city by Sennacherib was evidently so thorough as to leave him a free hand. Only in one place, the mound Merkes, which appears to have been the business quarter of the city, was anything more ancient than the period of the NeoBabylonian Empire discovered. In another respect the results of the work at Babylon were somewhat disappointing. The amount of artistic work found on the site was extremely small. Evidence that such work had once existed was not lacking; but the spoilers of later ages had done their work thoroughly. With these qualifications, however, the German work at Babylon, incomplete as it is, has yet been of surpassing interest, and has enabled us to form some idea of the glory of the greatest city of the Ancient East, when that glory was at its height,—at least materially. The interest of the excavations largely centres on three points, the great walls which defended the city, the huge palace-citadel which lay beneath the mound Kasr, and the temple of Marduk, or Bel, -"E-sagila," "the House of Heaven and Earth," with its gigantic temple-tower, "E-temen-an-ki," "the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth,"-the true Tower of Babel. The account which Herodotus gives of the walls of Babylon is sufficiently imposing. "In the first place," he says, "a moat, deep, wide, full of water, runs entirely round it; next there is a wall, 50 royal cubits in breadth, and in height 200. . On the top of the wall, at the edges, they built houses of one storey, fronting each other, and they left a space between these dwellings sufficient for turning a chariot with four horses. In the circumference of the wall there were a hundred gates, all of brass, as also are the posts and lintels. . . . In this manner Babylon was encompassed with a wall." "The wall on either bank of the Euphrates," he goes on to say, "has an elbow carried down to the river; from thence along the curvatures of each bank of the river runs a wall of baked bricks. . . . At the end of each street a little gate is formed in the wall along the river-side, in number equal to the streets; and they are all made of brass, and lead down to the edge of the river. This outer wall then is the chief defence, but another wall runs round within, not much inferior to the other in strength, though narrower." Amazing as the old historian's description sounds, the excavations have shown that he was not drawing the long-bow unduly. The circuit of 53 miles which he assigns to the walls is, of course, exaggerated,—in fact it looks as though in this and other instances the ancient writers had mistaken the measurement of the whole circuit for that of one of its sides. Divided thus by four, most of the measures would work out fairly well. But the boundary wall of Babylon was formidable enough in all conscience. The fosse was faced on its inner side with a wall of burnt brick, 3.3 metres in thickness. Then came the main outer wall, also of burnt brick, and 7.8 metres thick, then an interval of 12 metres, and then an inner wall of crude brick, 7 metres thick. The space of 12 metres between the two walls was filled in with brick rubble, so that the whole formed one tremendous structure over 26 metres, or nearly 85 feet, in thickness. The only ancient walls which can compare with this are the Cyclopean forti fications of the little Mycenæan hill-fortress of Tiryns. Excavation revealed also that the inner section of this vast enceinte had cavalier towers upon it, which would show a single storey above the outer wall, just as Herodotus says; and the broad surface of the top quite bears out what he says about the chariot. The height of the wall, of course, remains unknown, as only its lower courses survive; and the measure of Herodotus is no doubt exaggerated; but, on any estimate, the fortifications of Babylon must have been stupendous and imposing structures. Between the southern citadel and the ancient bed of the Euphrates, the explorers laid bare the remains of successive fortified walls, which represent, not unworthily, the river walls of Herodotus. From north to south, there ran through the city a noble street, "the Procession Street" or Sacred Way of Babylon, whose remains, with those of the great Gate of Ishtar, which crossed it at the approach to the Southern Citadel, give the clearest surviving evidence of the splendour of Nebuchadnezzar's capital. The middle section of this grand highway was formed of fine white limestone blocks, each 1.05 metres square, while the sidewalks were paved with blocks of red breccia, veined with white, each block measuring 66 centimetres square. Each slab bore on its edge an inscription, invisible, of course, once the stone was laid in place, "Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I. The Babel Street I paved with blocks of limestone (or breccia), for the procession of the great Lord, Marduk. Marduk, Lord, grant eternal life!" These blocks were laid upon a bed of brick, covered with asphalt, so that one can scarcely conceive of a piece of roadmaking more sumptuous or more durable. On either side of the street rose high defensive walls, 7 metres in thickness, which linked up the northern fortifications with the walls of the Southern Citadel. Thus this great artery of the city, far from being a weakness to the defence, was an added strength, for an enemy, gaining access to it, would find himself in a veritable death-trap, through which he would be obliged to struggle under a hail of missiles from the defenders who manned the walls on either hand. "The impression of peril and horror was heightened for the enemy, and also for peaceful travellers, by the impressive decoration of long rows of lions, advancing one behind the other, with which the walls were adorned in low relief and with brilliant enamels." At the point where this magnificent street meets the defence walls of the Southern Citadel, it was crossed by the Ishtar Gate, the most imposing relic now remaining of Babylon's former splendour. The two eastern towers of this wonderful gate are still standing to a height of twelve metres, and are the most striking, and the best preserved, of any Mesopotamian buildings. The gate-way was double, and consisted of an outer and an inner gate-house, each with a double door. These gate-ways are connected by short walls bounding the passage on either side, and thus forming a court between the gates, in which, as in the Procession Street, an enemy who had breached the first gate would find himself trapped, and helplessly exposed to the arrows of the defenders. The decoration of this great gate is |