THE CITY OF BABYLON AND ITS REMAINS: A DISCUSSION OF THE RECENT
EXCAVATIONS
The actual site of Babylon was never lost in popular tradition. In
spite of the total disappearance of the city, which followed its
gradual decay under Seleucid and Parthian rule, its ancient fame
sufficed to keep it in continual remembrance. The old Semitic name
Bâb-ilî, "the Gate of the Gods," lingered on about the site, and under
the form Babil is still the local designation for the most northerly of
the city-mounds. Tradition, too, never ceased to connect the exposed
brickwork of Nebuchadnezzar's main citadel and palace with his name.
Ḳaṣr, the Arab name for the chief palace-mound and citadel of Babylon,
means "palace" or "castle," and when in the twelfth century Benjamin
of Tudela visited Baghdad, the Jews of that city told him that in
the neighbouring ruins, near Hilla, the traveller might still behold
Nebuchadnezzar's palace beside the fiery furnace into which Hananiah,
Mishael and Azariah had been thrown. It does not seem that this
adventurous rabbi actually visited the site,[1] though it is unlikely
that he was deterred by fear of the serpents and scorpions with which,
his informants said, the ruins were infested.
In the sixteenth century an English merchant traveller, John Eldred,
made three voyages to "New Babylon," as he calls Baghdad, journeying
from Aleppo down the Euphrates. On the last occasion, after describing
his landing at Faluja, and how he secured a hundred asses for lack
of camels to carry his goods to Baghdad, he tells us that "in this
place which we crossed over stood the olde mightie citie of Babylon,
many olde ruines whereof are easilie to be scene by daylight, which
I, John Eldred, have often behelde at my goode leisure having made
three voyages between the New Citie of Babylon and Aleppo over this
desert."[2] But it would seem probable from his further description
that "the olde tower of Babell," which he visited "sundry times," was
really the ruin of 'Akarkûf, which he would have passed on his way to
Baghdad. Benjamin of Tudela, on the other hand, had taken Birs-Nimrûd
for the Tower of Babel,[3] and had noted how the ruins of the streets
of Babylon still extend for thirty miles. In fact, it was natural that
several of the early travellers should have regarded the whole complex
of ruins, which they saw still standing along their road to Baghdad,
as parts of the ancient city; and it is not surprising that some of
the earlier excavators should have fallen under a similar illusion so
far as the area between Bâbil and El-Birs is concerned.[4] The famous
description of Herodotus, and the accounts other classical writers
have left us of the city's size, tended to foster this conviction;
and, although the centre of Babylon was identified correctly enough,
the size of the city's area was greatly exaggerated. Babylon had cast
her spell upon mankind, and it has taken sixteen years of patient and
continuous excavation to undermine that stubborn belief. But in the
process of shrinkage, and as accurate knowledge has gradually given
place to conjecture, the old spell has reappeared unchanged. It may be
worth while to examine in some detail the results of recent work upon
the site, and note to what extent the city's remains have thrown light
upon its history while leaving some problems still unsolved.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.
MAP OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BABYLON AND BIRS-NIMRÛD.
A: The mound Bâbil. B: The mound Ḳaṣr. C: The mound 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali. D:
The mound Merkes. E: Inner City-wall of Babylon. F: Outer City-wall of
Babylon. G: Ruins of western walls. H: Temple-tower of E-zida. K: Ruins
of E-zida. L: Marsh. M: Hindîya Canal.
(After the India Office Map.)]
In view of the revolution in our knowledge of Babylonian topography,
which has been one of the most striking results of recent work, no
practical purpose would be served by tracing out the earlier but very
partial examinations of the site which were undertaken successively
by Rich in 1811,[5] by Layard in 1850,[6] by Oppert as the head of
a French expedition in the years 1852-54,[7] and by Hormuzd Rassam,
between 1878 and 1889, when he was employed on excavations for the
British Museum.[8] During the last of these periods the British Museum
obtained a valuable series of tablets from Babylon, some of the texts
proving of great literary and scientific interest. In 1887, and again
after a lapse of ten years, Dr. Robert Koldewey visited the site of
Babylon and picked up fragments of enamelled bricks on the east side
of the Ḳaṣr. On the latter occasion he sent some of them to Berlin,
and Dr. Richard Schöne, at that time Director of the Royal Museums,
recognized their artistic and archæological interest. Thus it was with
the hope of making speedy and startling discoveries that the German
Oriental Society began work upon the site at the end of March in the
year 1899; and it is the more to the credit of the excavators that
they have not allowed any difficulties or disappointments to curtail
and bring to a premature close the steady progress of their research.
The extent of ground covered by the remains of the ancient city, and
the great accumulation of _débris_ over some of the principal buildings
rendered the work more arduous than was anticipated, and consequently
the publication of results has been delayed. It is true that, from the
very beginning of operations, the expert has been kept informed of
the general progress of the digging by means of letters and reports
distributed to its subscribers every few months by the society.[9] But
it was only in 1911, after twelve years of uninterrupted digging, that
the first instalment was issued of the scientific publication. This was
confined to the temples of the city, and for the first time placed the
study of Babylonian religious architecture upon a scientific basis.[10]
In the following year Dr. Koldewey, the director of the excavations,
supplemented his first volume with a second, in which, under pressure
from the society, he forestalled to some extent the future issues of
the detailed account by summarizing the results obtained to date upon
all sections of the site.[11] It has thus been rendered possible to
form a connected idea of the remains of the ancient city, so far as
they have been recovered.
In their work at Babylon the excavators have, of course, employed
modern methods, which differ considerably from those of the age when
Layard and Botta brought the winged bulls of Assyria to the British
Museum and to the Louvre. The extraordinary success which attended
those earlier excavators has, indeed, never been surpassed. But it
is now realized that only by minuteness of search and by careful
classification of strata can the remains of the past be made to
reveal in full their secrets. The fine museum specimen retains its
importance; but it gains immensely in significance when it ceases to be
an isolated product and takes its place in a detailed history of its
period.
[Illustration: (i) The temple-tower of E-zida at Borsippa. (ii) The
Lion of Babylon on the Ḳaṣr Mound]
In order to grasp the character of the new evidence, and the methods
by which it has been obtained at Babylon, it is advisable to bear in
mind some of the general characteristics of Babylonian architecture
and the manner in which the art of building was influenced by the
natural conditions of the country. One important point to realize is
that the builders of all periods were on the defensive, and not solely
against human foes, for in that aspect they resembled other builders
of antiquity. The foe they most dreaded was Hood. Security against
flood conditioned the architect's ideal: he aimed solely at height
and mass. When a king built a palace for himself or a temple for his
god, he did not consciously aim at making it graceful or beautiful.
What he always boasts of having done is that he has made it "like a
mountain." He delighted to raise the level of his artificial mound or
building-platform, and the modern excavator owes much to this continual
filling in of the remains of earlier structures. The material at his
disposal was also not without its influence in the production of
buildings "like mountains," designed to escape the floods of the plain.
The alluvial origin of the Babylonian soil deprived the inhabitants
of an important factor in the development of the builder's art:
it produced for them no stone. But it supplied a very effective
building-material in its place, a strongly adhesive clay. Throughout
their whole history the Babylonian architects built in crude and in
kiln-burnt brick. In the Neo-Babylonian period we find them making
interesting technical experiments in this material, here a first
attempt to roof in a wide area with vaulting, elsewhere counteracting
the effects of settlement by a sort of expansion-joint. We shall see,
too, that it was in this same medium that they attained to real beauty
of design.
Brick continued to be the main building-material in Assyria too, for
that country derived its culture from the lower Euphrates valley.[12]
But in the north soft limestone quarries were accessible. So in
Assyria they lined their mud-brick walls with slabs of limestone,
carved in low relief and brightly coloured; and they set up huge stone
colossi to flank their palace entrances. This use of stone, both as a
wall-lining and in wall-foundations, constitutes the main difference
between Babylonian and Assyrian architectural design. Incidentally
it explains how the earlier excavators were so much more successful
in Assyria than in Babylonia; for in both countries they drove their
tunnels and trenches into most of the larger mounds. They could tunnel
with perfect certainty when they had these stone linings of the
walls to guide them. But to follow out the ground-plan of a building
constructed only of unburnt brick, with mud or clay for mortar,
necessitates a slower and more systematic process of examination.
For unburnt brick becomes welded into a solid mass, scarcely to be
distinguished from the surrounding soil, and the lines of a building in
this material can only be recovered by complete excavation.
An idea of the labour this sometimes entails may be gained from the
work which preceded the identification of E-sagila, the great temple
of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon. The temple lies at a depth of
no less than twenty-one metres below the upper level of the hill of
_débris_; and portions of two of its massive mud-brick walls, together
with the neighbouring pavements, were uncovered by bodily removing the
great depth of soil truck by truck. But here even German patience and
thoroughness have been beaten, and tunnelling was eventually adopted
to establish the outer limits of the ground-plan, much of the interior
of which still remains unexplored.[13]
The Babylon which has now been partially cleared, though in its
central portion it reaches back to the First Dynasty and to the
period of Hammurabi, is mainly that of the Neo-Babylonian empire,
when Nebuchadnezzar II., and Nabonidus, the last native Babylonian
king, raised their capital to a condition of magnificence it had not
known before. This city survived, with but little change, during the
domination of the Achæmenian kings of Persia, and from the time of
Herodotus onward Babylon was made famous throughout the ancient world.
At that time Ashur and Nineveh, the great capitals of Assyria, had
ceased to exist; but Babylon was still in her glory, and descriptions
of the city have come down to us in the works of classical writers.
To fit this literary tradition to the actual remains of the city has
furnished a number of fascinating problems. How, for example, are we
to explain the puzzling discrepancy between the present position of
the outer walls and the enormous estimate of the city's area given by
Herodotus, or even that of Ctesias? For Herodotus himself appears to
have visited Babylon; and Ctesias was the physician of Artaxerxes II.
Mnemon, who has left a memorial of his presence in a marble building on
the Ḳaṣr.
Herodotus reckons that the walls of Babylon extended for four hundred
and eighty stades, the area they enclosed forming an exact square,
a hundred and twenty stades in length each way.[14] In other words,
he would have us picture a city more than fifty-three miles in
circumference. The estimate of Ctesias is not so large, his side
of sixty-five stades giving a circumference of rather over forty
miles.[15] Such figures, it has been suggested, are not in themselves
impossible, Koldewey, for example, comparing the Great Wall of China
which extends for more than fifteen hundred miles, and is thus about
twenty-nine times as long as Herodotus's estimate for the wall of
Babylon.[16] But the latter was not simply a frontier-fortification.
It was the enclosing wall of a city, and a more apposite comparison is
that of the walls of Nanking, the largest city-site in China, and the
work of an empire even greater than Babylon.[17] The latter measure
less than twenty-four miles in circuit, and the comparison does not
encourage an acceptance of Herodotus's figures on grounds of general
probability. It is true that Oppert accepted them, but he only found
this possible by stretching his plan of the city to include the whole
area from Babil to Birs-Nimrûd,[18] and by seeing traces of the city
and its walls in every sort of intervening mound of whatever period.
As a matter of fact part of the great wall, which surrounded the city
from the Neo-Babylonian period onward, has survived to the present
day, and may still be recognized in a low ridge of earth, or series
of consecutive mounds,[19] which cross the plain for a considerable
distance to the south-east of Babil. The traveller from Baghdad, after
crossing the present Nîl Canal by a bridge,[20] passes through a gap in
the north-eastern wall before he sees on his right the isolated mound
of Bâbil with the extensive complex of the Ḳaṣr and its neighbour, Tell
'Amrân-ibn-'Ali, stretching away in front and to his left.[21] The
whole length of the city-wall, along the north-east side, may still be
traced by the position of these low earthen mounds, and they prove that
the city on this side measured not quite two and three-quarter miles
in extent. The eastern angle of the wall is also preserved, and the
south-east wall may be followed for another mile and a quarter as it
doubles back towards the Euphrates. These two walls, together with the
Euphrates, enclose the only portion of the ancient city on which ruins
of any importance still exist. But, according to Herodotus and other
writers, the city was enclosed by two similar walls upon the western
bank, in which case the site it occupied must have formed a rough
quadrangle, divided diagonally by the river. No certain trace has yet
been recovered of the western walls,[22] and all remains of buildings
seem to have disappeared completely on that side of the river. But for
the moment it may be assumed that the city did occupy approximately an
equal amount of space upon the western bank; and, even so, its complete
circuit would not have extended for more than about eleven miles, a
figure very far short of any of those given by Herodotus, Ctesias and
other writers.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.
PLAN OF THE RUINS OF BABYLON.
A: The mound Babil. B: Outer City-wall. C: Inner City-wall. D: The
Ḳaṣr mound. E: The mound 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali. F: E-makh, temple of the
goddess Ninmakh. G: Temple of Ishtar of Akkad. H: E-tomen-anki, the
Tower of Babylon. I: Ancient bed of the Euphrates. J: The mound Merkes.
K: E-sagila, the temple of Marduk. L: The mound Ishin-aswad. M:
Unidentified temple known as "_Z._" N: E-patutila, the temple of Ninib.
P: Greek theatre. Q: Sakhn, the small plain covering the precincts of
the Tower of Babylon. R: The mound Homera. S: Nîl Canal. T: Bridge over
Nîl Canal. U: Former bed of Nîl Canal. V: Old Canal. W: Euphrates. X:
Track from Baghdad to Hilla. Z: Mounds covering the ruins of walls. I:
Village of Anana. 2: Village of Kweiresh. 3: Village of Jumjumma. 4:
Village of Sinjar.
(After Koldewey and Andrae.)]
Dr. Koldewey suggests that, as the estimate of Ctesias approximates to
four times the correct measurement, we may suspect that he mistook the
figure which applies to the whole circumference for the measure of one
side only of the square. But even if we accept that solution, it leaves
the still larger figure of Herodotus unexplained. It is preferable
to regard all such estimates of size, not as based on accurate
measurements, but merely as representing an impression of grandeur
produced on the mind of their recorder, whether by a visit to the city
itself, or by reports of its magnificence at second-hand.
The excavators have not as yet devoted much attention to the city-wall,
and, until more extensive digging has been carried out, it will not be
possible to form a very detailed idea of the system of fortification.
But enough has already been done to prove that the outer wall was a
very massive structure, and consisted of two separate walls with the
intermediate space filled in with rubble. The outer wall, or face,
which bore the brunt of any attack and rose high above the moat
encircling the city, was of burnt brick set in bitumen. It measured
more than seven metres in thickness, and below ground-level was further
protected from the waters of the moat by an additional wall, more
than three metres in thickness, and, like it, constructed of burnt
brick with bitumen as mortar. Behind the outer wall, at a distance
of some twelve metres from it, was a second wall of nearly the same
thickness. This faced inward towards the city, and so was constructed
of crude or unburnt brick, as it would not be liable to direct assault
by a besieger; and the mortar employed was clay.[23] The crude-brick
wall cannot be dated accurately, but it is certainly older than the
reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and in his father's time it probably formed
the outer city's sole protection.[24] The burnt-brick wall and the
moat-lining in front of it date, in their present form, from the age of
Nebuchadnezzar, for they are built of his square bricks, impressed with
his usual stamp, which are so common over the whole site of Babylon.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.
GROUND-PLAN OF PART OF THE OUTER CITY-WALL.
A: Outer moat-lining of burnt-brick. B: Moat. C: Inner moat-lining of
burnt-brick. D: Outer wall of burnt-brick. E: Rubble-filling. F: Inner
wall of crude brick, with towers built at intervals across it. The
figures on the plan give measurements in metres.
(After Koldewey and Andrae.)]
At intervals along the crude-brick wall were towers projecting slightly
beyond each face.[25] Only the bases of the towers have been preserved,
so that any restoration of their upper structure must rest on pure
conjecture. But, as rubble still fills the space between the two
walls of burnt and unburnt brick, it may be presumed that the filling
was continued up to the crown of the outer wall. It is possible that
the inner wall of crude brick was raised to a greater height and
formed a curtain between each pair of towers. But even so, the clear
space in front, consisting of the rubble filling and the burnt-brick
wall, formed a broad roadway nearly twenty metres in breadth, which
extended right round the city along the top of the wall. On this
point the excavations have fully substantiated the account given by
Herodotus, who states that "on the top, along the edges of the wall,
they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another,
leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn."[26] Even
if smaller towers were built upon the outer edge, there would have been
fully enough space to drive a team of four horses abreast along the
wall, and in the intervals between the towers two such chariots might
easily have passed each other. It has been acutely noted that this
design of the wall was not only of protection by reason of its size,
but was also of great strategic value; for it enabled the defence to
move its forces with great speed from one point to another, wherever
the attack at the moment might be pressed.[27]
In fact it is only in the matter of size and extent that the
description given by Herodotus of the walls of Babylon is to be
discounted; and those are just the sort of details that an ancient
traveller would accept without question from his local guide. His total
number for the city-gates is also no doubt excessive,[28] but his
description of the wall itself as built of burnt-brick tallies exactly
with the construction of its outer face, which would have been the only
portion visible to any one passing outside the city. Moreover, in one
portion of the wall, as reconstructed by Nebuchadnezzar, its inner as
well as its outer half appears to have been formed of burnt-brick. This
is the small rectangular extension, which Nebuchadnezzar threw out to
protect his later citadel now covered by the mound known as Babil.[29]
The mound of Babil represents Nebuchadnezzar's latest addition to the
city's system of fortification, and its construction in advance of
the old line of the outer walls was dictated by the desire, of which
we find increasing evidence throughout his reign, to strengthen the
capital against attack from the north. The mound has not yet been
systematically excavated, but enough has been done to prove that, like
the great citadel upon the Ḳaṣr, it protected a royal palace consisting
of a large number of chambers and galleries grouped around open courts.
From this fact it is clear that a Babylonian citadel was not simply a
fortress to be used by the garrison for the defence of the city as a
whole: it was also a royal residence, into which the monarch and his
court could shut themselves for safety should the outer wall of the
city itself be penetrated. Even in times of peace the king dwelt there,
and the royal stores and treasury, as well as the national armoury
and arsenal, were housed in its innumerable magazines. In the case of
the Southern Citadel of Babylon, on which excavations have now been
continuously carried out for sixteen years, we shall see that it formed
a veritable township in itself. It was a city within a city, a second
Babylon in miniature.[30]
The Southern or chief Citadel was built on the mound now known as
the Ḳaṣr, and within it Nebuchadnezzar erected his principal palace,
partly over an earlier building of his father Nabopolassar. The palace
and citadel occupy the old city-square or centre of Babylon, which
is referred to in the inscriptions as the _irsit Babili,_ "the Bâbil
place."[31] Though far smaller in extent than Nebuchadnezzar's citadel,
we may conclude that the chief fortress of Babylon always stood upon
this site, and the city may well have derived its name Bâb-ilî, "the
Gate of the Gods," from the strategic position of its ancient fortress,
commanding as it does, the main approach to E-sagila, the famous temple
of the city-god.[32] The earliest ruins in Babylon, which date from
the age of Hammurabi and the First Dynasty of West-Semitic kings,
lie under the mound of Merkes[33] just to the east of E-sagila and
the Tower of Babylon, proving that the first capital clustered about
the shrine of the city-god. The streets in that quarter suffered but
little change, and their main lines remained unaltered down through the
Kassite period into Neo-Babylonian and later times.[34] It was natural
that even in the earlier period the citadel should have been planted
up-stream, to the north of city and temple, since the greatest danger
of invasion was always from the north.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.
CONJECTURAL RESTORATION OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.
The view is reconstructed from the north, the conventional mound in
the foreground covering the Central Citadel now partially excavated.
The Sacred Road passes through the Ishtar Gate and along the east side
of the palace; further to the east and within the fortifications is
the small temple of Ninmakh. The innermost wall encloses the palace
of Nebuchadnezzar with its four open courts; the façade of the Throne
Room, with three entrances, is visible in the Great Court. The flat
roofs of the palace are broken here and there by smaller courts or
light-wells. Compare the ground-plan on p. 30, Fig. 6.
(After Andrae.)]
The outer city-wall, already described, dates only from the
Neo-Babylonian period, when the earlier and smaller city expanded with
the prosperity which followed the victories of Nabopolassar and his
son. The eastern limits of that earlier city, at any rate toward the
close of the Assyrian domination, did not extend beyond the inner wall,
which was then the only line of defence and was directly connected
with the main citadel. The course of the inner wall may still be
traced for a length of seventeen hundred metres by the low ridge or
embankment,[35] running approximately north and south, from a point
north-east of the mound Homera.[36] It was a double fortification,
consisting of two walls of crude or unburnt brick, with a space between
of rather more than seven metres. The thicker of the walls, on the
west, which is six and a half metres in breadth, has large towers built
across it, projecting deeply on the outer side, and alternating with
smaller towers placed lengthwise along it. The outer or eastern wall
has smaller towers at regular intervals. Now along the north side of
the main or Southern Citadel run a pair of very similar walls,[37] also
of crude brick, and they are continued eastward of the citadel to a
point where, in the Persian period, the Euphrates through a change of
course destroyed all further trace of them.[38] We may confidently
assume that in the time of Nebuchadnezzar[39] they were linked up with
the inner city-wall to the north of Homeni and formed its continuation
after it turned at right angles on its way towards the river-bank.
This line of fortification is of considerable interest, as there is
reason to believe it may represent the famous double-line of Babylon's
defences, which is referred to again and again in the inscriptions.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.
PLAN OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.
A: East Court of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar. B: Central Court. C:
Great Court. D: Private portion of palace built over earlier Palace
of Nabopolassar. E: West extension of palace. F: Throne Room of
Nebuchadnezzar. G: Sacred Road, known as Aibur-shabû. H: Ishtar Gate.
I: Continuation of Sacred Road with Lion Frieze. J: Temple of Ninmakh.
K: Space between the two fortification-walls of crude brick, probably
Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl. L: Older moat-wall. M: Later moat-wall.
N: Later fortification thrown out into the bed of the Euphrates. P:
Southern Canal, probably part of the Libil-khegalla. R: Basin of canal.
S: Persian building. T: Moat, formerly the left side of the Euphrates.
V: River-side embankment of the Persian period, a: Gateway to East
Court, b: Gateway to Central Court, c: Gateway to Great Court, d:
Double Gateway to private part of palace, e, f: Temporary ramps used
during construction of palace, g: Temporary wall of crude brick, h:
Broad passage-way, leading northwards to Vaulted Building.
(After Koldewey, Reuther and Wetzel.)]
The two names the Babylonians gave these walls were suggested by their
gratitude to and confidence in Marduk, the city-god, who for them was
the "Bêl," or Lord, _par excellence._ To the greater of the two, the
_dûru_ or inner wall, they gave the name _Imgur-Bêl,_ meaning "Bêl
has been gracious"; while the _shaikhu,_ or outer one, they called
_Nimitti-Bêl,_ that is, probably, "The foundation of Bêl," or "My
foundation is Bêl."[40] The identification of at least one of the
crude-brick walls near Homera with Nimitti-Bêl, has been definitely
proved by several foundation-cylinders of Ashur-bani-pal, the famous
Assyrian king who deposed his brother Shamash-shum-ukîn from the throne
of Babylon and annexed the country as a province of Assyria.[41] On the
cylinders he states that the walls Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl had fallen
into ruins, and he records his restoration of the latter, within the
foundation or structure of which the cylinders were originally immured.
Unfortunately they were not found in place, but among the _débris_ in
the space between the walls, so that it is not now certain from which
wall they came. If they had been deposited in the thicker or inner
wall, then Nimitti-Bêl must have been a double line of fortification,
and both walls together must have borne the name; and in that case we
must seek elsewhere for Imgur-Bêl. But it is equally possible that they
came from the narrow or outer wall; and on this alternative Nimitti-Bêl
may be the outer one and Imgur-Bêl the broader inner-wall with the
widely projecting towers. It is true that only further excavation can
settle the point; but meanwhile the fortifications on the Ḳaṣr have
supplied further evidence which seems to support the latter view.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.
GROUND-PLAN OF QUAY-WALLS AND FORTIFICATION-WALLS IN THE N.W. CORNER OF
THE S. CITADEL.
A: Sargon's quay-wall. B: Older moat-wall. C: Later moat-wall of
Nebuchadnezzar. D: Intermediate wall. E: South fortification-wall of
crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl. F: North fortification-wall of crude
brick, probably Nimitti-Bêl. G: North wall of the Southern Citadel.
I: Ruins of building, possibly the quarters of the Captain of the
Wall. J: Palace of Nabopolassar. K: West Extension of the Southern
Citadel. L: Connecting wall. M: Later wall across channel with grid
for water. N: Water, originally the left side of the Euphrates. P:
Later fortification of Nebuchadnezzar in former bed of the Euphrates.
1-3: Nabopolassar's quay-walls. N.B. The quays and moat-walls are
distinguished by dotting.
(After Koldewey.)]
The extensive alterations which took place in the old citadel's
fortifications, especially during Nebuchadnezzar's long reign of
forty-three years, led to the continual dismantling of earlier
structures and the enlargement of the area enclosed upon the north and
west. This is particularly apparent in its north-west corner. Here,
at a considerable depth below the later fortification-walls, were
found the remains of four earlier walls,[42] the discovery of which
has thrown considerable light on the topography of this portion of
Babylon. All four are ancient quay-walls, their northern and western
faces sloping sharply inwards as they rise. Each represents a fresh
rebuilding of the quay, as it was gradually extended to the north
and west. Fortunately, stamped and inscribed bricks were employed in
considerable quantities in their construction, so that it is possible
to date the periods of rebuilding accurately.
The earliest of the quay-walls, which is also the earliest building
yet recovered on the Ḳaṣr, is the most massive of the four,[43] and
is strengthened at the angle with a projecting circular bastion.
It is the work of Sargon of Assyria,[44] who states the object of
the structure in a text inscribed upon several of its bricks. After
reciting his own name and titles, he declares that it was his desire to
rebuild Imgur-Bêl; that with this object he caused burnt-bricks to be
fashioned, and built a quay-wall with pitch and bitumen in the depth
of the water from beside the Ishtar Gate to the bank of the Euphrates;
and he adds that he "founded Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl mountain-high
upon it."[45] The two walls of Sargon, which he here definitely names
as Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl, were probably of crude brick, and
were, no doubt, demolished and replaced by the later structures of
Nabopolassar's and Nebuchadnezzar's reigns. But they must have occupied
approximately the same position as the two crude brick walls above
the quay of Sargon,[46] which run from the old bank of the Euphrates
to the Ishtar Gate, precisely the two points mentioned in Sargon's
text. His evidence is therefore strongly in favour of identifying
these later crude-brick walls, which we have already connected with
the inner city-wall, as the direct successors of his Imgur-Bêl and his
Nimitti-Bêl, and therefore as inheritors of the ancient names.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.
SECTION OF THE QUAY-WALLS AND FORTIFICATION-WALLS ALONG THE NORTH FRONT
OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.
A: Sargon's quay-wall. B: Older moat-wall. O: Later moat-wall of
Nebuchadnezzar. D: Intermediate wall. E: South fortification-wall of
crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl. F: North fortification-wall of crude
brick, probably Nimitti-Bêl. G: North wall of Southern Citadel. H:
Remains of older crude brick wall.
(After Andrae.)]
We find further confirmation of this view in one of the later
quay-walls, which succeeded that of Sargon. The three narrow walls
already referred to[47] were all the work of Nabopolassar, and
represent three successive extensions of the quay westward into the bed
of the stream, which in the inscriptions upon their bricks is given the
name of Arakhtu.[48] But the texts make no mention of the city-walls.
No inscriptions at all have been found in the structure of the next
extension, represented by the wall B, which, like the latest quay-wall
(C), is not rounded off in the earlier manner, but is strengthened at
the corner with a massive rectangular bastion. It was in this latest
and most substantial of all the quay-walls that further inscriptions
were found referring to Imgur-Bêl. They prove that this wall was
the work of Nebuchadnezzar, who refers in them to Nabopolassar's
restoration of Imgur-Bêl and records that he raised its banks with
bitumen and burnt-brick mountain-high. It is therefore clear that this
was the quay-wall of Imgur Bêl, which it supported in the manner of
Sargon's earlier structure. That the less important Nimitti-Bêl is not
mentioned in these texts does not necessitate our placing it elsewhere,
in view of Sargon's earlier reference.
We may therefore provisionally regard the two crude-brick walls along
the Ḳaṣr's northern front[49] as a section of the famous defences of
Babylon, and picture them as running eastward till they meet the inner
city-wall by Homera. The point at which they extended westward across
the Euphrates can, as yet, only be conjectured. But it is significant
that the angle of the western walls, which may still be traced under
mounds to the north of Sinjar village,[50] is approximately in line
with the north front of the Ḳaṣr and the end of the inner wall by
Homera. Including these western walls within our scheme, the earlier
Babylon would have been rectangular in ground-plan, about a quarter
of it only upon the right bank, and the portion east of the river
forming approximately a square. The Babylon of the Kassite period and
of the First Dynasty must have been smaller still, its area covering
little more than the three principal mounds; and, though part of its
street net-work has been recovered, no trace of its fortifications has
apparently survived.
The evidence relating to the city's walls and fortifications has
been summarized rather fully, as it has furnished the chief subject
of controversy in connexion with the excavations. It should be added
that the view suggested above is not shared by Dr. Koldewey, whose
objections to the proposed identification of Imgur-Bêl rest on his
interpretation of two phrases in a cylinder of Nabopolassar, which was
found out of place in _débris_ close to the east wall of the Southern
Citadel. In it Nabopolassar records his own restoration of Imgur-Bêl,
which he tells us had fallen into decay, and he states that he "founded
it in the primæval abyss," adding the words, "I caused Babylon to
be enclosed with it towards the four winds."[51] From the reference
to the abyss, Dr. Koldewey concludes that it had deep foundations,
and must therefore have been constructed of burnt, not crude, brick;
while from the second phrase he correctly infers that it must have
formed a quadrilateral closed on all sides. But that, as we have seen,
is precisely the ground-plan we obtain by including the remains of
walls west of the river. And, in view of the well-known tendency to
exaggeration in these Neo-Babylonian records, we should surely not
credit any single metaphor with the accuracy of a modern architect's
specification. If a single section of the wall had been furnished,
during restoration, with a burnt-brick substructure, it would have been
enough to justify the royal claim.
The manner in which the Euphrates was utilized for the defence
and water-supply of the citadel has also been illustrated by the
excavations. The discovery of Sargon's inscriptions proved that in
his day the river flowed along the western face of his quay-wall;[52]
while the inscriptions on bricks from the three successive quay-walls
of Nabopolassar[53] state, in each case, that he used them to rebuild
the wall of a channel he calls the "Arakhtu," using the name in
precisely the same way as Sargon refers to the Euphrates. The simplest
explanation is that in Nabopolassar's time the Arakhtu was the name
for that section of the Euphrates which washed the western side of
the citadel, and that its use in any case included the portion of the
citadel-moat, or canal, along its northern face, which formed a basin
opening directly upon the river.[54] The "Arakhtu" may thus have been
a general term, not only for this basin, but for the whole water-front
from the north-west corner of the citadel to some point on the left
bank to the south of it. It may perhaps have been further extended to
include the river frontage of the Tower of Babylon, since it was into
the Arakhtu that Sennacherib cast the tower on his destruction of the
city. Within this stretch of water, particularly along the northern
quays, vessels and _keleks_ would have been moored which arrived down
stream with supplies for the palace and the garrison. The Arakhtu, in
fact, may well have been the name for the ancient harbour or dock of
Babylon.
Some idea of the appearance of the quays may be gathered from the
right-hand corner of the restoration in Fig. 5.[55] It is true that
the outer quay-wall appears to have been built to replace the inner
one, while in the illustration both are shown. But since the height
of the citadel and of its walls was continually being raised, the
arrangement there suggested is by no means impossible. But in the later
part of his reign Nebuchadnezzar changed the aspect of the river-front
entirely. To the west of the quay-walls, in the bed of the river,
he threw out a massive fortification with immensely thick walls,
from twenty to twenty-five metres in breadth.[56] It was constructed
entirely of burnt-brick and bitumen, and, from his reference to it in
an inscription from Sippar, it would seem that his object in building
it was to prevent the formation of sandbanks in the river, which in the
past may have caused the flooding of the left bank above E-Sagila.[57]
A narrow channel[58] was left between it and the old quay, along which
the river water continued to flow through gratings. This no doubt
acted as an overflow for the old northern moat of the citadel, since
the latter fed the supply-canal, which passed round the palace and
may still be traced along its south side.[59] It is possible that the
subsequent change in the course of the Euphrates may be traced in part
to this huge river-fortification. Its massive structure suggests that
it had to withstand considerable water-pressure, and it may well have
increased any tendency of the stream to break away eastward. However
that may be, it is certain that for a considerable time during the
Persian and Seleucid periods it flowed round to the eastward of the
Ḳaṣr, close under three sides of the citadel and rejoined its former
bed to the north of Marduk's temple and the Tower of Babylon. Its
course east of the Ishtar Gate is marked by a late embankment sloping
outwards, which supported the thicker of the crude-brick walls at the
point where they suddenly break off.[60] Beyond this embankment only
mud and river sediment were found. The water-course to the south of
the citadel is probably the point where the river turned again towards
the channel it had deserted. A trench that was dug here showed that
the present soil is formed of silt deposited by water, and beyond the
remains of the earlier canal no trace of any building was recovered.
This temporary change in the river's course, which the excavations have
definitely proved, explains another puzzle presented by the classical
tradition--the striking discrepancy between the actual position of
the principal ruins of Babylon in relation to the river and their
recorded position in the Persian period. Herodotus,[61] for example,
places the fortress with the palace of the kings (that is, the Ḳaṣr),
on the opposite bank to the sacred precinct of Zeus Belus (that is,
E-temen-anki, the Tower of Babylon). But we have now obtained proof
that they were separated at that time by the Euphrates, until the river
returned to its former and present bed, probably before the close of
the Seleucid period.
The greater part of the Southern Citadel is occupied by the enormous
palace on which Nebuchadnezzar lavished his energies during so many
years of his reign. On ascending the throne of Babylon, he found
the ancient fortress a very different place to the huge structure
he bequeathed to his successors. He had lived there in his father's
life-time, but Nabopolassar had been content with a comparatively
modest dwelling. And when his son, flushed with his victory over the
hosts of Egypt, returned to Babylon to take the hands of Bêl, he began
to plan a palace that should be worthy of the empire he had secured.
Of the old palace of Nabopolassar, in which at first he was obliged
to dwell, very little now remains. What is left of it constitutes the
earliest building of which traces now exist within the palace area.
Nebuchadnezzar describes it, before his own building operations, as
extending from the Euphrates eastward to the Sacred Road; and the old
palace-enclosure undoubtedly occupied that site. Traces of the old
fortification-wall have been found below the east front of the later
palace, and the arched doorway which gave access to its open court,
afterwards filled up and built over by Nebuchadnezzar, has been found
in a perfect state of preservation.[62]
[Illustration: III. The Throne Room in Nebuchadnezzar's palace at
Babylon, showing the recess in the back wall where the throne once
stood.]
The old palace itself[63] did not reach beyond the western side of
Nebuchadnezzar's great court.[64] The upper structure, as we learn from
the East India House Inscription,[65] was of crude brick, which was
demolished for the later building. But Nabopolassar, following a custom
which had survived unchanged from the time of Hammurabi, had placed
his crude-brick walls upon burnt-brick foundations. These his son made
use of, simply strengthening them before erecting his own walls upon
them. Thus this section of the new palace retained the old ground-plan
to a great extent unchanged. The strength and size of its walls are
remarkable and may in part be explained by the crude-brick upper
structure of the earlier building, which necessarily demanded a broader
base for its walls.
When Nebuchadnezzar began building he dwelt in the old palace, while
he strengthened the walls of its open court on the east and raised its
level for the solid platform on which his own palace was to rise.[66]
For a time the new and the old palace were connected by two ramps of
unburnt-brick,[67] which were afterwards filled in below the later
pavement of the great court; and we may picture the king ascending
the ramps with his architect on his daily inspection of the work. As
soon as the new palace on the east was ready he moved into it, and,
having demolished the old one, he built up his own walls upon its
foundations, and filled in the intermediate spaces with earth and
rubble until he raised its pavement to the eastern level. Still later
he built out a further extension[68] along its western side. In the
account he has left us of the palace-building the king says: "I laid
firm its foundation and raised it mountain-high with bitumen and
burnt-brick. Mighty cedars I caused to be stretched out 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 therein."[69]
A good general idea of the palace ground-plan, in its final form, may
be obtained from Fig. 6. The main entrance was in its eastern front,
through a gate-way,[70] flanked on its outer side by towers, and
known as the Bûb Bêlti, or "Lady Gate," no doubt from its proximity
to the temple of the goddess Ninmakh.[71] The gate-house consists of
an entrance hall, with rooms opening at the sides for the use of the
palace-guard. The eastern part of the palace is built to the north and
south of three great open courts,[72] separated from each other by
gateways[73] very like that at the main entrance to the palace. It will
be noticed that, unlike the arrangement of a European dwelling, the
larger rooms are always placed on the south side of the court facing to
the north, for in the sub-tropical climate of Babylonia the heat of the
summer sun was not courted, and these chambers would have been in the
shade throughout almost the whole of the day.
Some of the larger apartments, including possibly the chambers of the
inner gateways, must have served as courts of justice, for from the
Hammurabi period onward we know that the royal palace was the resort
of litigants, whose appeals in the earlier period were settled by the
king himself,[74] and later by the judges under his supervision. Every
kind of commercial business was carried on within the palace precincts,
and not only were regular lawsuits tried, but any transaction that
required legal attestation was most conveniently carried through
there. Proof of this may be seen in the fact that so many of the
Neo-Babylonian contracts that have been recovered on the site of
Babylon are dated from the Al-Bît-shar-Bâbili, "the City of the King
of Babylon's dwelling," doubtless a general title for the citadel and
palace-area. All government business was also transacted here, and we
may provisionally assign to the higher ministers and officials of the
court the great apartment and the adjoining dwellings on the south side
of the Central Court of the palace.[75] For many of the more important
officers in the king's service were doubtless housed on the premises;
and to those of lower rank we may assign the similar but rather
smaller dwellings, which flank the three courts on the north and the
Entrance Court upon the south side as well. Even royal manufactories
were carried on within the palace, to judge from the large number of
alabaster jars, found beside their cylindrical cores, in one room in
the south-west corner by the outer palace-wall.[76]
It will be seen from the ground-plan that these dwellings consist
of rooms built around open courts or light-wells; most of them are
separate dwellings, isolated from their neighbours, and having doors
opening on to the greater courts or into passage-ways running up from
them. No trace of any windows has been found within the buildings,
and it is probable that they were very sparsely employed. But we must
not conclude that they were never used, since no wall of the palace
has been preserved for more than a few feet in height, and, for the
greater part, their foundations only have survived. But there is no
doubt that, like the modern houses of the country, all the dwellings,
whether in palace or city, had flat roofs, which formed the natural
sleeping-place for their inhabitants during the greater part of the
year. Towards sunset, when the heat of the day was past, they would
ascend to the house-tops to enjoy the evening breeze; during the day a
window would have been merely a further inlet for the sun. The general
appearance of the palace is no doubt accurately rendered in the sketch
already given.[77]
[Illustration Fig. 9.
PLAN OF THE THRONE ROOM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND PART OF THE PRIVATE
PALACE.
C: Great Court. F: Throne Room, _a:_ Recess in back-wall for throne,
_b-d:_ Entrances to Throne Room from Court, _e-g_: Entrances from side
and back. 1-3: Open courts, surrounded by rooms for the royal service.
4, 5: Open courts in the south-east corner of the Private Palace.
(After Koldewey.)]
The most interesting apartment within the palace is one that may
be identified as Nebuchadnezzar's Throne Room. This is the room
immediately to the south of the Great Court.[78] It is the largest
chamber of the palace, and since the walls on the longer sides are
six metres thick, far broader than those at the ends, it is possible
that they supported a barrel-vaulting. It has three entrances from the
court,[79] and in the back wall opposite the centre one is a broad
niche, doubly recessed into the structure of the wall, where we may
assume the royal throne once stood. During any elaborate court ceremony
the king would thus have been visible upon his throne, not only to
those within the chamber, but also from the central portion of the
Great Court. It was in this portion of the palace that some traces of
the later Babylonian methods of mural decoration were discovered. For,
while the inner walls of the Throne Room were merely washed over with a
plaster of white gypsum, the brickwork of the outer façade, which faced
the court, was decorated with brightly-coloured enamels.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.
DESIGN IN ENAMELLED BRICK FROM THE FAÇADE OF THE THRONE ROOM
In the drawing light and dark blue are indicated by light and heavy
horizontal shading; yellow by a dotted surface.]
Only fragments of the enamelled surface were discovered, but these
sufficed to restore the scheme of decoration. A series of yellow
columns with bright blue capitals, both edged with white borders, stand
out against a dark blue ground. The capitals are the most striking
feature of the composition. Each consists of two sets of double
volutes, one above the other, and a white rosette with yellow centre
comes partly into sight above them. Between each member is a bud in
sheath, forming a trefoil, and linking the volutes of the capitals by
means of light blue bands which fall in a shallow curve from either
side of it. Still higher on the wall ran a frieze of double palmettes
in similar colouring, between yellow line-borders, the centres of the
latter picked out with lozenges coloured black and yellow, and black
and white, alternately. The rich effect of this enamelled façade of the
Throne Room was enhanced by the decoration of the court gateway, the
surface of which was adorned in a like fashion with figures of lions.
So too were the gateways of the other eastern courts, to judge from
the fragments of enamel found there, but the rest of the court-walls
were left undecorated or, perhaps, merely received a coat of plaster.
The fact that the interior of the Throne Room, like the rest of the
chambers of the palace, was without ornamentation of any sort favours
the view that heat, and light with it, was deliberately excluded by the
absence of windows in the walls.
The chambers behind the Throne Room, reached by two doorways in the
back wall,[80] were evidently for the king's service, and are ranged
around three open courts; and in the south-west corners of two of
them, which lie immediately behind the Throne Room wall, are wells,
their positions indicated on the plan by small open circles. The
walls of each of these small chambers are carried down through the
foundations to water-level, and the intermediate space is filled in
around the wells with rubble-packing. This device was evidently adopted
to secure an absolutely pure supply of water for the royal table.
But the private part of the palace, occupied by the women and the
rest of the royal household, was evidently further to the west, built
over the earlier dwelling of Nabopolassar. It will be seen from the
ground-plan that this is quite distinct from the eastern or official
portion of the palace, from which it is separated by a substantial wall
and passage-way running, with the Great Court, the whole width of the
palace-area. The character of the gateway-building, which formed its
chief entrance and opened on the Great Court, is also significant.[81]
For the towers, flanking the gateways to the official courts, are
here entirely absent, and the pathway passes through two successive
apartments, the second smaller than the first and with a porters'
service-room opening off it. The entrance for the king's own use was
in the southern half of the passage-way, and lies immediately between
the side entrance to the Throne Room[82] and another doorway in the
passage leading to one of the small courts behind it.[83] In two of the
chambers within the private palace, both opening on to Court 5, are
two more circular wells, walled in for protection, and here too the
foundations of each chamber are carried down to water-level and filled
in with brick-rubble, as in the case of the wells behind the Throne
Room.
The same care that was taken to ensure the purity of the water-supply
may also be detected in the elaborate drainage-system, with which
the palace was provided, with the object of carrying off the
surface-water from the flat palace-roofs, the open courts, and the
fortification-walls. The larger drains were roofed with corbelled
courses; the smaller ones, of a simpler but quite effective
construction, were formed of bricks set together in the shape of a V
and closed in at the top with other bricks laid flat. The tops of
the fortifications, both in the citadel itself and on the outer and
inner city-wall, were drained by means of vertical shafts, or gutters,
running down within the solid substructures of the towers; and in the
case of crude-brick buildings these have a lining of burnt-brick. In
some of the temples, which, as we shall see, were invariably built of
crude brick,[84] this form of drainage was also adopted.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.
PLAN OF THE NORTH-EAST CORNER OF THE PALACE WITH THE VAULTED BUILDING.
A: East Court of the Palace. B: Central Court. H: Ishtar Gate. I:
Vaulted Building. J: Southern fortification-wall of crude brick,
probably Imgur-Bêl. _h_: Passage-way leading to the Vaulted Building,
_m_, _n_: Entrances to the Vaulted Building. 1-15: Small open courts or
light-wells in official residencies.
(After Koldewey.)]
One other building within the palace deserves mention, as it has been
suggested that it may represent the remains of the famous Hanging
Gardens of Babylon.[85] It is reached from the north-east corner of
the Central Court[86] along a broad passage-way,[87] from which a
branch passage turns off at right angles; and on the left side of this
narrower passage are its two entrances.[88] It must be confessed that
at first sight the ground-plan of this building does not suggest a
garden of any sort, least of all one that became famous as a wonder
of the ancient world. It will be seen that the central part, or core,
of the building is surrounded by a strong wall and within are fourteen
narrow cells or chambers, seven on each side of a central gangway.[89]
The cells were roofed in with semicircular arches, forming a barrel
vault over each; and the whole is encircled by a narrow corridor,
flanked on the north and east sides by the outer palace-wall. This
part of the building, both the vaulted chambers and the surrounding
corridor, lies completely below the level of the rest of the palace.
The small chambers, some of them long and narrow like the vaults, which
enclose the central core upon the west and south, are on the palace
level; and the subterranean portion is reached by a stairway in one of
the rooms on the south side.[90]
There are two main reasons which suggested the identification of this
building with the Hanging Gardens. The first is that hewn stone was
used in its construction, which is attested by the numerous broken
fragments discovered among its ruins. With the exception of the Sacred
Road and the bridge over the Euphrates, there is only one other place
on the whole site of Babylon where hewn stone is used in bulk for
building purposes, and that is the northern wall of the Ḳaṣr. Now, in
all the literature referring to Babylon, stone is only recorded to
have been used for buildings in two places, and those are the north
wall of the Citadel and in the Hanging Gardens, a lower layer in the
latter's roofing, below the layer of earth, being described as made of
stone. These facts certainly point to the identification of the Vaulted
Building with the Hanging Gardens.[91] Moreover, Berossus definitely
places them within the buildings by which Nebuchadnezzar enlarged his
father's palace; but this reference would apply equally to the later
Central Citadel constructed by Nebuchadnezzar immediately to the north
of his main palace. The size of the building is also far greater in
Strabo and Diodorus than that of the Vaulted Building, the side of the
quadrangle, according to these writers, measuring about four times the
latter's length. But discrepancy in figures of this sort, as we have
already seen in the case of the outer walls of the city, is easily
explicable and need not be reckoned as a serious objection.[92]
The second reason which pointed to the identification is that, in one
of the small chambers near the south-west corner of the outer fringe of
rooms on those two sides, there is a very remarkable well. It consists
of three adjoining shafts, a square one in the centre flanked by two of
oblong shape. This arrangement, unique so far as the remains of ancient
Babylon are concerned, may be most satisfactorily explained on the
assumption that we here have the water-supply for a hydraulic machine,
constructed on the principle of a chain-pump. The buckets, attached to
an endless chain, would have passed up one of the outside wells, over
a great wheel fixed above them, and, after emptying their water into
a trough as they passed, would have descended the other outside well
for refilling. The square well in the centre obviously served as an
inspection-chamber, down which an engineer could descend to clean the
well out, or to remove any obstruction. In the modern contrivances of
this sort, sometimes employed to-day in Babylonia to raise a continuous
flow of water to the irrigation-trenches, the motive-power for turning
the winch is supplied by horses or other animals moving round in a
circle. In the Vaulted Building there would have been scarcely room
for such an arrangement, and it is probable that gangs of slaves were
employed to work a couple of heavy hand-winches. The discovery of the
well undoubtedly serves to strengthen the case for identification.
[Illustration: EASTERN TOWERS OF THE ISHTAR GATE]
Two alternative schemes are put forward to reconstitute the upper
structure of this building. Its massive walls suggest in any case
that they were intended to support a considerable weight, and it may
be that the core of the building, constructed over the subterranean
vaults, towered high above its surrounding chambers which are on the
palace-level. This would have been in accordance with the current
conception of a hanging garden; and, since on two sides it was bounded
by the palace-wall, its trees and vegetation would have been visible
from outside the citadel. Seen thus from the lower level of the town,
the height of the garden would have been reinforced by the whole height
of the Citadel-mound on which the palace stands, and imagination once
kindled might have played freely with its actual measurements.
On the other hand, the semicircular arches, still preserved within the
central core, may have directly supported the thick layer of earth in
which the trees of the garden were planted. These would then have been
growing on the palace-level, as it were in a garden-court, perhaps
surrounded by a pillared colonnade with the outer chambers opening on
to it on the west and south sides. In either scheme the subterranean
vaults can only have been used as stores or magazines, since they were
entirely without light. As a matter of fact, a large number of tablets
were found in the stairway-chamber that leads down to them; and, since
the inscriptions upon them relate to grain, it would seem that some at
least were used as granaries. But this is a use to which they could
only have been put if the space above them was not a garden, watered
continuously by an irrigation-pump, as moisture would have been bound
to reach the vaults.[93]
Whichever alternative scheme we adopt, it must be confessed that the
Hanging Gardens have not justified their reputation. And if they merely
formed a garden-court, as Dr. Koldewey inclines to believe, it is
difficult to explain the adjectives [κρεμαστός] and _pensilis._ For the
subterranean vaults would have been completely out of sight, and, even
when known to be below the pavement-level, were not such as to excite
wonder or to suggest the idea of suspension in the air. One cannot help
suspecting that the vaulted building may really, after all, be nothing
more than the palace granary, and the triple well one of the main
water-supplies for domestic use. We may, at least for the present, be
permitted to hope that a more convincing site for the gardens will be
found in the Central Citadel after further excavation.
[Illustration: FIG. 12. BULL IN ENAMELLED BRICK FROM THE ISHTAR GATE.]
In the autumn of 1901 the writer spent some time in Babylon, stopping
with Dr. Koldewey in the substantial expedition-house they have built
with fine burnt-brick from Nebuchadnezzar's palace. At that time he had
uncovered a good deal of the palace, and it was even then possible to
trace out the walls of the Throne Room and note the recess where the
throne itself had stood. But, beyond the fragments of the enamelled
façade, little of artistic interest had been found, and on other
portions of the site the results had been still more disappointing. The
deep excavation of E-sagila had already been made, the temple of the
goddess Ninmakh had been completely excavated, and work was in full
swing on that of the god Ninib. All proved to be of unburnt brick,[94]
and the principal decoration of the walls was a thin lime-wash. Their
discoverer was inclined to be sceptical of Babylon's fabled splendour.
[Illustration: FIG. 13. DRAGON IN ENAMELLED BRICK FROM THE ISHTAR GATE.]
But in the following spring he made the discovery which still remains
the most striking achievement of the expedition, and has rehabilitated
the fame of that ancient city. This was the great Ishtar Gate, which
spanned Babylon's Sacred Way, and the bulls and dragons with which it
was adorned have proved that the glyptic art of Babylonia attained a
high level of perfection during its later period. The gate was erected
at the point where the Sacred Way entered the older city. It was, in
fact, the main gate in the two walls of crude brick along the north
side of the Citadel, which we have seen reason to believe were the
famous defences, Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl.[95] Its structure, when
rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar, was rather elaborate.[96] It is a double
gateway consisting of two separate gate-houses,[97] each with an
outer and an inner door.[98] The reason for this is that the line of
fortification is a double one, and each of its walls has a gateway of
its own. But the gates are united into a single structure by means of
short connecting walls, which complete the enclosure of the Gateway
Court.[99]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.
GROUND-PLAN OF THE ISHTAR GATE.
The ground-plan of the gateway is indicated in black; other walls and
buildings are hatched. A: Sacred Way to north of gate. B: Gate of outer
wall. C: Gateway Court. D: Gate of inner wall. E: Space between west
wings. F: Space between east wings. G: Sacred Way to south of gate. H:
North-east corner of Palace. K: Temple of the goddess Ninmakh. S: Steps
leading down from level of Sacred Way. 1, 2: Doorways of outer gate. 3,
4: Doorways of inner gate.
(After Koldewey.)]
Dr. Koldewey considers it probable that this court was roofed in, to
protect the great pair of doors, which swung back into it, from the
weather. But if so, the whole roofing of the gateway must have been at
the same low level; whereas the thick walls of the inner gate-house
suggest that it and its arched doorways rose higher than the outer
gateway, as is suggested in the section[100] and in the reconstruction
of the Citadel.[101]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.
SECTION OF THE ISHTAR GATE.
The section is conjecturally restored, looking from west to east; the
index capitals and figures correspond to those in Fig. 14. A: Sacred
Way to north of gate. B: Gate of outer wall. C: Gateway Court. D: Gate
of inner wall. G: Sacred way to south of gate. 1, 2: Doorways of
outer gate. 3, 4: Doorways of inner gate, _a_: Traces of pavement. 6:
Level of second pavement, _c_: Level of final pavement. _d_: Present
ground-level, _e_: Level of ground before excavation. It will be
noticed that the portions of the gate preserved are all below the final
pavement-level.
(After Andrae.)]
It thus appears more probable that the court between the two gateways
was left open, and that the two inner arches[102] rose far higher
than those of the outer gate.[103] And there is the more reason for
this, as an open court would have given far more light for viewing the
remarkable decoration of the gateway upon its inner walls.
It will be noticed in the plan that the central roadway is not the
only entrance through the gate; on each side of the two central
gate-houses a wing is thrown out, making four wings in all. These also
are constructed of burnt-brick, and they serve to connect the gate with
the two fortification-walls of unburnt brick. In each wing is a further
door, giving access to the space between the walls. Thus, in all, the
gate has three separate entrances, and no less than eight doorways,
four ranged along the central roadway, and two in each double wing.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.
DIAGRAM TO SHOW THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE BEASTS OF THE ISHTAR GATE.
The ground-plan of the gate is shown in outline, the arrows indicating
the positions of Bulls or Dragons still in place upon its walls. The
head of each arrow points in the same direction as the beast to which
it refers. Where no beasts are preserved, the foundations of the
structure are indicated by a dotted line. The index letters correspond
to those in Fig. 14.
(After Koldewey.)]
The whole wall-surface of the gateway on its northern side, both
central towers and side-wings, was decorated with alternate rows of
bulls and dragons in brick relief, the rows ranged one above the
other up the surface of walls and towers. The decoration is continued
over the whole interior surface of the central gateways and may be
traced along the southern front of the inner gate-house. The beasts
are arranged in such a way that to any one entering the city they
would appear as though advancing to meet him. In the accompanying
diagram,[104] which gives the ground-plan of the gate in outline, the
arrows indicate the positions of beasts that are still in place upon
the walls, and the head of each arrow points in the direction that
animal faces. It will be noticed that along most of the walls running
north and south the beasts face northwards, while on the transverse
walls they face inwards towards the centre. One end-wall in chamber B
is preserved, and there, for the sake of symmetry, the two animals face
each other, advancing from opposite directions. It has been calculated
that at least five hundred and seventy-five of these creatures were
represented on the walls and towers of the gateway. Some of the walls,
with their successive tiers of beasts, are still standing to a height
of twelve metres. The two eastern towers of the outer gate-house are
the best preserved, and even in their present condition they convey
some idea of the former magnificence of the building.
In the greater part of the structure that still remains in place, it
is apparent that the brickwork was very roughly finished, and that the
bitumen employed as mortar has been left where it has oozed out between
the courses. The explanation is that the portions of the gateway which
still stand are really foundations of the building, and were always
intended to be buried below the pavement level. It is clear that
the height of the road-way was constantly raised while the building
of the gate was in progress, and there are traces of two temporary
pavements,[105] afterwards filled in when the final pavement-level[106]
was reached.[107] The visible portion of the gate above the last
pavement has been entirely destroyed, but among its _débris_ were found
thousands of fragments of the same two animals, but in enamelled brick
of brilliant colouring, white and yellow against a blue ground. Some
of these have been laboriously pieced together in Berlin, and specimens
are now exhibited in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum and in the Imperial
Ottoman Museum at Constantinople. Only one fragment of an enamelled
portion of the wall was found in place,[108] and that was below the
final pavement. It shows the legs of a bull above a band of rosettes
with yellow centres.[109]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.
ENAMELLED FRAGMENT OF THE ISHTAR GATE STILL IN POSITION.
The fragment, which was the highest portion of the gate preserved, is
from the east side of the second doorway of the outer gate; cf. Figs.
14 and 15, No. 2. It stands just below the final pavement-level, and
only the upper portion is enamelled.]
The delicate modelling of the figures is to some extent obscured in the
foundation specimens, but the imperfections there visible are entirely
absent from the enamelled series. An examination of the latter shows
that the bricks were separately moulded, and, before the process of
enamelling, were burnt in the usual way. The contours of the figures
were then outlined in black with a vitreous paste, the surfaces so
defined being afterwards filled in with coloured liquid enamels. The
paste of the black outlines and the coloured enamels themselves had
evidently the same fusing point, for when fired they have sometimes
shaded off into one another, giving a softness and a pleasing variety
of tone to the composition.[110] It should be added that the enamelled
beasts, like those in plain brick, are in slight relief, the same
moulds having been employed for both.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.
PLAN OF THE LATER DEFENCES OF THE CITADEL UPON THE NORTH, SHOWING THE
WALLS WITH THE LION FRIEZE AND THE ISHTAR GATE.
A: Sacred Way. B, B: Walls with Lion Frieze flanking the Sacred Way.
C: Ishtar Gate. D: North-east corner of Palace. E: Temple of Ninmakh.
F: Front wall of Northern Citadel. G: North wall of Northern Citadel.
H: North wall of the Principal Citadel. J: Broad Canal, fed from
the Euphrates, to supply the Principal Citadel. K: Old wall of the
Principal Citadel. L, M: Moat-walls supporting dam, over which the
roadway passed; that on the east side has not yet been excavated. N:
Eastward extension of north wall of Northern Citadel. P: Stair-case,
or ramps, ascending to roadway. R: Eastward extension of wall of
Principal Citadel. S: South wall of eastern outworks. T, U, V: Ends of
transverse walls in Principal Citadel. Y: River-side embankment of the
Persian period. Z: Crude brick walls with doorways, forming a temporary
gateway, filled in below latest pavement. N.B.--The two arrows denote
the direction in which the lions are represented as advancing in the
frieze.]
Before the Neo-Babylonian period the Ishtar Gate had defended the
northern entrance to the city, and was probably a massive structure of
unburnt brick without external decoration. But, with the building of
the outer city-wall, it stood in the second line of defence. And as
Nebuchadnezzar extended the fortifications of the Citadel itself upon
the northern side, it lost still more of its strategic importance, and
from its interior position became a fit subject for the decorator's
art. The whole course of the roadway through these exterior defences
he flanked with mighty walls, seven metres thick, extending from the
gate northwards to the outermost wall and moat.[111] Their great
strength was dictated by the fact that, should an enemy penetrate
the outer city-wall, he would have to pass between them, under the
garrison's fire, to reach the citadel-gate. But these, like the gate
itself, formed a secondary or interior defence, and so, like it, were
elaborately decorated. The side of each wall facing the roadway was
adorned with a long frieze of lions, in low relief and brilliantly
enamelled, which were represented advancing southwards towards the
Ishtar Gate. The surface of each wall was broken up into panels by a
series of slightly projecting towers, each panel probably containing
two lions, while the plinth below the Lion Frieze was decorated with
rosettes. There appear to have been sixty lions along each wall. Some
were in white enamel with yellow manes, while others were in yellow and
had red manes,[112] and they stood out against a light or dark blue
ground. Leading as they did to the bulls and dragons of the gateway, we
can realize in some degree the effect produced upon a stranger entering
the inner city of Babylon for the first time.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.
LION FROM THE FRIEZE OF THE SACRED WAY TO THE NORTH OF THE ISHTAR GATE.]
Such a stranger, passing within the Ishtar Gate, would have been struck
with wonder at the broad Procession Street,[113] which ran its long
course straight through the city from north to south, with the great
temples ranged on either hand. Its foundation of burnt brick covered
with bitumen is still preserved, upon which, to the south of the
gateway, rested a pavement of massive flags, the centre of fine hard
limestone, the sides of red breccia veined with white. In inscriptions
upon the edges of these paving slabs, formerly hidden by their asphalt
mortar, Nebuchadnezzar boasts that he paved the street of Babylon for
the procession of the great lord Marduk, to whom he prays for eternal
life.[114] The slabs that are still in place are polished with hard
use, but, unlike the pavements of Pompeii, show no ruts or indentations
such as we might have expected from the chariots of the later period.
It is possible that, in view of its sacred character, the use of the
road was restricted to foot passengers and beasts of burden, except
when the king and his retinue passed along it through the city. And in
any case, not counting chariots of war and state, there was probably
very little wheeled traffic in Babylonia at any time.
When clear of the citadel the road descends by a gradual slope to the
level of the plain, and preserving the same breadth, passes to the
right of the temple dedicated to Ishtar of Akkad.[115] As it continues
southward it is flanked at a little distance on the east by the streets
of private houses, whose foundations have been uncovered in the Merkes
mound;[116] and on the west side it runs close under the huge peribolos
of E-temen-anki, the Tower of Babylon.[117] As far as the main gate of
E-temen-anki[118] its foundation is laid in burnt-brick, over which was
an upper paving completely formed of breccia. The inscription upon the
slabs corresponds to that on the breccia paving-stones opposite the
citadel; but they have evidently been re-used from an earlier pavement
of Sennacherib, whose name some of them bear upon the underside. This
earlier pavement of Babylon's Sacred Way must have been laid by that
monarch before he reversed his conciliatory policy toward the southern
kingdom. At the south-east corner of the peribolos the road turns at
a right angle and running between the peribolos and E-sagila, the
great temple of the city-god, passes through a gate in the river-wall
built by Nabonidus, and so over the Euphrates bridge before turning
southward again in the direction of Borsippa.[119] This branch road
between the Tower of Babylon and E-sagila[120] is undoubtedly the
continuation of the procession-street. For not only was it the way of
approach to Marduk's temple, but its course has been definitely traced
by excavation. But there can be no doubt that the upper portion of the
road, running north and south through the city, was continued in a
straight line from the point where the Sacred Way branched off. This
would have conducted an important stream of traffic to the main
gate in the southern city-wall, passing on its way between the temples
dedicated to the god Ninib and to another deity not yet identified.[121]
[Illustration: THE SACRED WAY OF BABYLON]
Apart from the royal palaces, the five temples of Babylon were the
principal buildings within the city, and their excavation has thrown
an entirely new light upon our ideas of the religious architecture of
the country. The ground-plans of four of them have now been ascertained
in their entirety, and we are consequently in a position to form some
idea of the general principles upon which such buildings were arranged.
The first to be excavated was the little temple E-makh, dedicated to
the goddess Ninmakh, which, as we have already seen, was built on the
citadel itself, in the north-east corner of the open space to the south
of the Ishtar Gateway. Its principal façade faces the north-west, and,
since the eastern entrance of the Ishtar Gate opens just opposite the
corner of the temple, a wall with a doorway in it was thrown across,
spanning the passage between temple and fortification.[122] The only
entrance to the temple was in the centre of the façade; and in the
passage-way immediately in front of it, surrounded by a pavement of
burnt-brick, is a small crude-brick altar.[123] It is an interesting
fact that the only other altar yet found in Babylon is also of crude
brick and occupies precisely the same position, outside a temple
and immediately opposite its main entrance;[124] while in a third
temple, though the altar itself has disappeared, the paved area which
surrounded it is still visible.[125] We may therefore conclude that
this represents the normal position for the altar in the Babylonian
cult; and it fully substantiates the statement of Herodotus that the
two altars of Belus were outside his temple.[126] One of these, he
tells us, was of solid gold, on which it was only lawful to offer
sucklings; the other was a common altar (doubtless of crude brick) but
of great size, on which full-grown animals were sacrificed. It was
also on the great altar that the Chaldeans burnt the frankincense,
which, according to Herodotus, was offered to the amount of a thousand
talents' weight every year at the festival of the god.
It may further be noted that this exterior position of the altar
corresponds to Hebrew usage, according to which the main altar was
erected in the outer court in front of the temple proper. Thus
Solomon's brazen altar, which under Phoenician influence took the place
of earlier altars of earth or unhewn stone,[127] stood before the
temple.[128] The altar within the Hebrew temple was of cedar-wood,[129]
and it was clearly not a permanent structure embedded in the pavement,
for Ezekiel refers to it as a "table," and states that it "was of
wood."[130] It was more in the nature of a table for offerings, and it
may be inferred that in earlier times it served as the table upon which
the shewbread was placed before Yahwe.[131] The complete absence of
any trace of a permanent altar within the Babylonian temples can only
be due to a similar practice; the altars or tables within the shrines
must have been light wooden structures, and they were probably carried
off or burnt when the temples were destroyed. There is of course no
need to regard this resemblance as due to direct cultural influence
or borrowing. But we may undoubtedly conclude that we here have an
example of parallelism in religious ritual between two races of the
same Semitic stock. What the Sumerian practice was in this respect we
have as yet no means of ascertaining; but in such details of cult it
is quite possible that the Semitic Babylonians substituted their own
traditional usages for any other they may have found in the country of
their adoption.