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

by L. W. King

(After Andrae.)

The long narrow passage behind the shrine[136] was thought at first by its discoverer to have served a secret purpose of the priesthood. It was suggested that it might have given access to a concealed opening in the back wall of the shrine, behind the image of the goddess, whence oracles could have been given forth with her authority. But there is a precisely similar passage along the north-east wall; and we may probably accept the more prosaic explanation that they contained the ramps or stairways that led up to the flat roof, though why two should have been required, both at the same end of the building, is not clear.[137] The precise use of the other chambers opening from the court cannot be identified with any certainty, as nothing was found in them to indicate whether they served as apartments for the priesthood or as magazines for temple-stores. Beyond a number of votive terracotta figures, no cult object was discovered. But around the dais for the image of the goddess, the well in the courtyard for lustral water, and the small crude-brick altar before the temple entrance, it is possible to picture in imagination some of the rites to which reference is made in the Babylonian religious texts.

As we have already seen was the case with the palace-buildings, the upper structure of all the temples has been completely destroyed, so that it is not now certain how the tops of walls and towers were finished off. In the conjectural restoration of Ninmakh's temple[138] the upper portions are left perfectly plain. And this represents one theory of reconstruction. But it is also possible that the walls were crowned with the stepped battlements of military architecture. In the restoration of Assyrian buildings, both secular and religious, great assistance has been obtained from the sculptured bas-reliefs that lined the palace walls. For the scenes upon them include many representations of buildings, and, when due allowance has been made for the conventions employed, a considerable degree of certainty may be attained with their help in picturing the external appearance of buildings of which only the lower courses of the walls now remain. The scarcity of stone in Babylonia, and the consequent absence of mural reliefs, have deprived us of this source of information in the case of the southern kingdom. The only direct evidence on the point that has been forthcoming consists of a design stamped in outline upon a rectangular gold plaque, found with other fragments of gold and jewellery in the remains of a sumptuous burial within the structure of Nabopolassar's palace.[139] The period of the burial is certain, for the grave in which the great pottery sarcophagus was placed had been closed with bricks of Nebuchadnezzar, who afterwards built his strengthening wall against it. It must therefore date from the earlier part of his reign, and Dr. Koldewey makes the suggestion that it was perhaps the tomb of Nabopolassar himself.[140] However that may be, the grave is certainly of the early Neo-Babylonian period, and the architectural design upon the gold plaque may be taken as good evidence for that time.

FIG. 22.

GOLD PLAQUE, WITH ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, PROM A NEO-BABYLONIAN BURIAL.

The engraving on the plaque shows a city-gate with flanking towers and stepped battlements. (Enlargement after photo, by Koldewey.)

The plaque formed the principal decoration in a chain bracelet, small rings passing through the holes at its four corners and serving to attach it to the larger links of the chain. On it the jeweller has represented a gate with an arched doorway, flanked by towers, which rise above the walls of the main building. Each tower is surmounted by a projecting upper structure, pierced with small circular loopholes, and both towers and walls are crowned with triangular battlements. The latter are obviously intended to be stepped, the engraver not having sufficient space to represent this detail in a design on so small a scale. The outline is probably that of a fortified city-gate, and it fully justifies the adoption of the stepped battlement in the reconstruction of military buildings of the period. Whether the temples were furnished in the same manner, for purely decorative purposes, is not so clear. Some idea of the appearance of one, restored on this alternative hypothesis, may be gathered from the elevation of the unidentified temple known as "Z," which is given in Fig. 24.

It is important that the ground-plans of no less than four of the temples in Babylon have been recovered, for it will be seen that the main features, already noted in Ninmakh's temple, are always repeated.[141] In each the temple buildings are arranged around an open court, to which access is given through one or more entrances with vestibules. The doorways to temple and to shrine are flanked by grooved towers, while within the shrine itself the cult-statue stood on a low dais, visible from the court.