Recognizable among the rubbish-hills of Mugheir are the remains of a terrace which consisted of two oblong steps, the lowest measuring 60.35 by 40.54 m. in length and breadth, and about 12 m. in height, standing upon a platform raised 6 m. above the surrounding country. The greater part of this is overthrown and buried beneath its own material. The kernel of the solid structure is of sun-dried bricks; the facing, which is divided by buttresses, being of burnt brick cemented with bitumen. The whole is perforated by numerous small air-channels. The second step is only about half preserved, and that which it must once have supported has entirely disappeared. A remarkable inscription, repeated upon the four corners of the upper terrace, explained the purpose of the structure and the time of its erection. According to Sir H. Rawlinson’s interpretation of the cuneiform legend, this was dedicated to the deity Sin (Hurki) as a temple, and was first founded by King Urukh (about 2230 B.C.). The name of the spot is given as Ur, a city known from Biblical tradition. The inscriptions were not, however, contemporaneous with the foundation of the building, for, after giving a long line of kings, they at last name Nabonetos, the last King of Babylon, as the restorer of the temple—a fact which is further attested by the bricks themselves, those of the lower terrace having the name of Urukh, those of the upper of Nabonetos. The temple remains of Warka and of Abou-Sharein unite with these ruins of Mugheir to show that the Chaldæan temple consisted of a simple and massive terrace of few steps, crowned, without doubt, by a chapel, which must be supposed richly decorated with colors and gold ornaments from the fragments of agate, alabaster, and fine marbles, of gold-plating and gilded nails, found in Abou-Sharein, and from the blue enamelled clay tiles of Mugheir. The sides of the great steps were either plainly buttressed or treated with projections, as is the case with the terrace wall of a palace at Warka, shown by Fig. 37. There was here a complicated system of reeded projections and stepped incisions—cylinders and prisms which cannot be called pilasters, as they were without capitals, and probably also without base-mouldings. Another ruin of Warka (Fig. 38) has a colored wall-facing, made by driving conical pegs of terra-cotta about 0.1 m. long into the clay, so that the red, black, and whitish base surfaces form different patterns. This ruin is further interesting as giving some insight into the private architecture of the Chaldæans. Rooms were there found separated from one another by walls fully as thick as the enclosed spaces themselves were broad—a clumsy heaviness which shows what massive masonry the poor crumbling material necessitated. The existing remains suggest so strongly the arrangement of the later Assyrian palaces that there can be but little doubt that they, in some degree, served as a model for these latter; although the palace wall, with its revetment of alabaster, might be erected with less thickness. No trace of window-like openings can be observed in the ruins of Warka or in those of Abou-Sharein.
The principle of the arch, though not extensively employed, was well understood and occasionally introduced in Assyria. From a small grave-chamber discovered at Mugheir, we may conclude that it was not known in the ancient Chaldæan period. The roofing was then effected by a gradual projection of the horizontal courses of bricks until the opposite sides nearly touched each other at the top of the gable thus formed. (Fig. 39.) It may perhaps be assumed that this manner of covering by the so-called false arch and vault was only employed for very narrow spaces, while larger rooms were more naturally ceiled by wooden beams. The ruins of Warka, though they do not give a very clear understanding of the fortifications of ancient Chaldæa, at least show that the city walls were not necessarily square, as had been concluded from the testimony of ancient writers, but, as in this case, followed the irregular outline of the city.
The political history of Chaldæa was from the earliest times greatly disturbed by internal divisions. At first the city Nipur, celebrated for its worship of Bel, appears to have been the most important place, at least of Southern Chaldæa. To this followed Ur or Hur, the city worshipping Hurki or Sin, then Nisin or Carrac, and, finally, Larsa, the present Senkereh. Upper Chaldæan Babylon, originally Ca-dimirra, does not seem to have become the only capital until the age of King Cammurabi, about 1500 B.C. A hundred years later Northern Mesopotamia, Assyria, began to gain predominance, and in the thirteenth century B.C. Babylon was conquered (for the first time?) by Tiglathi-Nin, a son of King Salmaneser of Assyria. Chaldæa soon regained its independence, but only to fall again into the power of the conqueror Tiglath-Pileser, and to remain for five centuries subjugated to Nineveh. The attempts to throw off this yoke of Assyrian authority were in vain; even the uprising under the bold Merodach-Baladan, 731 B.C., was not of long duration, and finally led to the depopulation and total destruction of the prominent Chaldæan cities by Sennacherib. The Assyrian Esar-haddon rebuilt Babylon; but it did not recover its ancient importance until the Satrap Nabopolassar revolted from his allegiance, and, with the help of the Medes, made an end of the kingdom of Nineveh; and until his son Nebuchadnezzar, after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., reduced even distant Egypt to vassalage, thus taking into possession the full heritage of the Assyrian empire in both south and west.
