URNS IN THE EMBANKMENT. 
373 
remarks that the two modes of sepulture decidedly prove what 
people they were who had been so interred. “ There is, I 
believe, he adds, no reason to suppose that the Babylonians 
burned their dead ; the old Persians we know never didit was 
the common usage with the Greeks. Hence, he infers that the 
skeletons in the Mujelibe were the remains of the ancient people 
of this country; and the urns in the embankment contained the 
ashes of some of Alexander’s soldiers. At the opening, between 
the northern end of this bulwark-embankment (at c), and the 
southern extremity of the corresponding old dyke, which runs 
across the piece of river-ground (at b), stands a low circular 
mound, in diameter 50 yards. I have no doubt of its having 
originally formed part of the connecting link of these separated 
portions of the same ancient bulwark ; but that the influx, reflux, 
and working of the waters, during the inundations of so many 
ages since the fall of the city, have wrought this piece of the 
embankment into so singular a shape. The nitrous space, or 
ravine (N N N), winding from behind it, in a south-easterly 
direction, finishes between the village and tomb of Jumjuma; 
places inscribed to the memory of a sultan so called. 
The next object of attention is near to the preceding. A long- 
ridge (P P) commencing amongst the date-gardens on the east 
bank of the river, to the south-west of the village of Jumjuma; 
thence running south-east towards the tomb of that name, it 
N 
makes an angle behind the tomb, and takes a course due east, 
where its bank is soon crossed by the road from Bagdad to 
Hillah. 
I have now described all the ruins extant on the east bank 
of the river, within the calculated line of Babylon on that side; 
and the result to my mind is, that the lofty corresponding ridges 
