A History of Babylon, from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest

by L. W. King

FIG. 8.

SECTION OF THE QUAY-WALLS AND FORTIFICATION-WALLS ALONG THE NORTH FRONT OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.

A: Sargon's quay-wall. B: Older moat-wall. O: Later moat-wall of Nebuchadnezzar. D: Intermediate wall. E: South fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl. F: North fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Nimitti-Bêl. G: North wall of Southern Citadel. H: Remains of older crude brick wall.

(After Andrae.)

We find further confirmation of this view in one of the later quay-walls, which succeeded that of Sargon. The three narrow walls already referred to[47] were all the work of Nabopolassar, and represent three successive extensions of the quay westward into the bed of the stream, which in the inscriptions upon their bricks is given the name of Arakhtu.[48] But the texts make no mention of the city-walls. No inscriptions at all have been found in the structure of the next extension, represented by the wall B, which, like the latest quay-wall (C), is not rounded off in the earlier manner, but is strengthened at the corner with a massive rectangular bastion. It was in this latest and most substantial of all the quay-walls that further inscriptions were found referring to Imgur-Bêl. They prove that this wall was the work of Nebuchadnezzar, who refers in them to Nabopolassar's restoration of Imgur-Bêl and records that he raised its banks with bitumen and burnt-brick mountain-high. It is therefore clear that this was the quay-wall of Imgur Bêl, which it supported in the manner of Sargon's earlier structure. That the less important Nimitti-Bêl is not mentioned in these texts does not necessitate our placing it elsewhere, in view of Sargon's earlier reference.

We may therefore provisionally regard the two crude-brick walls along the Ḳaṣr's northern front[49] as a section of the famous defences of Babylon, and picture them as running eastward till they meet the inner city-wall by Homera. The point at which they extended westward across the Euphrates can, as yet, only be conjectured. But it is significant that the angle of the western walls, which may still be traced under mounds to the north of Sinjar village,[50] is approximately in line with the north front of the Ḳaṣr and the end of the inner wall by Homera. Including these western walls within our scheme, the earlier Babylon would have been rectangular in ground-plan, about a quarter of it only upon the right bank, and the portion east of the river forming approximately a square. The Babylon of the Kassite period and of the First Dynasty must have been smaller still, its area covering little more than the three principal mounds; and, though part of its street net-work has been recovered, no trace of its fortifications has apparently survived.

The evidence relating to the city's walls and fortifications has been summarized rather fully, as it has furnished the chief subject of controversy in connexion with the excavations. It should be added that the view suggested above is not shared by Dr. Koldewey, whose objections to the proposed identification of Imgur-Bêl rest on his interpretation of two phrases in a cylinder of Nabopolassar, which was found out of place in débris close to the east wall of the Southern Citadel. In it Nabopolassar records his own restoration of Imgur-Bêl, which he tells us had fallen into decay, and he states that he "founded it in the primæval abyss," adding the words, "I caused Babylon to be enclosed with it towards the four winds."[51] From the reference to the abyss, Dr. Koldewey concludes that it had deep foundations, and must therefore have been constructed of burnt, not crude, brick; while from the second phrase he correctly infers that it must have formed a quadrilateral closed on all sides. But that, as we have seen, is precisely the ground-plan we obtain by including the remains of walls west of the river. And, in view of the well-known tendency to exaggeration in these Neo-Babylonian records, we should surely not credit any single metaphor with the accuracy of a modern architect's specification. If a single section of the wall had been furnished, during restoration, with a burnt-brick substructure, it would have been enough to justify the royal claim.

The manner in which the Euphrates was utilized for the defence and water-supply of the citadel has also been illustrated by the excavations. The discovery of Sargon's inscriptions proved that in his day the river flowed along the western face of his quay-wall;[52] while the inscriptions on bricks from the three successive quay-walls of Nabopolassar[53] state, in each case, that he used them to rebuild the wall of a channel he calls the "Arakhtu," using the name in precisely the same way as Sargon refers to the Euphrates. The simplest explanation is that in Nabopolassar's time the Arakhtu was the name for that section of the Euphrates which washed the western side of the citadel, and that its use in any case included the portion of the citadel-moat, or canal, along its northern face, which formed a basin opening directly upon the river.[54] The "Arakhtu" may thus have been a general term, not only for this basin, but for the whole water-front from the north-west corner of the citadel to some point on the left bank to the south of it. It may perhaps have been further extended to include the river frontage of the Tower of Babylon, since it was into the Arakhtu that Sennacherib cast the tower on his destruction of the city. Within this stretch of water, particularly along the northern quays, vessels and keleks would have been moored which arrived down stream with supplies for the palace and the garrison. The Arakhtu, in fact, may well have been the name for the ancient harbour or dock of Babylon.