791 



BABYLON. 



BABYLON. 



791 



furnaces. Hot bitumen was used to cement them together, and at 

 every thirty layers of bricks a layer of reeds was placed. The sides 

 of the ditch were first built in this manner, and then the walls above 

 them ; and upon the edges of the wall they erected buildings, with 

 only one chamber, each opposite the other, between which there was 

 space enough left for a chariot with four horses. In the wall there 



PLAN OF BABYLON, 



Showing the prohahle position of 

 ll.t walls of the city accord- 

 ing to Herodotus. 



Jtottril limft, ikotciiff tkt walll acnrdinff to lltrrxlolttt. 



were a hundred gates made of brass, as well as the jambs and lintels. 

 The Euphrates runs through the city, and divides it into two parts. 

 Each wall forms an elbow, or angle on the river, at which point a 

 wall of baked bricks commences, and the two sides of the river are 

 lined with them. The houses were built of three and four stories. 

 The streets were straight, and intersected by others which opened 

 on the river. Opposite the end of the streets small gates of brass 

 were formed in the walls which lined the river. By these gates 

 there was a descent to the river, and there were as many gates 

 as there were transverse streets. The external wall served for 

 defence ; there was also an internal wall which was not less strong, 

 but narrower. 



" The centre of each of these two parts of the town is remarkable, 

 the one for the palace of the king, of which the inclosure was large 

 and well fortified ; the other, for the place consecrated to Jupiter 

 Belus, of which the gates were of brass, and in existence when 

 Herodotus wrote. The sacred inclosure was a regular square, each 

 side being two stadia ; in the centre was a massive tower, one stadium 

 in length as well as width, and above this tower was raised another, 

 and above that again were raised others, until there were eight. An 

 ascent, which winds round the towers on the outside, led up to them. 

 About midway in the ascent there is a resting-place and seats, where 

 those who ascend rest themselves ; in the last tower is a large chapel, 

 and in this phapel a large and magnificent bed, and near it a table 

 of gold. 



"A bridge was built by Nitocris, a queen of Babylon, to connect 

 the two parts of the city divided by the Euphrates. The piers were 

 formed of large hewn stones, and in order to fix them in the river the 

 waters of the Euphrates were turned into a great excavation, leaving 

 the bed of the river dry. It was at this time that the banks of the 

 river were lined with the walls, and the descents to the river from 

 the smaller gates were made. The bridge was built about the middle 

 of the city, and the masonry was connected with iron and lead ; 

 during the day pieces of squared wood were laid from pier to pier, 

 which were removed at night lest the inhabitants on each side should 

 rob one another. When the bridge was finished the waters of the 

 Knphrates were turned back into their ancient bed." (Herodotus, 

 i. 178-186.) The fragments of Berosus may be compared with the 

 description of Herodotus. 



The ruins of Babylon consist of mounds of earth formed by the 

 decomposition of buildings, channeled and furrowed by the weather : 

 the surface of them is strewed with pieces of brick, bitumen, glass, and 

 pottery. They have been described more or less fully by Ker Porter, 

 Buckingham, and other travellers, but most accurately and carefully 

 by the late Mr. Rich. The latest account of them is that given by 



Dr. Layard in his ' Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon ' 

 (London, 1853), which we here extract : 



" The road from Baghdad to Hillah crosses, near the village of 

 Mohawill, a wide and deep canal, still carrying water to distant 

 gardens. On the southern bank of this artificial stream is a line of 

 earthen ramparts, which are generally believed to be the most 

 northern remains of the ancient city of Babylon. From their sum- 

 mit the traveller scans a boundless plain, through which winds the 

 Euphrates with its dark belt of evergreen palms. Rising in the 

 distance high above all surrounding objects is one square mound, in form 

 and size more like a natural hill than the work of men's hands. 

 This is the first great ruin to the east of the river ; and the Arabs 

 call it 'Babel.' " (By Rich this ruin -is called ' Mujelibe".') 



" The traveller before reaching this ruin, still about four miles 

 distant, follows a beaten track, winding amongst low mounds and 

 crossing the embankments of canals long since dry, or avoiding the 

 heaps of drifted earth which cover the walls and foundations of 

 buildings. Some have here traced the lines of streets, and the 

 divisions between the inhabited quarters of ancient Babylon. They 

 believe them to correspond with the descriptions of ancient authors, 

 who declare that the city was divided into a number of equal squares 

 by parallel thoroughfares. But it is perhaps more than doubtful 

 whether existing remains warrant any such supposition, or whether 

 any definite place could be restored from them. As yet no traces 

 whatever have been discovered of the great wall ; " (described above 

 from Herodotus) " nor of the ditch that encompassed it. The mounds 

 seem to be scattered about without order, and to be gradually lost in 

 the vast plains to the eastward. 



"But southward of Babel, for the distance of nearly three miles, 

 there is an almost uninterrupted line of mounds, the ruins of vast 

 edifices collected together as in the heart of a great city. They are 

 inclosed by earthern ramparts, the remains of a line of walls which 

 leaving the foot of Babel stretched inland about two miles and a half 

 from the present bed of the Euphrates, and then turning nearly at 

 right angles completed the defences on the southern side of the principal 

 buildings that mark the site of Babylon on the eastern side of the 

 river. Between its most southern point and Hillah, as between Moha- 

 will and Babel, can only be traced low heaps and embankments 

 scattered irregularly over the plain. 



"It is evident that the space inclosed within this continuous ram- 

 part could not have contained the whole of that mighty city, whose 

 magnificence and extent were the wonder of the ancient world. 

 . . . . The existing remains within the rampart agree as little 

 in form as in size with the descriptions of Babylon, for the city was 

 a perfect square. Mr. Rich, in order to explain these difficulties, was 

 the first to suggest that the vast ruin to the west of the Euphrates 

 called Birs Nimroud should be included within the limits of Babylon. 

 He endeavoured at the same time to identify it with the temple of 

 Belus, which, according to Herodotus, stood in one of the western 

 divisions of the city. There is no doubt that by imagining a square 

 large enough to include the smaller mounds scattered over the plains 

 from Mohawill to below Hillah on one side of the river, and the 

 Birs Nimroud at its south-western angle on the other, the site ji a 

 city of the dimensions attributed to Babylon might be satisfactorily 

 determined. But then it must be assumed that neither the outer wall 

 nor the ditch so minutely described by Herodotus ever existed." 

 We cannot refrain from saying here that we do not see the least 

 ground or necessity for this assumption, which seems to be made in 

 order to account for the total disappearance of the ancient fortifi- 

 cation? " It is surely impossible," says Dr. Layard, on page 493, 

 " that any human labour could have obliterated their very traces." 

 But surely if human labour could erect such ramparts it could much 

 more easily demolish them ; and Herodotus (iii. 159) says expressly 

 that Darius pulled them dowu completely (irtpieTA.*, 'took them away 

 all round.') 



Mr. Rich did not perceive any remains on the western side of the 

 Euphrates, except the large mound called Birs Nimroud, or Nemroud, 

 and some trifling mounds called Anana near the bank of the river ; Ker 

 Porter shows in addition some extensive ruins between these. The 

 disappearance of the principal part of the western division of the city 

 Dr. Layard accounts for by supposing that the Euphrates has advanced 

 and receded, during many centuries, between the Hindiyah marshes, 

 on the west of the city, and its present bed, and that by this shifting 

 of the bed of the river the ruins " which may have once stood on 

 the western bank have been gradually washed away." Having 

 admitted that the mounds within the earthen rampart on the eastern 

 bank of the river may represent the palace alluded to in the description 

 of Herodotus, and that the Birs Nimroud might possibly, as suggested 

 by Rich, represent the temple of Belus, Dr. Layard gives us a glimpse 

 of what the city was like. " It may be inferred, I think," he says, 

 "from the descriptions of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus that 

 Babylon was built on the same general plan as Nineveh. More than 

 one fortified inclosure, formed by lofty walls, and containing the 

 royal palaces and the temples, with their numerous dependent 

 buildings, courtyards, and gardens, rose in different quarters of the 

 city. They were so built and guarded as to be able to resist an 

 enemy and stand a protracted siege. Around them there were the com- 

 mon dwellings of the people, with their palm-groves, their orchards, and 



