112 THEOPHILDS G. FINCHES^ LL.D., M.R.A.S.^ ON 



outwards towards a gutter which carried the water away. 

 The corners were adjusted roughly to the four cardinal points. 

 The entrance was on the S.E. side, between two walls of burnt 

 brick of the time of Sur-Engur, which led up, apparently by an 

 inclined plain, to the courtyard, which was a large raised plat- 

 form. It is stated by the explorers that this platform assumed 

 the lorm of a cross, by the addition of long extensions resem- 

 bling buttresses. Many parts are curiously irregular in shape, 

 and the angles of both enclosure and ziqqurat (as these temple- 

 towers were called) are not correctly placed, the northern 

 corner of the latter pointing six degrees E. of the magnetic 

 north. 



Besides this great structure so closely connected with their 

 religion, many other noteworthy constructions were found — 

 walls, defences, towers, and courts — but not the least interesting 

 were the remains of the houses of the people. A picture from 

 a sketch by Mr. Meyer, published by the Kev. J. P. Peters, the 

 originator of the explorations on the site, shows, in perspective, 

 one of the streets of the city. It looks towards the S.S.W., and 

 runs along the S.E. buttress of the temple-toww. In the 

 middle of the unpaved street is a well-made gutter of burned 

 brick, showing that some provision had been made to free the 

 street of water. As to keeping the street clean, however, that 

 was another matter, and accumulations of rubbish seem to 

 have been allowed to such an extent, that at last, instead of 

 going up a step to enter a house, they had to make a little 

 stairway to enable it to be entered from above. In all 

 probability, therefore, little or no scavenging took place in this 

 ancient city. Notwithstanding that there was much, from our 

 point of view, which was sordid in the cities of Babylonia, the 

 people of the land thought a great deal of them, and found 

 them to be full of poetry and charm. The reason of this was, 

 that they were in many cases the centres of worship which had 

 existed from of old, and they had therefore endeared themselves 

 in this way to the inliabitants. Many cities of the modern 

 East, however, are similar to those of ancient Babylonia in that 

 respect. 



In addition to Niffer, the Americans have also been excava- 

 ting at the ruins known as Bismya, the ancient Adab, according 

 to the tablets. It lies in a sand-swept belt of ancient Babylonia, 

 in a region dangerous and deserted because far from water 

 — a disadvantage which probably did not anciently exist. The 

 discovery of the site seems to have been due to the Eev. 

 J. P. Peters, the first really serious explorer of Niffer. The 



