; they
sometimes also apply this term to the mounds of the Kasr. It is of an
oblong shape, irregular in its hight and the measurement of its sides,
which face the cardinal points; the northern side being two hundred
yards in length, the southern two hundred and nineteen, the eastern one
hundred and eighty-two, and the western one hundred and thirty-six; the
elevation of the south-east, or highest angle, one hundred and forty-one
feet. The western face, which is the least elevated, is the most
interesting, on account of the appearance of building it presents. Near
the summit of it appears a low wall, with interruptions, built of
unburnt bricks, mixed up with chopped straw or reeds, and cemented with
clay-mortar of great thickness, having between every layer a layer of
reeds; and on the north side are, also, some vestiges of a similar
construction. The south-west angle is crowned by something like a
turret, or lantern: the other angles are in a less perfect state, but
may originally have been ornamented in a similar manner. The western
face is lowest and easiest of ascent, the northern the most difficult.
All are worn into furrows by the weather; and in some places, where
several channels of rain have united together, these furrows are of
great depth, and penetrate a considerable way into the mound. The summit
is covered with heaps of rubbish, in digging into some of which, layers
of broken burnt brick, cemented with mortar, are discovered, and whole
bricks, with inscriptions on them, are here and there found. The whole
is covered with innumerable fragments of pottery, brick, bitumen,
pebbles, vitrified brick, or scoria, and even shells, bits of glass, and
mother of pearl.”
Mr. Rich, having now finished his observations on the ruins of the east
bank of the Euphrates, enters upon the examination of what, on the
opposite west bank, have been by some travelers supposed (and their
suppositions have been adopted by Major Rennel) to be the remains of
this great city. Those, however, which Mr. Rich describes, are of the
most trifling kind, scarcely exceeding one hundred yards in extent, and
wholly consisting of two or three insignificant mounds of earth,
overgrown with rank grass. The country, too, being marshy, he doubts the
possibility of there having been any buildings of considerable magnitude
erected in that spot, and, much less, buildings of the astonishing
dimensions of those described by the classical writers of antiquity. He
then opens to our view a new and almost unexplored remain of ancient
grandeur, in the following passage.
“But, although there are not any ruins in the immediate vicinity of the
river, by far the most stupendous and surprising mass of all the remains
of Babylon is situated in the desert about six miles to the south-west
of Hella. It is called by the Arabs _Birs Nimrod_, by the Jews,
Nebuchadnezzar’s prison. It is a mound of an oblong figure, the total
circumference of which is seven hundred and sixty-two yards. At the
eastern side it is cloven by a deep furrow, and is not more than fifty
or sixty feet high; but at the western it rises in a conical figure to
the elevation of one hundred and ninety-eight feet; and on its summit is
a solid pile of brick, thirty-seven feet high by twenty-eight in
breadth, diminishing in thickness to the top, which is broken and
irregular, and rent by a large fissure extending through a third of its
hight. It is perforated by small square holes, disposed in rhomboids.
The fine burnt bricks of which it is built have inscriptions on them;
and so admirable is the cement, which appears to be lime-mortar, that,
though the layers are so close together that it is difficult to discern
what substance is between them, it is nearly impossible to extract one
of the bricks whole. The other parts of the summit of this hill are
occupied by immense fragments of brick-work, of no determinate figure,
tumbled together and converted into solid vitrified masses, as if they
had undergone the action of the fiercest fire, or been blown up with
gunpowder, the layers of the bricks being perfectly discernible; a
curious fact, and one for which I am utterly incapable of accounting.
Round the Birs are traces of ruins to a considerable extent. To the
north is the canal which supplies Mesjiid Ali with water, which was dug
at the expense of the Nuwaub Shujahed Doulah, and called after his
country, Hindia. We are informed that, from the summit of the Birs, in a
clear morning, the gilt dome of Mesjiid Ali may be seen.”
Before passing on to a brief notice of the later discoveries at Babylon,
a word may be said on the subject of the