Read Ebook: The excavations at Babylon by Koldewey Robert Johns A S Agnes Sophia Translator

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Of each of the two gateways two widely projecting towers close to the entrance are still standing , and behind them a space closed by a second door. This space, which is generally called the gateway court, although it was probably roofed in, shows clear signs that its primary object was to protect the leaves of the double door which opened back into it from the weather, and also that it strengthened the possibilities of the defences. In the case of smaller gates which do not possess these interior chambers, the leaves of the doors were inserted in the thickness of the wall, which afforded a protection; an embrasure which is absent in the gateways. On the northern gate the gateway chamber lies transversely, on the southern it extends along the central axis. Here also it is enclosed with walls of such colossal thickness that it may be supposed to have supported a central tower of great height, but nothing remains in proof of this. This assumption is delineated in Fig. 21, while in Fig. 43 it is taken for granted that the gateway chamber was commanded by the towers. Here, as in all the other buildings, we have little to guide us as to the superstructure. Among the ornaments in a grave in the Southern Citadel was a rectangular gold plate which on the face represents a great gateway. On it, near the arched door, we see the two towers overtopping the walls, while on their projecting upper part triangular battlements and small circular loopholes can be seen. Of the latter we found thick wedge-shaped stones under the blue enamelled bricks, and also part of the stepped battlements in blue enamel which, on the whole, may have had an appearance of triangles.

Where the southern door adjoined its western buttress there were some remarkable and rather considerable ancient cavities in the wall, for which I cannot discover any certain explanation. They were filled with earth, and had not been meddled with in modern times. Later than these, but also of ancient times, there is a well hewn out in the northern wing. A narrow staircase led down to it, and could only be reached by a passage 50 centimetres wide cut through the wall, which opened on to the space in front of the gate. The exit was hidden away in a corner, and almost entirely concealed.

The decoration of the walls of the Ishtar Gate consisted of alternated figures of bulls and dragons . They are placed in horizontal rows on the parts of the walls that are open to observation by those entering or passing , and also on the front of both the northern wings, but not where they would be wholly or partially invisible to the casual observer. The rows are repeated one above another; dragons and bulls are never mixed in the same horizontal row, but a line of bulls is followed by one of sirrush. Each single representation of an animal occupies a height of 13 brick courses, and between them are 11 plain courses, so that the distance from the foot of one to the foot of the next is 24 courses. These 24 courses together measure almost exactly 2 metres, or 4 Babylonian ells, in height. As these bricks change their standard when in use as binders or stretchers at the corners, the reliefs on one side of a corner are invariably either one course higher or lower than on the wall on the adjoining side.

Row 13. Sirrush in enamelled relief.

,, 12. Bulls in enamelled relief.

,, 11. Sirrush in flat enamel.

Upper level of pavement of shadu and turminabanda stone.

,, 9. Bulls in brick relief, carefully worked.

Older road pavement of burnt brick.

,, 8. Sirrush in brick relief.

,, 7. Bulls in brick relief.

Traces of an older pavement .

,, 6. Sirrush in brick relief.

,, 5. Bulls in brick relief.

,, 4. Sirrush in brick relief.

,, 3. Bulls in brick relief.

,, 2. Sirrush in brick relief, in 1910 only above water-level.

,, 1. Bulls in brick relief, in 1910 only above water-level.

Each of the 8 lower rows contained at least 40 animals, and the upper 5 rows 51 animals. For in the latter there were certainly 5 more on the south-eastern angle of the northern gateway court and 6 more on the front of the northern wings. This gives a minimum number of 575 animals. After the excavations 152 pieces were to be seen still in position, and about as many more may yet be discovered in the part not yet uncovered.

The whole of this collection of creatures was certainly at no period visible at the same time and from the same point of view. The level on which the Ishtar Gate stood was repeatedly raised by artificial means. The traces of the two last heightenings can be seen between the 10th and 11th and the 8th and 9th rows. The traces of a pavement between the 6th and 7th rows are not clear. It is possible that when the gate was first built the roadway lay at the same level as the surrounding plain, but there is no proof of this. It may also be surmised that, for some time at least, the lower part of the gate was used as such, but in any case with the successive heightenings of the road the lower part of the building gradually disappeared below the surface. The filling up shows the existence of great foresight, and of most scrupulous care expended on the work. The reliefs were carefully smeared over with mud, and those of the 8th row were actually covered with a fine clean white stucco. On the irregular surface of this covering the marks of the smearing hands are clearly visible. The white plaster so catches the eye that at first I imagined it to be the remains of a coating intended to be painted and to ensure a more perfect moulding of the form and outline of the animal; the obvious roughness of the work, however, precluded any such conclusion.

Below the 8th row, that is below the older roadway, an unusual neglect of the wall surface appears. The bricks are often reversed and laid irregularly backwards or forwards, and thus in places the reliefs are not fitted together . The asphalt often protrudes from the joints and has run in thick black streaks over ground and figures alike. None of these defects occur in the 9th course. The field of the reliefs, on the contrary, is carefully smoothed to a fine surface with some polishing instrument, and the animal figures are worked over with a rasp. This seems to point to the conclusion that the lower rows were not intended to stand out free and meet the eye, at any rate not for any considerable length of time; and this also shows that when the gate was built, it was intended from the first that the Procession Street and the level of the old pavement should be raised. Even in the lowest courses we find the 3-lined stamp that is characteristic of the latter half of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. No traces have been found of an earlier building, though Nebuchadnezzar speaks of one.

Between the two doorways, at the level of the topmost pavement, a great block of limestone was found bearing the consecration inscription of the Ishtar Gate which, with another lying by it, must have belonged either to the jambs or the soffit of the door. The inscription runs thus: " Nabopolassar . The gate of Nana with enamelled bricks ... for Marduk my lord. Lusty bulls of bronze and mighty figures of serpents I placed at their thresholds, with slabs of limestone of stone I ... the enclosure of the bulls Marduk, exalted lord ... eternal life ... give as a gift" .

The lion, the animal of Ishtar, was so favourite a subject at all times in Babylonian art that its rich and lavish employment at the main gate of Babylon, the Ishtar Gate, is by no means abnormal. With the bull, and still more with the sirrush, the case is different. The bull is the sacred animal of Ramman, the weather god. A pair of walking bulls often form the base on which his statue stands, or his emblem the lightning is frequently placed on the back of a recumbent bull. Similar representations point to the sirrush as the sacred animal both of Marduk and of Nab?. In the Babylonian pantheon of Nebuchadnezzar's time, Marduk occupied a very prominent position. To him belonged Esagila, the principal temple of Babylon, and to him Nebuchadnezzar consecrated the Procession Street and the Ishtar Gate itself. His animal, the sirrush, frequently appears on carvings of this period, such as the seals and boundary stones. This "dragon of Babylon" was the far-famed animal of Babylon, and fits in admirably with the well-known story in the Apocrypha of Bel and the Dragon. One may easily surmise that the priests of Esagila kept some reptile, probably an arval, which is found in this neighbourhood, and exhibited it in the semi-darkness of a temple chamber as a living sirrush. In this case there would be small cause for wonder that the creature did not survive the concoction of hair and bitumen administered to it by Daniel.

The artistic conception of the sirrush differs very considerably from that of the other fabulous creatures in which Babylonian art is so exceedingly rich. Although not free from impossibilities, it is far less fantastic and unnatural than the winged bulls with human heads, or the bearded men with birds' bodies and scorpions' tails, and similar absurdities.

As indicated by the Babylonian name it is a "walking serpent." A striking feature is the scaly coat and the great tail of a serpent's body. The head with the forked tongue is purely that of a serpent, and is in fact that of the horned viper, so common in Arabia, which bears the two erect horns, of which, as in the case of the bulls, only one is visible in the purely profile attitude. Behind lie two spiral combs similar to those so generously bestowed on the heads of the frequently represented Chinese dragon. The tail ends in a small curved sting. The legs are those of some high-stepping feline animal, probably a cheetah. The hinder feet are those of a strong raptorial bird with powerful claws and great horny scales. But the tarsal joint is not that of a bird but of a quadruped, and the metatarsals are not anchylosed, or only very slightly at the distal end. It is remarkable that, in spite of the scales, the animal possesses hair. Three corkscrew ringlets fall over the head near the ears, and on the neck, where a lizard's comb would be, is a long row of curls.

This conjunction of scales and hair, as well as the marked difference between the front and hinder extremities, is very characteristic of the prehistoric dinosaur. Also the small size of the head in comparison with the rest of the body, the carriage and disproportionate length of the neck, all correspond with the distinctive features of this extinct lizard. The sirrush is a proof of an unmistakable self-creative genius in this ancient art and far exceeds all other fantastic creatures in the uniformity of its physiological conceptions. If only the forelegs were not so emphatically and characteristically feline, such an animal might actually have existed. The hind feet of a lizard are often very similar to those of birds.

The street pavement extended through the Ishtar Gate, and in the southern gateway court the older pavement is still in place. Here there are three layers of bricks set in asphalt, which curve upward near the walls, forming a shallow trough . Its purpose must have been to prevent the collected water soaking into the joints of the walls. Similar curves in other places are the result of the unequal settling of the lighter material of the filling below the pavement and of the unyielding walls of baked brick, while a curve in the opposite sense can often be remarked on the flooring of buildings of crude brick, because the closely compressed mud wall settled with greater force than the slightly compressed filling under the pavement.

On leaving the Ishtar Gate we cross the substructure of the threshold, which rested on many layers of brick and must itself have been of stone. On the south of the gate some later insignificant buildings, perhaps Parthian, have clustered round it. These leave the entrance free, and Nebuchadnezzar's great paving-blocks of the upper roadway, over which Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, and Darius must frequently have passed, are still in position. Farther on only the lower pavement remains. It extends parallel with the east front of the Southern Citadel as far as the end of the mound, where it surrounds an altar of mud brick.

A branch of the street leads to the principal entrance of the Southern Citadel. A great number of limestone and turminabanda paving-stones found in the southern portion originally formed part of the destroyed upper pavement. It appears that during the Greek or Parthian periods balls for projectiles were made out of this limestone, as many have been found here. They divide into groups of various weights . Some measure 27.5 centimetres in diameter, and weigh 20.20-20.25 kilos; others 19 centimetres, and 7-7.75 kilos; and others again 16 centimetres, and 4-4.5 kilos.

South of the Citadel the street crosses a watercourse, which apparently varied at different periods both in width and in name. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar it was perhaps the canal "Libil-?igalla," while in Persian and Greek times it was the Euphrates itself that flowed here. We dug a ditch here that extended from the mound to the recommencement of the street, and which clearly showed the stratum to have been formed by the deposit of water. The strata contain no ruins with the exception of a canal, which in places is barely 3 metres broad. This canal is constructed in later fashion with the ancient bricks of Nebuchadnezzar, the best outside, the fragments inside, and all laid in mud. To the east it soon comes to an end and disappears in the banked-up watercourse. To the west it first widens out into a basin of three times its breadth, where narrow steps lead down the embankments to the level of the water , and then once more narrows to its ordinary width. Farther to the west we know nothing of it. At the narrow portions, at about the height of the ancient water-level, courses of squared limestone of considerable size were laid. In the western part the northern bank contained a square opening many brick courses deep. The whole conveys the impression of a kind of sluice, which perhaps served to connect a watercourse in the east, of high water-level, with another in the west of lower level. This construction may date from the time of Neriglissar, when throwing a bridge across the canal to carry the Procession Street presented no difficulty. In earlier times the street appears to have been carried on a dam with walled embankments, which latter still exist below the walls of the canal.

To the north of the Citadel there is a similar canal constructed after the same fashion, of which the vaulting still exists. My opinion is that this canal conveyed to the east the water of the Euphrates, which was probably still called "Arachtu" there, and that possibly it flowed round the Kasr in somewhat irregular fashion, even in the Neo-Babylonian period. This easterly body of water would then return to the Euphrates by means of the canal just described. At the south-west corner of the Kasr buildings, where they joined the wall of Nabonidus, the openings through which the water escaped are still preserved in this wall.

To the south of our water-channel the street appears once more, but at a much lower level. It is paved with brick, plastered with asphalt, and is of the same breadth as the southern Kasr Street. It passes between the houses of Merkes and the sacred peribolos of Etemenanki, keeping close to the latter, but at a sufficient distance from the secular dwellings of the Babylonians. The first part of the street, as far as the great gate of Etemenanki, had a flooring of kiln bricks overlaid with paving-stones of turminabanda, which still lie undisturbed on the branch leading to the gate . They bear the same dedicatory inscription as that on the Kasr: some of them, however, have in addition on the underside the name of Sennacherib, the bloodthirsty Assyrian who while still well disposed to the city often beautified it, only at last to destroy it utterly, as he emphatically states in his Bavian inscription.

Nebuchadnezzar makes no reference to this work of one of his predecessors, he only refers to that of his father Nabopolassar : "From Du-azag, the place of the deciding of fates, the chamber of fate, to Aibur?abu, the street of Babylon, opposite the 'Lady' Gate, he had paved the Procession Street of the great lord Marduk splendidly with paving-stones of breccia" . Of these paving-stones of Nabopolassar there are certainly no remains that can be identified with certainty. Just as Nebuchadnezzar made use of the blocks of Sennacherib for his new building, so doubtless he would appropriate those of his father.

In addition to digging out the street on the east side of the peribolos we also excavated a portion of it on the south side. Here we could trace it between the peribolos and Esagila as far as the gate in the Nabonidus wall and the Euphrates bridge there. In this whole length, several superimposed pavements of baked brick, separated from each other by shallow layers of earth, occurred rather frequently; all the upper ones bear the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, the bricks of the lowest pavement are unstamped and smaller : these may date from Nabopolassar, but not necessarily. North of the Ishtar Gate we only find Nebuchadnezzar's brick stamps. Consequently the above-quoted passage seems to refer to the section of the street between Esagila and the Kasr. If so, the "Lady" Gate must be sought on the eastern front of the Kasr, and Du-azag either in Esagila or in the peribolos of Etemenanki. The Procession Street on the Kasr was called Aibur-shabu. To this latter section only the above-quoted passage applies .

Here and there on the street, and also below the procession pavement, are Babylonian graves. The adults are in large jars, the children in shallow elliptical bowls of pottery. We have observed no traces of monuments above ground, nor could we expect to find any in such a position on the street, nor yet in the other usual places of burial--the streets and squares of the city, on the fortification walls, and in the ruins of fallen houses.

Passing out of the Ishtar Gate, we find ourselves on a high open space before the east front of the Southern Citadel, where stood its great portal. Like the street and the palace itself, it is raised to the same level as the rest of the Citadel by means of artificial piling up of materials in several distinct stages. In the north-east corner stands the temple of Ninmach, "the great mother" . Its entrance fa?ade faces the north, immediately opposite one wing of the Ishtar Gate, to which it is joined by a short wall containing a doorway. At the south-east corner a mud brick wall begins, which also has a gate, and which probably was intended to form the boundary of the temple square, but of which only a short piece now remains. In this manner the secular area was entirely excluded from the sacred precincts.

Immediately in front of the temple entrance was a small altar of mud brick surrounded by an area of kiln brick, the edge of which was defined by tilted bricks fixed edgeways in the ground.

The temple, like all others hitherto found by us, is composed of mud brick, but we must not judge of its original appearance by the present condition of the ruins; its walls were covered with a white plaster that gave it the appearance of marble. The designs employed in laying out this temple were borrowed from military architecture. Towers in close proximity to each other are placed on the walls and especially beside the gateways. None of their upper portions now exist, but we believe we have sufficient evidence to prove that, like those of fortifications, they were crowned with the usual stepped battlements. In addition, these sacred buildings possessed a very characteristic form of decoration which is absent in fortresses and other secular buildings. This consists of vertical grooves carried from top to bottom of the walls, either rectangular in section or stepped, as here in the temple of Ninmach. In other temples, as at Borsippa or the earliest Esagila, in place of the grooves there are semicircular fillets. Cornices, friezes, and the like, as well as columns or entablatures, are entirely absent in Babylonia.

In the gateway the three upper floorings lie superimposed and separated from each other by layers of earth. They are very instructive and show that they pertain to the last three raisings of the temple-level. That the temple was raised twice previously we learn from the cella. Under each pavement at the gate there is a channel which carried off the rain-water from the building, and on each side of the entrance, also under the pavement, is one of those remarkable structures formed of six bricks placed together which we found in connection with almost every doorway of any importance in the temples. One of these was empty, but in the eastern one was deposited a bird in earthenware, and with it a fragment of pottery with an almost illegible inscription. Such deposits may probably be termed offerings, and every one of these small caskets which is now empty certainly contained gifts which in course of time have perished and disappeared. The exact significance attached to them by the Babylonians we do not know; the inscriptions found on some of the clay figures on other sites do not make this clear.

The entrance was fitted with double doors. The base of the doorposts stood in a bronze ferrule , and turned in stone sockets of considerable dimensions. The brick cavities in which these sockets were inserted are well preserved, the stone sockets themselves have disappeared, as in most other cases. The two blocks of brickwork by which the old pivot sockets were partially covered were in some way which cannot now be clearly recognised used as foundations for the stone sockets of the later, higher pavement. The door could be very strongly barricaded, apart from the bolts which we may safely take for granted, by a beam that was propped against it from the inside. For the admission of this beam there was a slight depression in the pavement and also a stone which rose slightly above its level exactly as at the Urash Gate, and at the Citadel gateway at Sendjirli. The usual method of fastening was undoubtedly by beams which could be drawn out of the wall, as we shall see them in the ancient gate of the Southern Citadel. The prop was intended merely to strengthen the fastenings in troubled times and enable the priests of Emach to defend their sanctuary as a stronghold. The towers and parapets of the external walls may also have helped in this case.

When we leave the vestibule, as we may well name the first chamber at the gateway, we find ourselves in the court, which was proportionately large and certainly open to the sky, and which gave more or less direct access to the remaining chambers. Immediately opposite lies the entrance to the cella , indicated by towers decorated with grooves. From here it must have been possible to behold through the open cella-doors beyond, in the mystic twilight of the Holy of Holies, the cultus image on its pedestal. To the right was a brick-lined well which must have played an important part in the service of the cult. Immediately in front of the entrance to the cella, in the asphalt covering of the pavement, three circular depressions may be observed, in which metal vases, now lost, appear to have stood. Similar cavities may also be seen near the centre of the court. One would expect incense-burners, thymiateria, here, but of these we have no knowledge.

At the time of the final raising of the floor-level, the mud fa?ade of the cella was provided with a slight dressing of kiln bricks, of which there are now only scanty remains. The caskets for offerings at each side of the entrance are there. Originally rectangular, they are much distorted by the settling down of the walls: this also caused a curvature of the pavement, which has been re-levelled in the corners by means of asphalt and broken brick.

The cella had an ante-chamber of similar size, and both have a small side chamber. This side chamber we have termed the Adyton, without any further ground for doing so than the analogy with Greek temple cellae. It appears probable that the secular folk were not allowed to penetrate beyond the ante-chamber. Access to the cella was evidently intentionally rendered difficult by the postament, which projected almost as far as the door--a peculiarity which we shall find with most of the cellae. The postament of the upper floor-level is no longer there. Its principal adjustments could still be traced on the floor and by the fragments of asphalt that cling to the niche in the hinder wall. Below, and almost beneath it, are two postaments lying one above another of burnt brick and bitumen which bear witness to two earlier periods during which the temple was in use. These postaments always rose very slightly above the floor-level, and had a low step in front. Still farther down, at the edge of the foundation, below the postament was the casket of burnt brick usual in this position and containing a small pottery figure of a man holding a slender gold staff in his hand. In other temples we shall see this better preserved. At a still greater depth the excavations reached a natural stratum of alternate sand and mud, as though water had flowed here for some considerable time.

In the Adyton at the end of the foundations at one corner lay the foundation cylinder of Sardanapalus . This was surrounded by sand, and near by lay tablets of the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Thus the cylinder cannot have been found in the place where it was deposited by Sardanapalus, though certainly not far off. For Nebuchadnezzar must have read the four last lines of this document with the same awe with which we read it to-day: "Who with cunning deed shall destroy this record of my name ... bring to the ground, or alter its position, him may Ninma? before Bel, Sarrateia bespeak to evil, destroy his name, his seed in the lands!" .

Sardanapalus refers to the founding of the temple in line 13: "At that same time I caused E-ma?, the temple of the goddess Ninma? in Babil, to be made new." It can no longer be proved whether and how far the lower part of the walls date back to the time of Sardanapalus. The two lower postaments have no stamp on their bricks, nor has the upper pavement. That the raising of the pavement that Nebuchadnezzar considered necessary was his work is proved by tablets bearing his name which have been found below, and especially by the stamps of the burnt-brick wall which the king caused to be erected round the temple.

This "Kisu," as the wall is named on the inscriptions, was built with the object of strengthening the external walls of the building as the floor-level was heightened. The mass of new material brought in for this work must have pressed very seriously on the outer walls, and rendered such strengthening necessary. We find the same method adopted for several monumental buildings as they were raised in height. It was a special delight to the Babylonians to seize the opportunity afforded by rebuilding to raise the level. To build higher and yet higher always on the same ground plan is the characteristic tendency of all restorers of buildings.

The heightening of the floor-level involved also the raising of the immediate surroundings, apparently to about the same level. The upper floor lies at about the same height as the old Procession Street.

Round this older Kisu, which exactly follows the outer lines of the temple with all its projections, there runs a later one, which has only large tower projections in some places. It is built with Nebuchadnezzar's bricks, and its foundations are not so deep as those of its predecessor. Towards the south there appear to be remains of a third Kisu of still shallower foundation.

In the south behind the temple, as low down as the ancient Kisu, are buildings of mud brick which we have not sought further. They show that the Citadel square was formerly occupied by buildings of a private character.

To whom the two upper pavements which still remain in the entrance doorway may be ascribed cannot be stated with certainty. In this case we cannot place much reliance on the Nebuchadnezzar stamps. On the upper pavement stood an entirely unimportant construction of Nabonidus bricks.

This building in later years was demolished and levelled above the upper pavement, and on it was erected a building of mud brick on the lines, however, of the ancient temple. So little of it now remains that it is impossible to make out its purpose with any certainty.

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