LEADIXG ARTICLES. 



5°3 



arose in this valley — Babylon on the 

 Euphrates, and Nineveh on the Tigris 

 Babylon is undoubetdly one of the 

 most celebrated cities of all history. 

 The ancient chroniclers tell us that 

 these walls were forty-two miles long 

 and rose three or four hundred feet in 

 the air. The Chaldean priests ascribed 

 to it the antiquity of 400,000 years, but 

 the book of Genesis, in the Christian 

 Bible, fixes its foundation within the 

 historical period. It ascribes the build- 

 ing of Babylon to Nimrod, the mighty 

 hunter. Semiramis, the famous queen, 

 was one of the Babylonian monarchs. 

 It was she who constructed the quays 

 and built the Hanging Gardens and the 

 wall. 



When Nineveh was destroved, in 789 

 B.C., Babylon became supreme. Nebu- 

 chadnezzar, its king, defeated the 

 Egyptians, destroyed Jerusalem, took 

 Tyre, and adorned his capital with 

 many magnificent monuments. Cyrus, 

 king of the Persians, captured Baby- 

 lon, and made it one of his capitals. So 

 did Alexander the Great. For centuries 

 nothing was seen on the spot it occu- 

 pied except a heap of ruins, for which 

 the x\rabs had such a superstitious re- 

 verence that they declined to pitch their 

 tents there, and which remained only a 

 lair for the beasts of the desert. 



Babylon was utterly abandoned by 

 human inhabitants long before the 

 Christian era. In fact, it almost disap- 

 peared from the surface of the earth. 

 In the latter part of the past century, 

 however, archaeologists began to ex- 

 plore and excavate in various parts of 

 Mesopotamia. In 1899, the German 

 Orient Company (Deutsche Onentges- 

 ellschaft) began systematic work in the 

 city of Babylon. The director was Pro- 

 fessor Koldewey, an eminent German 

 archaeologist (who had already ex- 

 cavated in Arabia, Asia Minor, Greece 

 and Italy), and the work was done 

 under the direct patronage of the Ger- 

 man Emperor himself. It was learned 

 that the ancient city lay on both sides 

 of the River Euphrates, that there was 

 a movable drawbridge joining the two 

 parts of the city together, and ferry- 

 boats plying between the two landing 

 places of the gates. 



The picture we reproduce is a general 

 view. of the remains of the city as now 

 uncovered by the Germans. The figure 

 showing on the left stands unon a piece 

 of brick pavement, which, it has been 

 found, formed a part of the long street 

 named after the Hebrew prophet 

 Daniel. He himself, undoubtedly', 

 walked along this thoroughfare many 

 times. To the right of the picture, in 

 the hollow, is the gate named after the 

 goddess Isthar. This is the most prom- 

 inent ruin, and perhaps the best pre- 

 served of all Babylon. The gate con- 

 sists of six square pillars, three on each 

 side, each forty feet high and twelve 

 feet broad, resting against the walls of 

 temoles and other structures. The so- 

 callecl processional road of the god 

 Marduk led through the gate. Pass- 

 ing it and turning to the right, the way 

 led to Nebuchadnezzar's throne hall. 

 These two monuments, the gate and the 

 throne hall, almost alone escaped the 

 hands of the Arabs, who, for succeed- 

 ing centuries, have devastated Babylon 

 of all the bricks they could find, carry- 

 ing them away to build their own 

 squalid towns. On all the sides, the 

 walls are ornamented with relief of the 

 sacred bull, the holy animal of the 

 Babylonians. The sculptured lion, on 

 this page, was probably one of the 

 earliest chiselled works of the Babv- 



HUGE SCULPTURED LION POUND IN B \BY- 

 I.ON. 



