| DATES. | ||
| Nimrod | B.C. 2234 | ? |
| Urukh. Bowariyeh, Wurka | 2093 | |
| Ilgi | 2070 | |
| Chedorlaomer | 1976 | |
| Ismi Dagon | 1850 | |
| Shamas Vul. Kaleh Sherghat | 1800 | |
| Sin Shada. Wuswus? | 1700 | |
| Sur Sin | 1660 | |
| Purna Puryas | 1600 | |
| Arab conquerors | 1500 | ?[[67]] |
Already the names of fifteen or sixteen kings belonging to these old dynasties have been recovered, and the remains of some ten or twelve temples have been identified as founded by them; but unfortunately none of these are in a sufficiently perfect state to afford any certainty as to their being entirely of this age, and all are in such a state of ruin that, making use of all the information we possess, we cannot yet properly restore a temple of the old Chaldean epoch.
Notwithstanding this, it is a great gain to the history of architecture to have obtained so much knowledge as we have of temples which were only known to us before from the vague descriptions of the Greeks, and which are the earliest forms of a type of temples found afterwards continually cropping up in the East.
It would be contrary to all experience to suppose that a people of Turanian origin should be without temples of some sort, but, except the description by the Greeks of the temple or tomb of Belus, we have nothing to guide us. We have now a fair idea what the general outline of their temples was, and even if we cannot trace their origin, we can at least follow their descendants. There seems now no doubt but that many, perhaps most, of the Buddhist forms of architecture in India and further eastward, were derived from the banks of the Euphrates. Many of the links are still wanting; but it is something to know that the Birs Nimroud is the type which two thousand years afterwards was copied at Pagahn in Burmah, and Boro Buddor in Java; and that the descent from these can easily be traced in those countries and in China to the present day.
The principal reason why it is so difficult to form a distinct idea of this old form of temple is, that the material most employed in their construction was either crude, sun-dried, or very imperfectly-burnt bricks; or when a better class of bricks was employed, as was probably the case in Babylon, they have been quarried and used in the construction of succeeding capitals. A good deal also is owing to the circumstance that those who have explored them have in many cases not been architects, or were persons not accustomed to architectural researches, and who consequently have failed to seize the peculiarities of the building they were exploring.
Under these circumstances, it is fortunate that the Persians did for these temples exactly what they accomplished for the palace forms of Assyria. They repeated in stone in Persia what had been built in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris with wood or with crude bricks. It thus happens that the so-called tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadæ enables us to verify and to supply much that is wanting in the buildings at Babylon, and to realise much that would be otherwise indistinct in their forms.
The oldest temple we know of at present is the Bowariyeh at Wurka (Erek), erected by Urukh, at least 2000 years B.C.; but now so utterly ruined, that it is difficult to make out what it originally was like. It seems, however, to have consisted of two storeys at least: the lowest about 200 feet square, of sun-dried bricks; the upper is faced with burnt bricks, apparently of a more modern date. The height of the two storeys taken together is now about 100 feet, and it is nearly certain that a third or chamber storey existed above the parts that are now apparent.[[68]]
The Mugheyr Temple[[69]] is somewhat better preserved, but in this case it is only the lower storey that can be considered old. The cylinders found in the angles of the upper part belong to Nabonidus, the last king of the later Babylonian kingdom; and the third storey only exists in tradition. Still, from such information as we have, we gather that its plan was originally a rectangle 198 feet by 133, with nine buttresses in the longer and six in the shorter faces. The walls slope inwards in the ratio of 1 in 10. Above them was a second storey 119 feet by 75, placed as is usual nearer one end of the lower storey, so as to admit of a staircase being added at the other. It is 47 feet distant from the south-eastern end, and only 28 or 30 from the other; but whether the whole of this was occupied by a flight of steps or not is by no means clear. Taken altogether, the plan and probable appearance of the building when complete may have been something like that represented in Woodcuts Nos. [48] and [49], though there are too many elements of uncertainty to make it a restoration which can altogether be depended upon.
