Part 20

The north-western outer front of rooms 31, 29, show simple grooved work, which disappeared behind the walls of the later building round court C, and were cut off by the surrounding wall. In our plan these portions are heavily scored. Of the third later building, lightly scored in the plan, which was also built partly of re-used Gudea bricks, and partly of unstamped bricks, laid in mud mortar, two courts can be recognised (C and B). Here we do not find the unmistakably important principal chamber, which is so remarkable a feature of genuine Babylonian buildings. In chambers 11, 35, and 18 de Sarzec reports table-shaped fireplaces, such as I have never found either in Old or Neo-Babylonian buildings, while, on the contrary, such a flat raised hearth is found in chamber XXXV of an unmistakably Parthian house in Nippur that has a peristyle (Fisher, _Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America_, vol. viii., 1904, No. 4, p. 411). In the pavement of the court adjoining it, the well-known bricks of Adadnadinakhe are said to have been found. An examination of the south-eastern quarter, which must evidently have been already much destroyed at the time of de Sarzec, furnishes the strongest evidence against his representations. Thus in front of 23, he represents a door as constructed of a thick and a very thin wall, and at 24 and 25 he reports a door embrasure actually standing opposite a door-opening. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that here also buildings of entirely different and disconnected periods have been erroneously placed together by the modern draughtsman as having formed one complete building. The peristyle that we expect to find in connection with the two courts (C and B) should be placed in A.

XLVII THE TEMPLE OF ISHTAR OF AGADE

ACCORDING TO DELITZSCH: ê-kun (?)-da-ri

[Illustration:

FIG. 243.—Figure of Papsukal, from foundation casket of Ishtar temple. ]

The temple of Ishtar of Agade lies among the houses of the northern group of Merkes (Fig. 244). The entrance façade faces the south, where the street that passes it widens out into a somewhat lengthy piazza.

Through the principal portal, with its grooved towers, we enter the vestibule (1), from which doors to right and left lead to the side-chambers, and which opens directly on to the square court. In the cella (18) with the adyton (19) the postament that stood in the niche immediately opposite the entrance had been taken away, and only the brick casket (_k_) that contained the statuette of Papsukal (Fig. 243) was still there. Similar brick caskets lay in the court doorway that led to the buildings connected with the cella, in the middle and on the western side of the southern main entrance. The two small chambers (20 and 21) near the chamber in front of the cella are accessible from it, as well as directly from the court. The entire cella building (17–22), as in the temple of Borsippa (Fig. 246), forms a completely self-contained block, separated from the enclosing wall of the temple by a narrow passage (10). From this passage room 9 can be reached, and also the southern series of rooms. This series (11–15) consists of four rather small rooms and apparently a court (13), in which two circular storage places are built.

[Illustration:

FIG. 244.—Ground plan of temple of Ishtar of Agade, Merkes. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 245.—Section of temple of Ishtar of Agade, Merkes. ]

There is a side entrance on the east which opens into the court through a small vestibule (4) that communicates with the main vestibule through chambers 3 and 2. Two small rooms (5 and 6) are accessible from the court. The wall decoration is as usual composed of flat pillars on the outside of the building and in the court. The main entrance on the south, and the door from the court leading to the cella (Fig. 247), are distinguished by a double framing. The three doors on the east side of the court, the side entrance, and the actual cella door have a single frame. The grooving on the front of the towers of the main entrance, and of the door leading from the court to the cella is simply rectangular. It was only during the last restoration of the building that the simple grooves were elaborated by stepped additions, like those of the Ninib temple.

[Illustration:

FIG. 246.—Ground-plan of Ezida, the temple of Nebo, in Borsippa. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 247.—Temple of Ishtar of Agade in Merkes; view of cella façade. ]

Three building periods can be recognised here (Fig. 245). Of the earliest building only the 7 lower courses remain. The ground-plan is in the main the same as that of the later building that rests upon it, but the wall fronts everywhere deviate slightly from the lines of the latter. The pavement of the later building consists of one plain layer, that lies almost at the level at which the walls begin. The gypsum wash still adheres to the walls. At several of the more important places, such as the main entrance to the temple, the entrance from the court to the cella, the cella door, and the postament niche, instead of a gypsum wash there is a thin wash of black asphalt, which near the edges is broken with ornamental vertical lines of white gypsum. Similar decorations, though not so well preserved and recognisable, were visible in temple “Z,” and in the temples of Ninib and Ninmach. These portions stood out from the white walls with mysterious and startling effect.

The temple was raised and a new double pavement of Nebuchadnezzar bricks was laid at a height of 4 to 4½ metres above zero. To this pavement, of course, all the brick caskets belong which lay close to the pavement of the earlier periods but above it, as, for instance, the casket in the door from the court to the cella.

An additional raising with a new brick pavement at 5 metres above zero, belongs apparently to a rebuilding undertaken by Nabonidus, according to the inscription on his foundation cylinder which was found here. The cylinder lay at about the height of the last-mentioned pavement, in the middle of the northern enclosing wall, between the first two pillars on the west, and exactly at the place where it was deposited by Nabonidus. It stood upright in a sort of basket of plaited work, of which the remains were still quite recognisable, and which had formerly shielded it from damage in the small aperture within the mud-brick wall. In the inscription the king speaks of the ruinous condition of this “Temple of Ishtar of Agade,” and the work undertaken by him for its restoration.

The building was surrounded by a kisu of Nebuchadnezzar bricks which reaches down as far as 3.6 metres above zero, and which must therefore belong to one of the later rebuildings. A water conduit constructed on the south side (W in the plan), similar to that in the Ninib temple, was walled up by the kisu.

XLVIII THE GREEK THEATRE

Close to the inner city walls on the east there lies a group of mounds which on account of their reddish colour are called “Homera” by the Arabs (Fig. 249). Of these we have examined a northern, a central, and a southern mound, somewhat carefully, and find that from top to bottom they all are artificial heaps of broken burnt brick. Of their origin we will speak later (p. 308 _et seq._).

The southern of these mounds has been utilised as a foundation for the auditorium of a theatre. In the débris of the building there was found the Greek dedicatory inscription on an alabaster slab (Fig. 248), according to which one “Dioscurides (built) the theatre and a stage.”

[Illustration:

FIG. 248.—Inscription from Greek theatre. ]

The building (Fig. 253) is constructed principally of crude brick, and only in some special places, such as the pillars and the bases of the pillars, brick rubble is used, laid with gypsum mortar (Fig. 250).

For the upper part of the auditorium the artificial mound was not sufficiently high, and therefore a retaining wall of mud brick supported the upper seats, which have now disappeared. On the three broad projections of the retaining wall on the north stairways were apparently constructed. Of the seats only the 5 lower ranges, which must have been up to the first _diazoma_, now remain; they consist of mud bricks on which are laid uniform courses of brick rubble. Every seat of 5 courses high has a footstool 2 courses high in front of it. Nine narrow stairs, with steps only 2 courses high, separate the _kerkides_ from each other. The central stairway, with steps 3 courses high, is broader than the others, and led to a compartment which occupied an entire wedge from the orchestra to the diazoma, the _proëdreia_, intended for distinguished personages, probably the priests of Dionysos. The auditorium, the orchestra with its _parodoi_, and the stage at some later period, which it is not necessary to estimate as very remote from the first one, were raised by about 1 metre, which caused the rows of seats and apparently also the proscenium to intrude by about 60 to 90 centimetres into the orchestra.

[Illustration:

FIG. 249.—Plan of the mounds, Homera. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 250.—General view of the Greek theatre. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 251.—Pedestals for statues in orchestra. ]

At the edge of the orchestra, which was rather more than a semicircle, near the lowest row of seats, there was a row of statues placed on brick postaments (Fig. 251), of which two at the lower level of the orchestra, with their coating of fine white plaster, are still in good condition. The statues have now disappeared, but they have left deep traces on the top of their pedestals. On the east there are remains of 8 other postaments of the same sort at the level of the second building period.

The stage exhibits between the _versurae_, in a similar external course, a row of 12 proscenium piers, small and rectangular in form, and bearing on their front face somewhat narrower semi-pillars. The intercolumnar spaces were roofed over with roughly hewn stone blocks, one of which has fallen over and lies immediately in front of the proscenium. All these portions of the building were originally covered with two washes of fine white plaster (Fig. 252).

Similar semi-columns stand on both sides of the door leading to the orchestra. They led through two-chambered parodoi into the open air. Of these chambers the one to the west, especially long and narrow, must have served as a waiting-room for the public or the chorus.

[Illustration:

FIG. 252.—View of the proscenium pillars. ]

Of the back wall of the _logeion_, the “scaenae frons,” only the foundation walls of brick rubble remain _in situ_. This was as usual liberally decorated; many of the reliefs in gypsum plaster with which it was adorned have been found (Fig. 254). The two lengthy halls behind the _scaenae frons_ must have been connected with each other in the upper floors by arched openings, as is taken for granted in our reconstructed plan. In the foundation—above which the building is in large measure ruined—the doorways are not arranged for, whereas in Babylonian houses, such as in those of Merkes, the door openings are almost without exception carried right down to the lowest course.

A large peristyle with adjoining and almost uniform chambers abuts on the stage at the south. The southern row of these chambers is very largely destroyed, but of the peristyle sufficient of the brick rubble foundations remain to enable us to judge of the main part. The peristyle had a double nave at the south side, as is often the case with palaestra-peristyles. Fairly numerous remains still exist of the columns that stood on these foundations; they are of burnt brick cut into circular forms, and some of them that were roughly shaped were undoubtedly covered with a fine whitewash that gave them a clearly cut outline.

[Illustration:

FIG. 253.—Plan of Greek theatre, restored. ]

On the east, by the side of the peristyle hall, there opened out a long narrow _exedra_, which was also columned. Both stage and peristyle stand on ancient ruined dwellings, of which the mud-brick walls were brought to light in a cross-cut we made through the central axis.

The plan, therefore, represents on the whole a combination of a theatre and of a palaestra. In any case the Greek population of Babylon found here an indispensable centre for those amusements and intellectual interests which they would have been most unwilling to abandon in that remote metropolis of the East, on the development of which Alexander the Great had founded such far-seeing plans.

[Illustration:

FIG. 254.—Gypsum decorations of Greek theatre. ]

The building, as it was first constructed, may well date back to the time of Alexander himself, even though the foundation inscription found here, which appears to refer to a restoration, belongs to a later period.

XLIX THE NORTHERN MOUND OF HOMERA

[Illustration:

FIG. 255.—Section through the northern mound of Homera. ]

About 16 metres in height, and with somewhat steep sides, the most northern of the mounds of Homera (_w_ 13 on plan, Fig. 249) occupies a dominating position above the whole of the adjacent surroundings, and forms a remarkable object from a very considerable distance. In order to discover its nature we carried a trench through it, from east to west, cutting the mound in half like an apple; with the surprising result that the mound proved to contain no building such as we might have expected, judging from the Kasr. The entire mass from the top to 1 metre below zero consists of brick rubble, which has been intentionally and artificially heaped up. The layers (Fig. 255), which are alternately coarse and finer, are fairly horizontal at the base, but above they fall in the natural slope of about 45 grades towards the north-east. The mound must, therefore, have been gradually heaped up with débris thrown on it from the south-west.

The broken bricks have, for the most part, ancient asphalt or lime mortar clinging to them. Some of them also are unburnt, and the finer layers more especially contain much clay. The Nebuchadnezzar stamps have been found there, but no potsherds, a few Greek terra-cottas, and a fragment of a cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar with an inscription referring to the building of Etemenanki, the tower of Babylon. It is a duplicate of the cylinder: Neb. Hilp. iii. l. 18–24, and iv. l. 15–19 (M’Gee, _Zur Topographie von Babylon_, vi.).

Thus the mass of débris comes from a Babylonian building brought here in Greek times, and contains a document belonging to Etemenanki. At the ruins of Etemenanki the absence of débris had already struck us as remarkable. What is to be seen there at the present time—low banks round the deep trenches—is merely the result of modern digging by Arab brick robbers. Before this Arab disfigurement of the place, the site of the tower was completely level. At the Kasr and the hill of Babil, as elsewhere, the huge mounds of rubbish bear witness to the immensity of the ruins they represent. In Sachn we have the insignificant remains of a colossal building without débris, and in Homera a colossal mass of rubbish without a building, and we may therefore safely conclude with the greatest possible certainty that the débris of Etemenanki lies in Homera. This agrees admirably with the statement of Greek authors (Strabo, xvi. 1, 5), according to which Alexander the Great intended to replace the tower which had fallen in his time, and expended 600,000 days’ wages on having the débris removed: “ἦν δὲ πυραμὶς ... ἣν Ἀλέξανδρος ἐβούλετο ἀνασκευάσαι, πολὺ δ’ ἦν ἔργον καὶ πολλοῦ χρόνου (αὐτὴ γὰρ ἡ χοῦς εἰς ἀνακάθαρσιν μυρίοις ἀνδράσι δυεῖν μηνῶν ἔργον ἦν), ὤστ’ οὐκ ἔφθη τὸ ἐγχειρηθὲν ἐπιτελέσαι.” The mass of rubbish that lies in Homera—the middle and southern groups also consist of exactly similar broken material—may be roughly estimated at 300,000 cubic metres, which corresponds well with the amount of wages quoted above. As the Euphrates flowed westward close to Etemenanki, and also between the Kasr and Homera, in the Greek period we can suppose that the transport was effected by water.

It may be supposed that the work of piling up débris in this place would not be undertaken without some object. The heaps might well have served good purpose in the erection of new buildings, such as were undoubtedly planned by Alexander. It is true that the northern mound was never utilised, but we have already seen that the southern one was used as the substructure for a theatre, and the central group we will now observe more closely.

L THE CENTRAL MOUND OF HOMERA

The central group of Homera (_w_ 21 on plan, Fig. 249), which consists below of exactly the same débris as that we have just described at the northern mound, differs greatly from the latter in that at a height of 7.5 metres above zero a platform is constructed, and that not by merely levelling down a mound that already existed, but by actually piling up materials to the requisite height and levelling them. Upon this platform at the present time there is a layer of earth, from 2 to 3 metres high, with some fragments of brick and a few potsherds; no walls are to be seen in it. It appears, therefore, that this top layer comes from quite late and very inferior dwellings, for which the platform itself was not constructed. The materials of which the level of this platform consists are very much reddened, as though they had been burnt. Indications of a great conflagration are to be found in blocks of mud brick smelted together by a fierce fire, and bearing clear imprints of palm and other wood. In many places the prints show the sharp edges of good carpenter’s work. All this is remarkable, and we should like to find the explanation of it.

This may perhaps be found in the report given by Diodorus (xvii. 115[5]) of the funeral pyre Alexander the Great caused to be erected to solemnise the funeral ceremonies of Hephaestion. In order to form a platform for this magnificently decorated wooden construction, he had part of the city wall of Babylon demolished, and used the brick materials thus obtained. The platform has perished very considerably on all sides, and the level surface that still survives is undoubtedly only a small part of the original, so that it is useless to endeavour to recover the traces of the construction in detail.

Footnote 5:

Αὐτὸς δὲ τοὺς ἀρχιτέκτονας ἀθροίσας καὶ λεπτουργῶν πλῆθος, τοῦ μὲν τείχους καθεῖλεν ἐπὶ δέκα σταδίους, τὴν δ’ ὀπτὴν πλίνθον ἀναλεξάμενος, καὶ τὸν δεχόμενον τὴν πυρὰν τόπον ὁμαλὸν κατασκευάσας, ὠκοδόμησε τετράπλευρον πυράν, σταδιαίας οὔσης ἑκάστης πλευρᾶς. (2) εἰς τριάκοντα δὲ δόμους διελόμενος τὸν τόπον, καὶ καταστρώσας τὰς ὀροφὰς φοινίκων στελέχεσι, τετράγωνον ἐποίησε πᾶν τὸ κατασκεύασμα.

The place lies exactly opposite the Citadel, and was divided from it in the time of Alexander by the Euphrates. The magnificent pyre, which is said to have cost 12,000 talents, when seen from the Acropolis must have stood out in a most impressive manner against the eastern horizon.

LI RETROSPECT

From the central position occupied by Homera we can command a peculiarly instructive view over the ruins of Babylon, and piece together and recall all that excavation has brought to light of the development of the city. In doing so, we will leave unnoticed the information obtained from written sources. They belong to a different kind of treatment.

The existence of Babylon in prehistoric times, before the fifth millennium, is proved by flint and other stone implements. It is impossible to carry excavations down to that depth, owing to the rise in the water-level (p. 261).

The earliest accessible ruins belong to the time of the first Babylonian kings (Hammurabi, _circa_ 2500 B.C.), and lie yonder in Merkes (p. 240). The city, therefore, by that time included at least that region.

The same neighbourhood gave us the plan of houses of the time of the Kassite kings, Kurigalzu III. to Kudur-Bel (_circa_ 1400–1249), Bel-nâdin-šum to Marduk-aplu-iddina II. (_circa_ 1219–1154); and the strata above afforded those of the Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Graeco-Parthian periods. All of these show that the division of the city into streets and blocks of houses remained practically unchanged throughout the course of centuries (p. 239 _et seq._).

When the Assyrian kings ruled over Babylon they repaired mainly the great temple of Esagila, now under Amran, where the pavements of Esarhaddon (680–668 B.C.) and Sardanapalus (668–626 B.C.) still lie (p. 204). Sennacherib (705–681) had caused the Procession Street near Sachn to be paved.

On the Kasr, Sargon (710–705) built the wall of the Southern Citadel, with the rounded corner tower (p. 137). Sardanapalus restored Nimitti-Bel lying close to our point of observation, Homera, and Emach on the Kasr. At that time the great extension of the Southern Citadel itself was not built, nor yet that part of the Kasr that lay to the north of it, the mound of Babil and the outer city wall. All that belongs to the building period of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom (625–538 B.C.).

Nabopolassar (625–604) began with the western part of the Southern Citadel, built the Arachtu wall from the Kasr as far as Amran, and also the temple of Ninib (p. 229), and Imgur-Bel on the Kasr.

With Nebuchadnezzar (604–561) began the colossal rebuilding of the entire city, with the restoration of the temple of Emach on the Citadel, of Esagila, of Etemenanki, the tower of Babylon with its wide temenos, of the Ninib temple in Ishin aswad, of temple “Z” and the earlier Ishtar temple in Merkes. He restored the Arachtu wall, constructed the earliest stone bridge over the Euphrates (p. 197) at Amran, the canal Libil-ḫigalla, that flowed round the Kasr on the north, east, and south, completed the Southern Citadel with his palace, and enlarged it towards the north in three successive extensions, in which the Procession Street was heightened and paved with stone, and the Ishtar Gate acquired its latest form, while both were decorated with the coloured enamelled frieze of animals. He built a new castle far out on the north and surrounded the city which he had enlarged in this fashion with the great outer city wall, of which from Homera we can see the white chain of mounds on the eastern horizon.

Of Nabonidus (555–538) we have more especially the strong fortification wall on the banks of the Euphrates, that has been excavated from Kasr to the Urash gate, near the bridge at Amran (p. 200), and the Ishtar temple in Merkes.

In the time of the Persian kings (538–331 B.C.), of which Artaxerxes II. (405–358) has left us a memorial in the marble building on the Southern Citadel (p. 127), the great change must have occurred that essentially altered the aspect of Babylon. The Euphrates, which until then had only washed the west side of the Kasr, now flowed eastward round the Acropolis. From this time dates the plan of the city as it is described by Herodotus (484–424? B.C.) and Ctesias, the physician of Artaxerxes. The apparently wide bend of the river that then flowed round the east of the Kasr we must now reconstruct in imagination as we look across to the castle of Nebuchadnezzar from Homera.

Alexander the Great (331–323) set himself to prevent the decline of Babylon, which was then beginning, and to restore it to its former magnitude. The great tower Etemenanki, the sanctuary of Bel, and a marked feature of Babylon, was to have been rebuilt. The fallen masses were carried away, and the débris lies here in the mounds of Homera (p. 308), but the king died before he could rebuild the tower.