CONJECTURAL RESTORATION OF THE UNIDENTIFIED TEMPLE KNOWN AS "Z."
The view is taken from a point immediately opposite the north corner of the temple. The stepped battlements on walls and towers, borrowed from military architecture, are here adopted in accordance with one theory of reconstruction. (After Andrae and Koldewey.)
In the temples dedicated to Ishtar of Akkad and to the god Ninib the shrines are on the west side of the great court, instead of on the south as in those we have already examined. Thus it would seem there was no special position for the shrine, though the temples themselves are generally built with their corners directed approximately to the cardinal points.[142] In the temple of Ishtar unmistakable traces have been noted of a simple form of mural decoration that appears to have been employed in all the temples of Babylon. While the walls in general were coloured dead white with a thin gypsum wash, certain of the more prominent parts, such as the main entrance, the doorway leading to the shrine and the niche behind the statue of the goddess, were washed over with black asphalt in solution, each blackened surface being decorated near its edge with white strips or line-borders. The contrast in colour presented by this black and white decoration must have been startling in its effect; no doubt, like the crude-brick material of the buildings, it was an inheritance from earlier times, and owed its retention to its traditional religious significance.
FIG. 25.
GROUND-PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF ISHTAR OF AKKAD.
A: Open Court. B: Ante-chamber to Shrine. C: Shrine. El, E2: Entrance-chambers, or Vestibules, to temple. b1, b2, b3: Service-rooms for Ante-chamber, d: Service-room for Shrine, e: Well, s: Position of statue of Ishtar, on dais or postament against niche in back-wall of Shrine. 1-4: Priests' apartments or store-rooms. 5-7: Porters' rooms. 8: Entrance-chamber to small inner court. 9: Small open court in which were two circular stores or granaries. 10-14: Chambers, probably used as store-rooms, giving access to narrow passage, which possibly contained stairway or ramp to roof.
(After Reuther.)
In the temple of Ninib two additional shrines flank the principal one, each having its own entrance and a dais or postament for a statue. It is probable that the side shrines were devoted to the worship of subsidiary deities connected in some way with Ninib, for the temple as a whole was dedicated solely to him. This we learn from Nabopolassar's foundation-cylinders, buried below the pavement of the shrine, which relate how the king erected the building in his honour, on an earlier foundation, after he had kept back the foot of the Assyrian from the land of Akkad and had thrown off his heavy yoke.[143] It was fitting that he should have marked his gratitude in this way to the god of war.