MUKAYYAR after Taylor
The mounds of Mukayyar, which mark the site of Ur, the centre of the Moon-god's cult in Sumer, were partly excavated by Taylor in 1854 and 1855.[27] In the northern portion of the group he examined the great temple of the Moon-god (marked A on the plan), the earliest portions of its structure which he came across dating from the reigns of Dungi and Ur-Engur. Beneath a building in the neighbourhood of the temple (at B on the plan) he found a pavement consisting of plano-convex bricks, a sure indication that at this point, at least, were buildings of the earliest Sumerian period, while the sarcophagus-burials in other parts of the mound were of the early type. Taylor came across similar evidence of early building at Abû Shahrain,[28] the comparatively small mound which marks the site of the sacred city of Eridu, for at a point in the south-east side of the group he uncovered a building constructed of bricks of the same early character.
At Abû Shahrain indeed we should expect to find traces of one of the earliest and most sacred shrines of the Sumerians, for here dwelt Enki, the mysterious god of the deep. The remains of his later temple now dominates the group, the great temple-tower still rising in two stages (A and B) at the northern end of the mound. Unlike the other cities of Sumer, Eridu was not built on the alluvium. Its situation is in a valley on the edge of the Arabian desert, cut off from Ur and the Euphrates by a low pebbly and sandstone ridge. In fact, its ruins appear to rise abruptly from the bed of an inland sea, which no doubt at one time was connected directly with the Persian Gulf; hence the description of Eridu in cuneiform literature as standing "on the shore of the sea." Another characteristic which distinguishes Eridu from other cities in Babylonia is the extensive use of stone as a building material. The raised platform, on which the city and its temple stood, was faced with a massive retaining wall of sandstone, no doubt obtained from quarries in the neighbourhood, while the stairway (marked D on the plan) leading to the first stage of the temple-tower had been formed of polished marble slabs which were now scattered on the surface of the mound. The marble stairs and the numerous fragments of gold-leaf and gold-headed and copper nails, which Taylor found at the base of the second stage of the temple-tower, attest its magnificence during the latest stage of its history. The name and period of the city now covered by the neighbouring mound of Tell Lahm, which was also examined by Taylor, have not yet been ascertained.
ABÛ SHAHRAIN after Taylor
It will thus be seen that excavations conducted on the sites of the more famous cities of Sumer have not, with the single exception of Nippur, yielded much information concerning the earlier periods of history, while the position of one of them, the city of Isin, is still unknown. Our knowledge of similar sites in Akkad is still more scanty. Up to the present time systematic excavations have been carried out at only two sites in the north, Babylon and Sippar, and these have thrown little light upon the more remote periods of their occupation. The existing ruins of Babylon date from the period of Nebuchadnezzar II., and so thorough was Sennacherib's destruction of the city in 689 B.C., that, after several years of work, Dr. Koldewey concluded that all traces of earlier buildings had been destroyed on that occasion. More recently some remains of earlier strata have been recognized, and contract-tablets have been found which date from the period of the First Dynasty. Moreover, a number of earlier pot-burials have been unearthed, but a careful examination of the greater part of the ruins has added little to our knowledge of this most famous city before the Neo-Babylonian era. The same negative results were obtained, so far as early remains are concerned, from the less exhaustive work on the site of Borsippa. Abû Habba is a far more promising site, and has been the scene of excavations begun by Mr. Rassam in 1881 and 1882, and renewed by Père Scheil for some months in 1894, while excavations were undertaken in the neighbouring mounds of Deir by Dr. Wallis Budge in 1891. These two sites have yielded thousands of tablets of the period of the earliest kings of Babylon, and the site of the famous temple of the Sun-god at Sippar, which Narâm-Sin rebuilt, has been identified, but little is yet accurately known concerning the early city and its suburbs. The great extent of the mounds, and the fact that for nearly thirty years they have been the happy hunting-ground of Arab diggers, would add to the difficulty of any final and exhaustive examination. It is probably in the neighbourhood of Sippar that the site of the city of Agade, or Akkad, will eventually be identified.