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

by L. W. King

When clear of the citadel the road descends by a gradual slope to the level of the plain, and preserving the same breadth, passes to the right of the temple dedicated to Ishtar of Akkad.[115] As it continues southward it is flanked at a little distance on the east by the streets of private houses, whose foundations have been uncovered in the Merkes mound;[116] and on the west side it runs close under the huge peribolos of E-temen-anki, the Tower of Babylon.[117] As far as the main gate of E-temen-anki[118] its foundation is laid in burnt-brick, over which was an upper paving completely formed of breccia. The inscription upon the slabs corresponds to that on the breccia paving-stones opposite the citadel; but they have evidently been re-used from an earlier pavement of Sennacherib, whose name some of them bear upon the underside. This earlier pavement of Babylon's Sacred Way must have been laid by that monarch before he reversed his conciliatory policy toward the southern kingdom. At the south-east corner of the peribolos the road turns at a right angle and running between the peribolos and E-sagila, the great temple of the city-god, passes through a gate in the river-wall built by Nabonidus, and so over the Euphrates bridge before turning southward again in the direction of Borsippa.[119] This branch road between the Tower of Babylon and E-sagila[120] is undoubtedly the continuation of the procession-street. For not only was it the way of approach to Marduk's temple, but its course has been definitely traced by excavation. But there can be no doubt that the upper portion of the road, running north and south through the city, was continued in a straight line from the point where the Sacred Way branched off. This would have conducted an important stream of traffic to the main gate in the southern city-wall, passing on its way between the temples dedicated to the god Ninib and to another deity not yet identified.[121]

THE SACRED WAY OF BABYLON

Apart from the royal palaces, the five temples of Babylon were the principal buildings within the city, and their excavation has thrown an entirely new light upon our ideas of the religious architecture of the country. The ground-plans of four of them have now been ascertained in their entirety, and we are consequently in a position to form some idea of the general principles upon which such buildings were arranged. The first to be excavated was the little temple E-makh, dedicated to the goddess Ninmakh, which, as we have already seen, was built on the citadel itself, in the north-east corner of the open space to the south of the Ishtar Gateway. Its principal façade faces the north-west, and, since the eastern entrance of the Ishtar Gate opens just opposite the corner of the temple, a wall with a doorway in it was thrown across, spanning the passage between temple and fortification.[122] The only entrance to the temple was in the centre of the façade; and in the passage-way immediately in front of it, surrounded by a pavement of burnt-brick, is a small crude-brick altar.[123] It is an interesting fact that the only other altar yet found in Babylon is also of crude brick and occupies precisely the same position, outside a temple and immediately opposite its main entrance;[124] while in a third temple, though the altar itself has disappeared, the paved area which surrounded it is still visible.[125] We may therefore conclude that this represents the normal position for the altar in the Babylonian cult; and it fully substantiates the statement of Herodotus that the two altars of Belus were outside his temple.[126] One of these, he tells us, was of solid gold, on which it was only lawful to offer sucklings; the other was a common altar (doubtless of crude brick) but of great size, on which full-grown animals were sacrificed. It was also on the great altar that the Chaldeans burnt the frankincense, which, according to Herodotus, was offered to the amount of a thousand talents' weight every year at the festival of the god.

It may further be noted that this exterior position of the altar corresponds to Hebrew usage, according to which the main altar was erected in the outer court in front of the temple proper. Thus Solomon's brazen altar, which under Phoenician influence took the place of earlier altars of earth or unhewn stone,[127] stood before the temple.[128] The altar within the Hebrew temple was of cedar-wood,[129] and it was clearly not a permanent structure embedded in the pavement, for Ezekiel refers to it as a "table," and states that it "was of wood."[130] It was more in the nature of a table for offerings, and it may be inferred that in earlier times it served as the table upon which the shewbread was placed before Yahwe.[131] The complete absence of any trace of a permanent altar within the Babylonian temples can only be due to a similar practice; the altars or tables within the shrines must have been light wooden structures, and they were probably carried off or burnt when the temples were destroyed. There is of course no need to regard this resemblance as due to direct cultural influence or borrowing. But we may undoubtedly conclude that we here have an example of parallelism in religious ritual between two races of the same Semitic stock. What the Sumerian practice was in this respect we have as yet no means of ascertaining; but in such details of cult it is quite possible that the Semitic Babylonians substituted their own traditional usages for any other they may have found in the country of their adoption.

The temple of Ninmakh itself, like all the others in Babylon, was built of crude brick, and though its walls were covered with a thin plaster or wash of lime, only the simplest form of decoration in black and white was attempted, and that very sparingly.[132] The fact that the practice of building in mud-brick should have continued at a time when kiln-burnt and enamelled brick was lavished on the royal palaces, is probably to be explained as a result of religious conservatism. The architectural design does not differ in essentials from that employed for buildings of a military character. It will be seen that the long exterior walls of E-makh resemble those of a fortification, their surface being broken up by slightly projecting towers set at regular intervals.[133] Larger rectangular towers flank the gateway, and two others, diminishing in size and probably also in height, are ranged on either side of them. The vertical grooves, which traverse the exterior faces of the towers from top to bottom, constitute a characteristic form of temple embellishment, which is never found on buildings of a secular character. They may be either plain rectangular grooves, or more usually, as in E-makh, are stepped when viewed in section.[134]

In all the important doorways of the temples foundation-deposits were buried in little niches or boxes, formed of six bricks placed together and hidden below the level of the pavement. The deposits found in place are generally fashioned of baked clay, and that of most common occurrence is a small figure of the god Papsukal. One of those in Ninmakh's temple was in the form of a bird, no doubt sacred to the goddess. There is clear evidence that the object of their burial was to ensure the safety of the entrance both from spiritual and from human foes. In addition to this magical protection the entrance was further secured by double doors, their pivots shod with bronze and turning in massive stone sockets. The ordinary method of fastening such doors by bolts was supplemented in the case of E-makh by a beam propped against the doors and with its lower end fitting into a socket in the pavement. Since the temple was within the citadel fortifications, the possibility was foreseen that it might have to be defended from assault like the secular buildings in its immediate neighbourhood.