48 LOFTUS. [Feb. 25, 1856. 



veller on a perfectly level desert, that nothing could be well omitted. 

 A few additional words on Wurka he thought might be interesting, as 

 it ranks amongst the largest ruins in the country. The walls of the 

 city are 5^ miles in circumference, but many important mounds stand 

 beyond the enclosure. There are at present three temples existing, 

 one of which is perfect to the height of 25 feet, and exhibits on one of 

 its facades some very remarkable peculiarities previously unknown in 

 any style of architecture, so rude as to indicate their early origin. 

 Wurka is moreover the most extensive Necropolis extant. Coffins and 

 sepulchral remains occupy the whole of the central platform, piled up 

 to the height of 30 feet ; and he believed that, if excavations were made, 

 they would be found to extend to the depth of 60 feet. The tablets 

 from the ruins, which Sir H. Rawlinson has deciphered, are of the 

 age of Seleucus and Antiochus the Great, 200 B.C. They are very 

 interesting, as being the last known records with cuneiform inscriptions, 

 and as having Greek names written in those early characters. 



He desired to make a few remarks on the regions marked " Inunda- 

 tions" in the map. Those on the left bank of the Euphrates were 

 owing to the construction of a dam which the Pasha of Baghdad had 

 recently built at the mouth of the Hindieh Cayial. The inundation of 

 Keffil, to which this canal leads on the W. of "' the great river," is con- 

 tinued, after traversing the Bahr i Nedjef, to the S.E. through very 

 large marshes, constituting what is strictly the main branch of the 

 Euphrates. It is the one which is always used, and the only one which 

 can be used at all seasons. Strange to say, this line of water com- 

 munication is omitted in all our maps ! It is always navigable, except 

 when its entrance is dammed up by the Pasha of Baghdad. 



Mr. Loftus, in answer to a question from Mr. Hamilton, remarked 

 that the modes of burial were several : the earliest is that in which the 

 bodies were placed in large pots, which were then covered with lids, and 

 these were cemented down. Three or four bodies were often found in 

 one coffin. About the time of our Saviour, the slipper-bath coffins pro- 

 bably came into fashion at Wurka. These were baked before the bodies 

 were deposited in them. The dead were then placed on mounds and 

 exposed. Drift sand covered them, and afterwards a new layer of 

 coffins was placed above. This was the only way to account for these 

 coffins being found piled one above another to so great a height. 

 The coffins are very heavy, and it is most probable that they were 

 brought to the mound before the bodies were placed within them. 



Sib Henry Rawlinson said, in reference to these modes of burial, 

 that the age of the different forms of coffins could be most easily traced. 

 He should describe the earliest mode as one in which the body was 



