It has been already noticed that, according to the lowest of the ancient estimates, the entire length of the walls was 360 stades, or more than forty-one miles. With respect to the width we have two very different statements, one by Herodotus and the other by Clitarchus and Strabo. Herodotus makes the width 50 royal cubits, or about 85 English feet, Strabo and Q. Curtius reduced the estimate to 32 feet. There is still greater discrepancy with respect to the height of the walls. Herodotus says that the height was 200 royal cubits, or 300 royal feet (about 335 English feet); Ctesias made it 50 fathoms, or 300 ordinary Greek feet; Pliny and Solinus, substituting feet for the royal cubits of Herodotus, made the altitude 235 feet; Philostratus and Q. Curtius, following perhaps some one of Alexander’s historians, gave for the height 150 feet; finally Clitarchus, as reported by Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo, who probably followed him, have left us the very moderate estimate of 75 feet. It is impossible to reconcile these numbers. The supposition that some of them belong properly to the outer, and others to the inner wall, will not explain the discrepancies—for the measurements cannot by any ingenuity be reduced to two sets of dimensions. The only conclusion which it seems possible to draw from the conflicting testimony is that the numbers were either rough guesses made by very unskilful travellers, or else were (in most cases) intentional exaggerations palmed upon them by the native ciceroni. Still the broad facts remain—first, that the walls enclosed an enormous space, which was very partially occupied by buildings; secondly, that they were of great and unusual thickness; and thirdly, that they were of a vast height—seventy or eighty feet at least in the time of Alexander, after the wear and tear of centuries and the violence of at least three conquerors.
The general character of the construction is open to but little doubt. The wall was made of bricks, either baked in kilns, or (more probably) dried in the sun, and laid in a cement of bitumen, with occasional layers of reeds between the courses. Externally it was protected by a wide and deep moat. On the summit were low towers, rising above the wall to the height of some ten or fifteen feet, and probably serving as guardrooms for the defenders. These towers are said to have been 250 in number; they were least numerous on the western face of the city, where the wall ran along the marshes. They were probably angular, not round; and instead of extending through the whole thickness of the wall, they were placed along its outer and inner edge, tower facing tower, with a wide space between them—“enough,” Herodotus says, “for a four-horse chariot to turn in.” The wall did not depend on them for its strength, but on its own height and thickness, which were such as to render scaling and mining equally hopeless.
Such was Babylon, according to the descriptions of the ancients—a great city, built on a very regular plan, surrounded by populous suburbs interspersed among fields and gardens, the whole being included within a large square strongly fortified enceinte. When we turn from this picture of the past to contemplate the present condition of the localities, we are at first struck with astonishment at the small traces which remain of so vast and wonderful a metropolis. “The broad walls of Babylon” are “utterly broken” down, and her “high gates burned with fire.” “The golden city hath ceased.” God has “swept it with the bosom of destruction.” “The glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency,” is become “as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha.” The traveller who passes through the land is at first inclined to say that there are no ruins, no remains, of the mighty city which once lorded it over the earth. By and by, however, he begins to see that though ruins, in the common acceptation of the term, scarcely exist—though there are no arches, no pillars, but one or two appearances of masonry even yet the whole country is covered with traces of exactly that kind which it was prophesied Babylon should leave. Vast “heaps” or mounds, shapeless and unsightly, are scattered at intervals over the entire region where it is certain that Babylon anciently stood, and between the “heaps” the soil is in many places composed of fragments of pottery and bricks, and deeply impregnated with nitre, infallible indications of its having once been covered with buildings. As the traveller descends southward from Baghdad he finds these indications increase, until, on nearing the Euphrates, a few miles beyond Mohawil, he notes that they have become continuous, and finds himself in a region of mounds, some of which are of enormous size.
These mounds begin about five miles above Hillah, and extend for a distance of about three miles from north to south along the course of the river, lying principally on its left or eastern bank. The ruins on this side consist chiefly of three great masses of building. The most northern, to which the Arabs of the present day apply the name of BABIL—the true native appellation of the ancient citys—is a vast pile of brick-work of an irregular quadrilateral shape, with precipitous sides furrowed by ravines, and with a flat top. [PLATE X., Fig.,3.] Of the four faces of the ruin the southern seems to be the most perfect. It extends a distance of about 200 yards, or almost exactly a stade, and runs nearly in a straight line from west to east. At its eastern extremity it forms a right angle with the east face, which runs nearly due north for about 180 yards, also almost in a straight line. The western and northern faces are apparently much worn away. Here are the chief ravines, and here is the greatest seeming deviation from the original lines of the building. The greatest height of the Babil mound is 130 or 140 feet. It is mainly composed of sun-dried brick, but shows signs of having been faced with fire-burnt brick, carefully cemented with an excellent white mortar. The bricks of this outer facing bear the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar. A very small portion of the original structure has been laid bare enough however to show that the lines of the building did not slope like those of a pyramid, but were perpendicular, and that the side walls had, at intervals, the support of buttresses.
This vast building, whatever it was, stood within a square enclosure, two sides of which, the northern and eastern, are still very distinctly marked. A long low line of rampart runs for 400 yards parallel to the east face of the building, at a distance of 120 or 130 yards, and a similar but somewhat longer line of mound runs parallel to the north face at rather a greater distance from it. On the west a third line could be traced in the early part of the present century; but it appears to be now obliterated. Here and on the south are the remains of an ancient canal, the construction of which may have caused the disappearance of the southern, and of the lower part of the western line. [PLATE XII., Fig. 1.]
Below the Babil mound, which stands isolated from the rest of the ruins, are two principal masses—the more northern known to the Arabs as EL KASR, “the Palace,” and the more southern as “the mound of Amran,” from the tomb of a reputed prophet Amran-ibn-Ali, which crowns its summit. The Kasr mound is an oblong square, about 700 yards long by 600 broad, with the sides facing the cardinal points. [PLATE XII., Fig. 2.] Its height above the plain is 70 feet. Its longer direction is from north to south. As far as it has been penetrated, it consists mainly of rubbish-loose bricks, tiles, and fragments of stone. In a few places only are there undisturbed remains of building. One such relic is a subterranean passage, seven feet in height, floored and walled with baked brick, and covered in at the top with great blocks of sandstone, which may either have been a secret exit or more probably an enormous drain. Another is the Kasr, or “palace” proper, whence the mound has its name. This is a fragment of excellent brick masonry in a wonderful state of preservation, consisting of walls, piers, and buttresses, and in places ornamented with pilasters, but of too fragmentary a character to furnish the modern inquirer with any clue to the original plan of the building. The bricks are of a pale yellow color and of the best possible quality, nearly resembling our fire-bricks. They are stamped, one and all, with the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar. The mortar in which they are laid is a fine lime cement, which adheres so closely to the bricks that it is difficult to obtain a specimen entire. In the dust at the foot of the walls are numerous fragments of brick, painted, and covered with a thick enamel or glaze. Here, too, have been found a few fragments of sculptured stone, and slabs containing an account of the erection of a palatial edifice by Nebuchadnezzar. Near the northern edge of the mound, and about midway in its breadth, is a colossal figure of a lion, rudely carved in black basalt, standing over the prostrate figure of a man with arms outstretched. A single tree grows on the huge ruin, which the Arabs declare to be of a species not known elsewhere, and regard as a remnant of the hanging garden of Bokht-i-nazar. It is a tamarisk of no rare kind, but of very great ago, in consequence of which, and of its exposed position, the growth and foliage are somewhat peculiar.
South of the Kasr mound, at the distance of about 800 yards, is the remaining great mass of ruins, the mound of Jumjuma, or of Amran. [PLATE XII., Fig. 3.] The general shape of this mound is triangular,107 but it is very irregular and ill-defined, so as scarcely to admit of accurate description. Its three sides face respectively a little east of north, a little south of east, and a little south of west. The south-western side, which runs nearly parallel with the Euphrates, and seems to have been once washed by the river, is longer than either of the others, extending a distance of above a thousand yards, while the south-eastern may be 800 yards, and the north-eastern 700. Innumerable ravines traverse the mound on every side, penetrating it nearly to its centre. The surface is a series of undulations. Neither masonry nor sculpture is anywhere apparent.
All that meets the eye is a mass of debris; and the researches hitherto made have failed to bring to light any distinct traces of building. Occasionally bricks are found, generally of poor material, and bearing the names and titles of some of the earlier Babylonian monarchs; but the trenches opened in the pile have in no case laid bare even the smallest fragment of a wall.