Part 4

The same conception of art influenced the marvellous, highly developed, glyptic art of Babylonia. The style of the gem reliefs during the time of Hammurabi was also transferred to stone, while the older Babylonian stone reliefs distinctly show their direct derivation from the previous flat bas-reliefs, to which Assyrian art of the later period still adhered. Previous to our excavations no example of the plastic art of the time of Nebuchadnezzar was known.

The brick when moulded and before it was enamelled was burnt like any ordinary brick; the contours were then drawn on it with black lines of a readily fusible vitreous composition, leaving clearly marked fields. These were filled with liquid coloured enamels, the whole dried and then fused, this time apparently in a gentler fire. As the black lines had the same fusing-point as the coloured portions they often mixed with the colours themselves, thus giving the work that marvellous and harmonious brilliancy and life which we admire to-day. With the Persian enamels which we shall meet with in connection with the Persian buildings these black lines have a higher melting-point and therefore remain distinct and project above the coloured enamels after the firing.

The bricks had then to be arranged according to the design. In order to facilitate this and to ensure an accurate distribution of them on the building site, the bricks were marked on the upper side in rough glaze with a series of simple signs and numerals. The sign on the side of a brick and on that which was to be placed next it are identical. We shall learn more of the system in the Southern Citadel, where it was employed in the enamelled decorations of the great court.

A complete study of these details could not be made in Babylon as we were cramped for space and could not spread out the pieces. The chemical preservation of them was carried out in Berlin with great care under the able direction of Professor Rathgen. The antiquities from the ruined sites, more especially the pottery, were completely permeated with salts, saltpetre, and the like. These materials, owing to long exposure to air, had formed hard crystals on the surface, which had to be removed by long-continued soaking. Here in Babylon also we numbered each piece so that we could be certain at what part of the Processional Street each fragment had been found. The transverse cut in the wall _u_ 13 of the plan of Kasr (Fig. 13) gives an excellent insight into the method of construction. Over every course of brick is a thin layer of asphalt, and above this an equally thin layer of mud and then another course of bricks. The joints of the course, which are from 1 to 1½ centimetres thick, are also formed of asphalt and mud. In every fifth course a matting made of reeds, the stalks of which have been split and rendered flexible by beating, is substituted for the mud. The matting itself has rotted, but the impression left on the asphalt is still perfectly fresh and recognisable. In appearance it corresponds exactly with the ordinary matting in use in the neighbourhood to-day.

A determined and very remarkable effort was obviously made to separate the courses, to prevent their adhering to each other, overlaid as they were with asphalt. This separation occurs in other parts of the city effected by reed straw instead of mud. Only in some few detached instances were the bricks laid immediately on the bitumen, where they fitted together as firmly as a rock, as in the wall 17 metres thick which in _k_ 13 runs through the great Principal Citadel, in the southern strongest part of the Ishtar Gateway, and also in the postament of the cella in the temple of Borsippa. We may add that asphalt and mud, or asphalt and reed straw are regularly used for joints throughout the period of the Babylonian kings. Only in his latest buildings, the Kasr, the Principal Citadel, and Babil, did Nebuchadnezzar change to lime mortar, while Nabonidus for his Euphrates wall turned once more to asphalt. The later builders, Persians, Greeks, and Parthians, employed mud for mortar.

The asphalt mortar in the great defensive walls of Babylon and the inserted mats are mentioned by Herodotus (i. 179): he records that after every 30 courses of bricks a plaited mat was inserted. So large a number has not yet been observed by us. The lowest number is 5, the highest 13. In the Babylonian, inscriptions on buildings, especially on those of Nebuchadnezzar, asphalt is very often mentioned in connection with burnt brick, but never mud, lime, or reeds.

VI THE ISHTAR GATE

The magnificent approach by way of the Procession Street corresponds entirely with the importance, the size, and the splendour of the Ishtar Gate. With its walls which still stand 12 metres high, covered with brick reliefs, it is the largest and most striking ruin of Babylon and—with the exception of the tower of Borsippa which, though now shapeless, is higher—of all Mesopotamia (see ground-plan on Fig. 46).

[Illustration:

FIG. 18.—Eastern end of the mud-brick wing, at the Ishtar Gate, from the north. ]

It was a double gateway. Two doorways close together, one behind the other, formed into one block by short connecting walls, lead through the walls of crude brick (Fig. 18), which are equally closely placed. At a later period the latter formed a transept which stood out square across the acropolis and afforded special protection to the inner part, the Southern Citadel (cf. the restored view, Fig. 43). Apparently these walls were originally connected directly with the inner town wall still extant at Homera, for inscriptions found there prove conclusively that to it belonged the name Nimitti-Bel, while the Ishtar Gate is itself frequently spoken of in other inscriptions as belonging to both Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel. Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel are the two oft-mentioned celebrated fortress walls of Babylon, of which we shall presently speak (p. 150 _et seq._).

[Illustration:

FIG. 19.—General view of the Ishtar Gate from the north. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 20.—Gold plaque from grave in the Nabopolassar Palace (scale 3: 1). ]

Of each of the two gateways two widely projecting towers close to the entrance are still standing (Fig. 19), and behind them a space closed by a second door. This space, which is generally called the gateway court, although it was probably roofed in, shows clear signs that its primary object was to protect the leaves of the double door which opened back into it from the weather, and also that it strengthened the possibilities of the defences. In the case of smaller gates which do not possess these interior chambers, the leaves of the doors were inserted in the thickness of the wall, which afforded a protection; an embrasure which is absent in the gateways. On the northern gate the gateway chamber lies transversely, on the southern it extends along the central axis. Here also it is enclosed with walls of such colossal thickness that it may be supposed to have supported a central tower of great height, but nothing remains in proof of this. This assumption is delineated in Fig. 21, while in Fig. 43 it is taken for granted that the gateway chamber was commanded by the towers. Here, as in all the other buildings, we have little to guide us as to the superstructure. Among the ornaments in a grave in the Southern Citadel was a rectangular gold plate (Fig. 20) which on the face represents a great gateway. On it, near the arched door, we see the two towers overtopping the walls, while on their projecting upper part triangular battlements and small circular loopholes can be seen. Of the latter we found thick wedge-shaped stones under the blue enamelled bricks, and also part of the stepped battlements in blue enamel which, on the whole, may have had an appearance of triangles.

[Illustration:

FIG. 21.—Section through the Ishtar Gate. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 22.—Grooved expansion joints at the Ishtar Gate. ]

The gateway itself was not placed immediately in the mud wall, but between four wing-like additions of burnt brick, in each of which was a doorway. Thus the Ishtar Gate had three entrances, the central one with fourfold doors, and one to right and left, each with double doors. The foundations of the main building are so deep that, owing to the present high water-level, we could not get to the foot of them (Fig. 21). The gateway wings are not carried down so far, and the walls that stretch northward still less. It is conceivable that those parts of the wall where the foundations are specially deep do not sink so much in the course of time as those of shallower foundations, and settlement is unavoidable even with these, standing as they do upon earth and mud. Thus where the foundations are dissimilar there must be cleavages in the walls, which would seriously endanger the stability of the building. The Babylonians foresaw this and guarded against it. They devised the expansion joint, which we also make use of under similar circumstances. By this means walls that adjoin each other but which are on foundations of different depths are not built in one piece. A narrow vertical space is left from top to bottom of the wall, leaving the two parts standing independent of each other. In order to prevent any possibility of their leaning either backwards or forwards, in Babylon a vertical fillet was frequently built on to the less deeply rooted wall, which slid in a groove in the main wall (Fig. 22). The two blocks run in a guide, as an engineer would call it. In the case of small isolated foundations, the actual foundation of burnt brick rests in a substructure of crude brick shaped like a well, filled up with earth, in which it can shift about at the base without leaning over, which gives it play like the joints of a telescope. In this way the small postament near the eastern tower of our gate is constructed, and also the round one which stands to the westward of it on the open space in front of the gate (Fig. 23). On these postaments and on similar ones in the northern gateway court and in the intermediate court must “the mighty bronze colossi of bulls and the potent serpent figures” have stood which Nebuchadnezzar placed in the entries of the Ishtar Gate (_Steinplatten_ inscription, col. 6).

[Illustration:

FIG. 23.—View of the Ishtar Gate from the west. ]

Where the southern door adjoined its western buttress there were some remarkable and rather considerable ancient cavities in the wall, for which I cannot discover any certain explanation. They were filled with earth, and had not been meddled with in modern times. Later than these, but also of ancient times, there is a well hewn out in the northern wing. A narrow staircase led down to it, and could only be reached by a passage 50 centimetres wide cut through the wall, which opened on to the space in front of the gate. The exit was hidden away in a corner, and almost entirely concealed.

VII THE WALL DECORATIONS OF BULLS AND DRAGONS

[Illustration:

FIG. 24.—The two eastern towers of the Ishtar Gate. ]

The decoration of the walls of the Ishtar Gate consisted of alternated figures of bulls and dragons (_sirrush_). They are placed in horizontal rows on the parts of the walls that are open to observation by those entering or passing (Fig. 24), and also on the front of both the northern wings, but not where they would be wholly or partially invisible to the casual observer. The rows are repeated one above another; dragons and bulls are never mixed in the same horizontal row, but a line of bulls is followed by one of sirrush. Each single representation of an animal occupies a height of 13 brick courses, and between them are 11 plain courses, so that the distance from the foot of one to the foot of the next is 24 courses. These 24 courses together measure almost exactly 2 metres, or 4 Babylonian ells, in height. As these bricks change their standard when in use as binders or stretchers at the corners, the reliefs on one side of a corner are invariably either one course higher or lower than on the wall on the adjoining side.

[Illustration:

FIG. 25.—Enamelled reliefs at the Ishtar Gate, beginning of the excavation, April 1, 1902. ]

From top to bottom of the wall there are 9 rows of these animals visible in relief. The two lowest rows are frequently under the water-level, which has risen so considerably in recent years. In 1910, however, it was possible to penetrate as low as some of these reliefs. Above there was a row of bulls in flat enamels, a good portion of which was found _in situ_ on the south-east pier of the north gate (Fig. 25). Above this must have been at least one row of sirrush and one of bulls in flat enamels, and a row of sirrush in enamel reliefs; the whole ruin was bestrewn with an extraordinary number of fragments from these upper rows. Those fragments have recently been brought to Europe, and it now remains to determine from them the actual numbers of the figures, so far as they can be counted. When this is done, we shall be able to decide whether or not there were more of these rows. The succession of the rows in the meantime may be schematized thus:—

Row 13. Sirrush in enamelled relief.

„ 12. Bulls in enamelled relief.

„ 11. Sirrush in flat enamel.

Upper level of pavement of shadu and turminabanda stone.

„ 10. Bulls in flat enamel, the top row of those found still _in situ_.

„ 9. Bulls in brick relief, carefully worked.

Older road pavement of burnt brick.

„ 8. Sirrush in brick relief.

„ 7. Bulls in brick relief.

Traces of an older pavement (?).

„ 6. Sirrush in brick relief.

„ 5. Bulls in brick relief.

„ 4. Sirrush in brick relief.

„ 3. Bulls in brick relief.

„ 2. Sirrush in brick relief, in 1910 only above water-level.

„ 1. Bulls in brick relief, in 1910 only above water-level.

Each of the 8 lower rows contained at least 40 animals, and the upper 5 rows 51 animals. For in the latter there were certainly 5 more on the south-eastern angle of the northern gateway court and 6 more on the front of the northern wings. This gives a minimum number of 575 animals. After the excavations 152 pieces were to be seen still in position, and about as many more may yet be discovered in the part not yet uncovered.

The whole of this collection of creatures was certainly at no period visible at the same time and from the same point of view. The level on which the Ishtar Gate stood was repeatedly raised by artificial means. The traces of the two last heightenings can be seen between the 10th and 11th and the 8th and 9th rows. The traces of a pavement between the 6th and 7th rows are not clear. It is possible that when the gate was first built the roadway lay at the same level as the surrounding plain, but there is no proof of this. It may also be surmised that, for some time at least, the lower part of the gate was used as such, but in any case with the successive heightenings of the road the lower part of the building gradually disappeared below the surface. The filling up shows the existence of great foresight, and of most scrupulous care expended on the work. The reliefs were carefully smeared over with mud, and those of the 8th row were actually covered with a fine clean white stucco. On the irregular surface of this covering the marks of the smearing hands are clearly visible. The white plaster so catches the eye that at first I imagined it to be the remains of a coating intended to be painted and to ensure a more perfect moulding of the form and outline of the animal; the obvious roughness of the work, however, precluded any such conclusion.

Below the 8th row, that is below the older roadway, an unusual neglect of the wall surface appears. The bricks are often reversed and laid irregularly backwards or forwards, and thus in places the reliefs are not fitted together (Figs. 26, 27). The asphalt often protrudes from the joints and has run in thick black streaks over ground and figures alike. None of these defects occur in the 9th course. The field of the reliefs, on the contrary, is carefully smoothed to a fine surface with some polishing instrument, and the animal figures are worked over with a rasp. This seems to point to the conclusion that the lower rows were not intended to stand out free and meet the eye, at any rate not for any considerable length of time; and this also shows that when the gate was built, it was intended from the first that the Procession Street and the level of the old pavement should be raised. Even in the lowest courses we find the 3–lined stamp that is characteristic of the latter half of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. No traces have been found of an earlier building, though Nebuchadnezzar speaks of one.

[Illustration:

FIG. 26.—THE BULL OF THE ISHTAR GATE. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 27.—A bull, not enamelled. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 28.—Inscription from the Ishtar Gate. ]

In the great _Steinplatten_ inscription, col. 5 and 6, the king says: “... Ištar-sâkipat-têbiša of Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel—both entrances of the town gates had become too low owing to the filling up of the street (sulû) of Babil. I dug out that town gate, I grounded its foundations facing the water strong with bitumen and baked bricks, and caused it to be finely set forth with baked bricks of blue enamel, on which wild oxen and dragons (sir-ruš) were pictured. I caused mighty cedars to be laid lengthways for its ceiling. Door leaves of cedar covered with copper, thresholds and hinges of bronze I fitted into its gates. Lusty (?) wild oxen of bronze and raging (?) dragons I placed at the thresholds. The same town gateways I caused to be made glorious for the amazement of all peoples” (trans. by Delitzsch).

[Illustration:

FIG. 29.—ENAMELLED WALL LENGTH OF THE ISHTAR GATE. ]

Between the two doorways, at the level of the topmost pavement, a great block of limestone was found bearing the consecration inscription of the Ishtar Gate (Fig. 28) which, with another lying by it, must have belonged either to the jambs or the soffit of the door. The inscription runs thus: “(Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, son of) Nabopolassar (King of Babylon am I). The gate of Nana (Ishtar ... I built) with (blue) enamelled bricks ... for Marduk my lord. Lusty bulls of bronze and mighty figures of serpents I placed at their thresholds, with slabs (?) of limestone (and ...) of stone I ... the enclosure of the bulls (...?) Marduk, exalted lord ... eternal life ... give as a gift” (trans. by Messerschmidt).

[Illustration:

FIG. 30.—The enamelled piece of wall. ]

The expression “uknû,” which here and in other inscriptions is used for enamelled brick, properly denotes _lapis lazuli_. It corresponds in fact, and possibly in derivation, with the Greek “kyanos.” The technique of the enamel, the reference marks of the bricks, and the varied colourings are precisely the same as we have already observed with the lions (Figs. 29, 30).

The lion, the animal of Ishtar, was so favourite a subject at all times in Babylonian art that its rich and lavish employment at the main gate of Babylon, the Ishtar Gate, is by no means abnormal. With the bull, and still more with the sirrush, the case is different. The bull is the sacred animal of Ramman, the weather god. A pair of walking bulls often form the base on which his statue stands, or his emblem the lightning is frequently placed on the back of a recumbent bull. Similar representations point to the sirrush as the sacred animal both of Marduk and of Nabû. In the Babylonian pantheon of Nebuchadnezzar’s time, Marduk occupied a very prominent position. To him belonged Esagila, the principal temple of Babylon, and to him Nebuchadnezzar consecrated the Procession Street and the Ishtar Gate itself. His animal, the sirrush, frequently appears on carvings of this period, such as the seals and boundary stones. This “dragon of Babylon” was the far-famed animal of Babylon, and fits in admirably with the well-known story in the Apocrypha of Bel and the Dragon. One may easily surmise that the priests of Esagila kept some reptile, probably an arval, which is found in this neighbourhood, and exhibited it in the semi-darkness of a temple chamber as a living sirrush. In this case there would be small cause for wonder that the creature did not survive the concoction of hair and bitumen administered to it by Daniel.

The artistic conception of the sirrush (Figs. 31 and 32) differs very considerably from that of the other fabulous creatures in which Babylonian art is so exceedingly rich. Although not free from impossibilities, it is far less fantastic and unnatural than the winged bulls with human heads, or the bearded men with birds’ bodies and scorpions’ tails, and similar absurdities.

[Illustration:

FIG. 31.—THE SIRRUSH OF THE ISHTAR GATE. ]

[Illustration:

FIG. 32.—A sirrush, not enamelled. ]

As indicated by the Babylonian name it is a “walking serpent.” A striking feature is the scaly coat and the great tail of a serpent’s body. The head with the forked tongue is purely that of a serpent, and is in fact that of the horned viper, so common in Arabia, which bears the two erect horns, of which, as in the case of the bulls, only one is visible in the purely profile attitude. Behind lie two spiral combs similar to those so generously bestowed on the heads of the frequently represented Chinese dragon. The tail ends in a small curved sting. The legs are those of some high-stepping feline animal, probably a cheetah. The hinder feet are those of a strong raptorial bird (Fig. 33) with powerful claws and great horny scales. But the tarsal joint is not that of a bird but of a quadruped, and the metatarsals are not anchylosed, or only very slightly at the distal end. It is remarkable that, in spite of the scales, the animal possesses hair. Three corkscrew ringlets fall over the head near the ears, and on the neck, where a lizard’s comb would be, is a long row of curls.

[Illustration:

FIG. 33.—Leg of a sirrush and of a raptorial bird. ]

This conjunction of scales and hair, as well as the marked difference between the front and hinder extremities, is very characteristic of the prehistoric dinosaur. Also the small size of the head in comparison with the rest of the body, the carriage and disproportionate length of the neck, all correspond with the distinctive features of this extinct lizard. The sirrush is a proof of an unmistakable self-creative genius in this ancient art and far exceeds all other fantastic creatures in the uniformity of its physiological conceptions. If only the forelegs were not so emphatically and characteristically feline, such an animal might actually have existed. The hind feet of a lizard are often very similar to those of birds.

VIII THE PROCESSION STREET SOUTH OF THE ISHTAR GATE