£06 Proceedings of' the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 



He next gave a general description of the ruins, and a more de- 

 tailed one of the Kasr, the MujeUibek, the Embankment \ and the 

 Birs Nemroud. The first he considered as the ruins of Nebuchad- 

 nezzar's palace ; the second as belonging to the palace, or to its 

 hanging gardens ; the Embankments, with the hill of Amran, he 

 believed to be a part of the defences of the city toward the river ; 

 and the Birs Nemroud, he considered with Rich as the ruins of 

 the tower of Belus. He discussed at some length the arguments 

 advanced by Rennell and Mignan against this latter opinion, chiefly 

 founded on the account of Ctesias, that there were two palaces, one 

 on each bank of the river, and that the principal one was on the 

 western bank, and that the tower of Belus was on the opposite side. 

 Ctesias being the only original writer who mentions two palaces, 

 and his account not being confirmed by Herodotus, or any other 

 ancient authority, and the glaring inconsistencies of his narrative in 

 other respects entitling him to little credit, when he is not confirm- 

 ed by other authors, it was concluded that we had no good reason 

 to believe that two palaces had existed, far less that the most con- 

 siderable was on the western bank of the river, especially as no re- 

 mains, which can at all be regarded as the ruins of a palace, exist 

 on that side ; while in the Kasr we have remains of a pile, sump- 

 tuous in its material, of the finest furnace-baked brick, and magni- 

 ficent for its extent, occupying a central position among the con- 

 spicuous ruins on the eastern bank, and enclosed on three sides by 

 immense embankments, answering to the description left us by 

 Herodotus of the strong interior wall which surrounded the palace. 



The author next endeavoured to shew, that the Birs Nemroud 

 answers better than any other of the remains to the description of 

 the tower of Belus. 



He next shewed, that the remains of reeds found between the 

 courses of sun-dried bricks, correspond to Herodotus's description 

 of reeds being used in the lower part of the Babylonian structures, 

 — ha, T^xovTa $op&>v kXivOov — " for thirty courses of brick," not as 

 our translators have made it, u between every thirtieth course" 



Lastly, he examined the varying accounts of ancient authors with 

 regard to the extent of the walls of ancient Babylon, and shewed, 

 that if we adopt the least circuit given to them, that of Ctesias and 

 Diodorus Siculus, it would make the circuit of the city 41 miles, 

 while that of Herodotus would give a circumference of 55 miles, — 

 either of them vastly greater than any idea we can form by com- 

 parison with the largest of modern cities : but the author observed, 

 that there is every reason to believe that the vast area was not 

 filled with houses, but contained fields and orchards interspersed ; 

 which is not only probable from what we know of modern Asiatic 

 cities, but may be inferred from ancient authors, and especially 

 from some remarks of Aristotle, who states that Babylon was 

 rather " a community than a city, like the Peloponnesus " If we 

 confine the city to the limits assigned by Diodorus, it will not in- 

 clude all the existing remains ; whereas the limits assigned by He- 

 rodotus include all those venerable ruins in the vicinity of Hillah, 

 that still astonish us by their stupendous dimensions. 



