The one identification which may be made upon certain and indeed indisputable evidence is that of the Kasr mound with the palace built by Nebuchadnezzar. The tradition which has attached the name of Kasr or “Palace” to this heap is confirmed by inscriptions upon slabs found on the spot, wherein Nebuchadnezzar declares the building to be his “Grand Palace.” The bricks of that part of the ruin which remains uncovered bear, one and all, the name of this king; and it is thus clear that here stood in ancient times the great work of which Berosus speaks as remarkable for its height and splendor. If a confirmation of the fact were needed after evidence of so decisive a character, it would be found in the correspondence between the remains found on the mound and the description left us of the “greater palace” by Diodorus. Diodorus relates that the walls of this edifice were adorned with colored representations of hunting scenes; and modern explorers find that the whole soil of the mound, and especially the part on which the fragment of ruin stands, is full of broken pieces of enamelled brick, varied in hue, and evidently containing portions of human and animal forms.
But if the Kasr represents the palace built by Nebuchadnezzar, as is generally allowed by those who have devoted their attention to the subject, it seems to follow almost as a certainty that the Amran mound is the site of that old palatial edifice to which the erection of Nebuchadnezzar was an addition. Berosus expressly states that Nebuchadnezzar’s building “adjoined upon” the former palace, a description which is fairly applicable to the Amran mound by means of a certain latitude of interpretation, but which is wholly inapplicable to any of the other ruins. This argument would be conclusive, even if it stood alone. It has, however, received an important corroboration in the course of recent researches. From the Amran mound, and from this part of Babylon only, have monuments been recovered of an earlier date than Nebuchadnezzar. Here and here alone did the early kings leave memorials of their presence in Babylon; and here consequently, we may presume, stood the ancient royal residence.
If, then, all the principal ruins on the east bank of the river, with the exception of the Babil mound and the long lines marking walls or embankments, be accepted as representing the “great palace” or “citadel” of the classical writers we must recognize in the remains west of the ancient course of the river-the oblong square enclosure and the important building at its south-east angle—the second or “smaller palace” of Ctesias, which was joined to the larger one, according to that writer, by a bridge and a tunnel. This edifice, built or at any rate repaired by Neriglissar, lay directly opposite the more ancient part of the eastern palace, being separated from it by the river, which anciently flowed along the western face of the Kasr and Amran mounds. The exact position of the bridge cannot be fixed. With regard to the tunnel, it is extremely unlikely that any such construction was ever made. The “Father of History” is wholly silent on the subject, while he carefully describes the bridge, a work far less extraordinary. The tunnel rests on the authority of two writers only—Diodorus and Philostratus—who both wrote after Babylon was completely ruined. It was probably one of the imaginations of the inventive Ctesias, from whom Diodorus evidently derived all the main points of his description.
Thus far there is no great difficulty in identifying the existing remains with buildings mentioned by ancient authors; but, at the point to which we are now come, the subject grows exceedingly obscure, and it is impossible to offer more than reasonable conjectures upon the true character of the remaining ruins. The descriptions of ancient writers would lead us to expect that we should find among the ruins unmistakable traces of the great temple of Belus, and at least some indication of the position occupied by the Hanging Gardens. These two famous constructions can scarcely, one would think, have wholly perished. More especially, the Belus temple, which was a stade square, and (according to some) a stade in height, must almost of necessity have a representative among the existing remains. This, indeed, is admitted on all hands; and the controversy is thereby narrowed to the question, which of two great ruins—the only two entitled by their size and situation to attention—has the better right to be regarded as the great and celebrated sanctuary of the ancient Babylon.
That the mound of Babil is the ziggurat or tower of a Babylonian temple scarcely admits of a doubt. Its square shape, its solid construction, its isolated grandeur, its careful emplacement with the sides facing the cardinal points, and its close resemblance to other known Babylonian temple-towers, sufficiently mark it for a building of this character, or at any rate raise a presumption which it would require very strong reasons indeed to overcome. Its size moreover corresponds well with the accounts which have come down to us of the dimensions of the Belus temple, and its name and proximity to the other main ruins show that it belonged certainly to the ancient capital. Against its claim to be regarded as the remains of the temple of Bolus two objections only can be argued: these are the absence of any appearance of stages, or even of a pyramidical shape, from the present ruin, and its position on the same side of the Euphrates with the palace. Herodotus expressly declares that the temple of Belus and the royal palace were upon opposite sides of the river, and states, moreover, that the temple was built in stages, which rose one above the other to the number of eight. Now these two circumstances, which do not belong at present to the Babil mound, attach to a ruin distant from it about eleven or twelve miles—a ruin which is certainly one of the most remarkable in the whole country, and which, if Babylon had really been of the size asserted by Herodotus, might possibly have been included within the walls. The Birs-i-Nimrud had certainly seven, probably eight stages, and it is the only ruin on the present western bank of the Euphrates which is at once sufficiently grand to answer to the descriptions of the Belus temple, and sufficiently near to the other ruin to make its original inclusion within the walls not absolutely impossible. Hence, ever since the attention of scholars was first directed to the subject of Babylonian topography, opinion has been divided on the question before us, and there have not been wanting persons to maintain that the Birs-i-Nimrud is the true temple of Belus, if not also the actual tower of Babel, whose erection led to the confusion of tongues and general dispersion of the sons of Adam.
With this latter identification we are not in the present place concerned. With respect to the view that the Birs is the sanctury of Belus, it may be observed in the first place that the size of the building is very much smaller than that ascribed to the Belus temple; secondly, that it was dedicated to Kebo, who cannot be identified with Bel; and thirdly, that it is not really any part of the remains of the ancient capital, but belongs to an entirely distinct town. The cylinders found in the ruin by Sir Henry Eawlinson declare the building to have been “the wonder of Borsippa;” and Borsippa, according to all the ancient authorities, was a town by itself—an entirely distinct place from Babylon. To include Borsippa within the outer wall of Babylon is to run counter to all the authorities on the subject, the inscriptions, the native writer, Berosus, and the classical geographers generally. Nor is the position thus assigned to the Belus temple in harmony with the statement of Herodotus, which alone causes explorers to seek for the temple on the west side of the river. For, though the expression which this writer uses does not necessarily mean that the temple was in the exact centre of one of the two divisions of the town, it certainly implies that it lay towards the middle of one division—well within it—and not upon its outskirts. It is indeed inconceivable that the main sanctuary of the place, where the kings constantly offered their worship, should have been nine or ten miles from the palace! The distance between the Amran mound and Babil, which is about two miles, is quite as great as probability will allow us to believe existed between the old residence of the kings and the sacred shrine to which they were in the constant habit of resorting.
Still there remain as objections to the identification of the great temple with the Babil mound the two arguments already noticed. The Babil mound has no appearance of stages such as the Birs presents, nor has it even a pyramidical shape. It is a huge platform with a nearly level top, and sinks, rather than rises, in the centre. What has become, it is asked, of the seven upper stages of the great Belus tower, if this ruin represents it? Whither have they vanished? How is it that in crumbling down they have not left something like a heap towards the middle? To this it may be replied that the destruction of the Belus tower has not been the mere work of the elements—it was violently broken down either by Xerxes, or by some later king, who may have completely removed all the upper stages. Again, it has served as a quarry to the hunters after bricks for more than twenty centuries; so that it is only surprising that it still retains so much of its original shape. Further, when Alexander entered Babylon more than 2000 years ago 10,000 men were employed for several weeks in clearing away the rubbish and laying bare the foundations of the building. It is quite possible that a conical mass of crumbled brick may have been removed from the top of the mound at this time.
The difficulty remains that the Babil mound is on the same side of the Euphrates with the ruins of the Great Palace, whereas Herodotus makes the two buildings balance each other, one on the right and the other on the left bank of the stream. Now here it is in the first place to be observed that Herodotus is the only writer who does this. No other ancient author tells us anything of the relative situation of the two buildings. We have thus nothing to explain but the bald statement of a single writer—a writer no doubt of great authority, but still one not wholly infallible. We might say, then, that Herodotus probably made a mistake—that his memory failed him in this instance, or that he mistook his notes on the subject. Or we may explain his error by supposing that he confounded a canal from the Euphrates, which seems to have anciently passed between the Babil mound and the Kasr (called Shebil by Nebuchadnezzar) with the main stream. Or, finally, we may conceive that at the time of his visit the old palace lay in ruins, and that the palace of Nerig-lissar on the west bank of the stream was that of which he spoke. It is at any rate remarkable, considering how his authority is quoted as fixing the site of the Belus tower to the west bank, that, in the only place where he gives us any intimation of the side of the river on which he would have placed the tower, it is the east and not the west bank to which his words point. He makes those who saw the treachery of Zopyrus at the Belian and Kissian gates, which must have been to the east of the city, at once take refuge in the famous sanctuary, which he implies was in the vicinity.
On the whole, therefore, it seems best to regard the Babil mound as the ziggurat of the great temple of Bel (called by some “the tomb of Belus”) which the Persians destroyed and which Alexander intended to restore. With regard to the “hanging gardens,” as they were an erection of less than half the size of the tower, it is not so necessary to suppose that distinct traces must remain of them. Their debris may be confused with those of the Kasr mound, on which one writer places them. Or they may have stood between the Kasr and Amran ruins, where are now some mounds of no great height. Or, possibly, their true site is in the modern El Homeira, the remarkable red mound which lies east of the Kasr at the distance of about 800 yards, and attains an elevation of sixty-five feet. Though this building is not situated upon the banks of the Euphrates, where Strabo and Diodorus place the gardens, it abuts upon a long low valley into which the Euphrates water seems formerly to have been introduced, and which may therefore have been given the name of the river. This identification is, however, it must be allowed, very doubtful.