ns and porticoes on the Nile. The lower Euphrates does not lie, like the Nile, between walls of rocks, from which the most beautiful and hardest stone could be obtained. The plain of Babylonia affor

mmonly the ornaments on the inner walls, and occasionally even those on the outer walls, consist of bricks coloured and glazed. Though the material in Babylonia was more fragile than the granite of Egypt, the extent, scale, and splendour of these buildings were so great, that remains even of the oldest have come do

as in the southern cities. The universal characteristic of these buildings, so far as the remains allow us to pass any judgment, is the extraordinary strength of the walls and the obvious effort to obtain, by placing one story of solid masonry upon another, higher positions, better air, and a more extensive view in the level plain. The temples seem almost universally to be built in this tower-like style, either in order to be nearer the gods in the purer a

erced by narrow air-passages extending from one side to the other. On this story is a second, 120 feet in length by 75 feet in breadth, and even now about 17 feet high. The ruins lying on this point to a third story, which may have contained the actual temple. There are traces still remaining of the entrance, which led up from the outside. The tiles of the lower story bear the stamp, "Urukh, king of Ur, has erected the temple of the god Sin;" on those of the upper story we find, "Ilgi, king of Ur, king of Sumir, and Accad." This building was, therefore, the temple of Sin, which Urukh commenced and his son Ilgi continued and completed-a fact which is further proved by the inscriptions of Nabonetus, the last king of Babylon, which were found in these ruins. To the south-east of this structure lies a platform, faced w

ll are three heaps of ruins. On the highest, which forms an exact square of more than 200 feet at the base, we may trace the ruins of a second story. This heap is about 100 feet in height. It consists of bricks alternating with layers of reeds at intervals of four or five feet in height. Here also there are buttresses, in w

It is of the same height as the others. The fourth story is only 15 feet in height. The loose mass of ruins does not allow us to trace any more stories. Hence the building in all probability consisted of seven stories. It appears that these ruins, like the extensive heaps of remains lying to the east of them (Tel Ibrahim), mark the site of the ancient Borsippa. The tiles of the stories, which lie one over the other, bear the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar II., and in the angles of the building cylinders have been discovered,[401] on which Nebuchadnezzar relates that the temple of the seven lamps of the earth, the tower of Borsippa, which an earlier king had commenced but not complete

ple, and in the temple a large and beautifully-prepared bed, and beside it a golden table. There is no image there, nor does anyone watch there through the night except a woman of the country, whom, as the Chald?an priests say, their god has chosen out of all the land. They also declare, though I do not believe it, that the god sometimes comes into the temple and rests on the bed. In this sanctuary there is also another temple below, and in this there is a great image of the seated Zeus, of gold, and a large golden table; the footstool and seat are also of gold; and altogether, as the Chald?ans

same weight was the statue of Rhea, in which the goddess was seated on a golden throne. Beside her knees were two lions, and close at hand two very large serpents of silver, each weighing 30 talents. The standing figure of Hera weighed 800 talents; in her right hand she held a serpent by the head, and in the left a sceptre studded with precious stones. Before these statues was a common table of beaten gold, 40 feet long and 15 feet broad, and 500 talents in weight. On the table were two chalices, each 30 talents in weight. There also were two vessels for incense, each 30 talents in weight, and three great jars, of which that consecrated to Zeus was 1,200 talents in weight, and the two others 600 talents each."[404] Strabo contents himself with the remark: "The now ruined grave of Belus was a square pyramid of

of the ancient days, desired to climb heaven. Their insolence and wicked purpose was punished by the confusion of language and the dispersion of mankind. Josephus makes Nimrod, as the founder of the kingdom of Babylon, the

Right Hand," was the name of the rich temple of Nebo at Borsippa. "Like a pious man," says Nebuchadnezzar in one of his inscriptions, "I have dealt towards Beth-Saggatu, and towards Beth-Sida. I have magnified the splendour of the god Merodach, and the god Nebo, my lords: I have completed Beth-Sida, the eternal house, where Nebo and Nana are enthroned, at Borsippa."[409] "I have set up Beth-Saggatu, and beautified it; Beth-Sida I have completed."[410] On the cylinders found in the ruins of the temple of the seven lamps, Nebuchadnezzar says: "Beth-Saggatu is the temple of the Heaven and the Earth, the dwelling of Merodach, the lord of the gods, and with pure gold have I caused the temple to be covered, where his splendour rests; the temple of the foundations of the earth, the tower of Babylon, I have restored, with tiles and co

overeigns; and that of these three rich temples, i. e. the temple of Nergal at Kutha, Beth-Sida, the temple of Nebo at Borsippa, and Beth-Saggatu, the temple of Merodach at Babel, the latter was certainly the most wealthy. Moreover, the inscriptions show that the foundation goes back as far as the times of king Hammurabi, whose accession we found it possible-on

and brought into a resemblance with the reality by the painter's art. The circumference was forty stades in length, and the wall was three hundred bricks in thickness; the height, according to Ctesias, was fifty fathoms, and the tower rose to sixty fathoms. The third interior wall which surrounded the buildings was twenty stades in circuit, but in height and thickness it surpassed the middle wall. On this and the towers belonging to it animals of all kinds were depicted with considerable skill in form and colour. The whole exhibited a chase, full of many different animals, which were of more than four cubits in size. Among these was a queen on horseback, who threw her dart at a panther; and at hand was the king, who thrust at a lion with his lance. This palace surpassed both in size and beauty the palace on the other side of the Euphrates. Here the exterior wall of burnt tiles was only thirty stades in circumference, and instead of the numerous animals were bronze statues of a king and a queen and of governors, and also a bronze statue of Zeus, whom the Babylonians call Belus. But in the interior were military evolutions and hunting scenes of every kind, which gave varied amusement to the spectator.[416] Ctesias, whom Diodorus followed in his description of the palace on the west bank, as in his account of the treasures in the Tower of Belus (p. 293), has also b

s, that he built the fortress of Ummubanit, "the towers of which were as high as mountains." Kurigalzu built the fortress of this name (Akerkuf, p. 262).

sary to carry the water as far as the middle of the plain, which in ordinary years it failed to reach, to form a network of canals to convey water from the Euphrates even when there was no inundation, and finally to dig trenches to remove the water from districts where it lay too long, and to drain the broad marshes on the lower river near the mouth of the Euphrates. From the inscription of Hammurabi, and the numerous remains of dams and canals, we may conclude that the kings of Babylon constructed large and comprehensive works of this kind, which were of use not in agriculture only, but for commerce also. The brief duration of the later restoration of the kingdom could not allow time to complete the greater part of the vast structures and conduits, of whic

without a certain truth of nature, though exaggerated, and a rude though powerful lion of stone standing over a prostrate man, from the ruins of Babylon. Whether we regard it as unfinished, or as belonging to the infancy of art, this work is all that we possess of full figures in stone, except a duck, intended for use as a weight (p. 282). The human forms on the numerous seal cylinders are often sketched in rude, childish outlines. On the other hand, the single relief of a king of Babylon hitherto discovered, though massive, is of artistic and neat workmanship. The king wears a long and very richly-adorned robe with close sleeves, which are fastened by bracelets round the knuckles.

side, with the head on a brick; the right arm, laid towards the left over the breast, rests the fingers on the edge of a copper saucer. Clay vessels for food and drink are found on the walls. In the ruins of Erech the whole space between the three prominent heaps of ruins and the external walls is filled with tombs, bones, and relics of the dead. The coffins here are receptacles partly oval, made of burnt clay in a single piece, about seven feet long, two and a half broad, and two to three feet high, contracting towards the top; and partly

naan.[421] How active the commerce between Babylonia and Syria was even before that date is proved by the circumstance that the tribute which in the sixteenth century B.C. was received by Tuthmosis III. from Syria is put down on the inscriptions at Karnak (p. 135) in part in weight by the mina, and in part, when reduced from the Egyptian to the Babylonian weight, gives round sums corresponding to the Babylonian weight, from which the conclusion can be drawn that the imperial Babylonian weight and the Babylonian money weight were already in use in Syria about this time. That the trade mina of the Syrians was the sixtieth part of the heavy (weight) talent of the Babylonians is ascertained; but the

of the most precious perfumes were mixed together.[425] When the cities of Phenicia became great centres of trade which carried the wares of Babylonia by sea to the West in order to obtain copper in exchange, the trade between Babylonia and Syria must have become more lively still. It was the ships of the Phenicians which brought the cubic measure, and the weights, and the cubit of Babylonia to the shores of Greece, and caused them to be adopted there. In the ninth or eighth century B.C. the Greeks completely dropped their old measures of length and superficies, and fixed their stadium at 360 Babylonian cubits, their plethrum at the length and the square of sixty Babylonian cubits, and regulated the Greek foot by

TNO

, "Journ. Asiat. S

t regard Borsippa as a part of Babylon in the teeth of the direct testimony of Strabo (p. 728), Justin (12, 13), and Ptolemy (5, 20). The inscriptions of the Assyrians, and, not least, those of Nebuchadnezzar himself, always mention Borsippa beside Babylon. If it be maintained that in spite of this Nebuchadnezzar might have included Borsippa in the walls of

rod. 1,

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trabo,

"Antiq

"Records of the

cription in Ménant

ips in Ménant, "Baby

the British Museum

t, "Babylon

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ctions Bibl.

yr. Inst

ppert, "Exped." 1, 232. Chief

Diod

llips, in Ménant,

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he borders of Babylon at a canal, 18 sch?nes, i. e. 135 miles

uins and Remains;" "Transactions

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Herod.

, "Ph?nizier

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"Münzwesen,"