May 1 
4 
o> 
1915 | 
NATURE 
293 

5 ri | 
East India House, might well have survived an | 
age-long immersion in Euphratean mud. In any 
case, disappointing as, in such respects, results | 
have hitherto proved to be, we entirely agree with 
Dr. Koldewey that it is most desirable that the 
work of excavating this historic site, begun so 
many years ago, should be carried to completion. 
Meanwhile, the special student will not fail to find 
many good things in this storehouse of facts and 
comments. It is now certain that ancient accounts 
greatly exaggerated the extent of ground actually 
covered by the city, the influence of which dom- | 
inated the civilised world from the age of Ham- 
murabi, the founder of its imperial greatness, to 
that of Nebuchadrezzar, who, if he did not find 
it of brick and leave it of marble, undoubtedly 
either he or his translator has misunderstood 
Winckler (KB., ili., p- 23), who explains IV 
M amat gagari, “4000 cubits of ground,” as 
referring to the length of the new wall, not to 
the distance from Imgur-Bel, and renders itdti 
Babili nisis la dahé, “an den Seiten von Babylon, 
> 
nig 
in der Ferne, sodass_ sie nicht herankam,” 
where “sie” also refers to the new wall. 
We must also be excused if we demur to the 
transcription “ Sirrush ” 
walking serpent” (p. 46). The cirrush, or rather, 
mush-rush, was one of the aqueous monsters 
created by Tidmat, to help her in warring down 
the gods of light. It is something to learn what 
and the explanation “a 
a MUSH-RUSH was like; and Dr. Koldewey has 
enabled us to identify it with a 
form already 


restored and enlarged its walls and temples and 
palaces on so grand a scale that the glories of 
Babylon the Great became a standing wonder of 
antiquity. The walls, however, have been found 
to range from upwards of fifty to more than sixty 
feet in thickness, and the mounds which concealed 
them rose to about four times the height of the 
ordinary Vels of buried Oriental cities: circum- 
stances which sufficiently indicate the arduous 
nature of the task of excavation. 
Dr. Koldewey’s translations are, for the most 
part, good and accurate; but in EIH. VI. (not 
“7 ") 22-55, the passage in which Nebuchadrezzar 
or his court historian describes the building of 
the new eastern wall and the making of the moat, 
NO. 2376, VOL. 95| 

Fron ‘‘ The Excavations at Babylon.” 
familiar to us from other Babylonian monuments. 
It was, in fact, not so much a serpent (though 
the Sumerian musu includes that meaning) as a 
composite form with serpent head, scales, and 
tail, and four claw-footed legs-—a sort of “laidly 
worm” or “fearsome dragon,” and remarkably 
like a dinosaurus. The name may denote fierce 
(or glittering) dragon (Fig. 2). 
Dr. Koldewey first visited Babylon in June, 
1887, about the time when the present reviewer 
was working upon the text of the East India 
House inscription of Nebuchadrezzar (see Pro- 
ceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology, 
December, 1887). What a godsend would the 
present volume have been in those days, clearing 
