Mesopotamian Archaeology / An introduction to the archaeology of Mesopotamia and Assyria

by Percy S. P. Handcock

The best-preserved ziggurat in Mesopotamia is that which was discovered at Khorsabad; four stages of this tower still remain, and the colours with which they were painted are yet visible. It is in close proximity to though not in immediate connection with the group of buildings formerly regarded as the harem of the palace, but recently shown by Koldewey[67] to be in reality a group of temples (cf. Fig. [24] B). The argument upon which the harem-theory was based was the fact that this block of buildings is separate from the palace, but this argument could be used with even greater force in support of the temple theory, while its proximity to the ziggurat, and the general correspondence in form and shape of the several buildings which it comprises, to the normal Assyrian temple as revealed by the excavations, makes Koldewey’s contention a practical certainty. Furthermore, though the ziggurat, as is the case at Borsippa, is not connected with the theoretical “temple-complex,” there seems to be no doubt they belong to each other as there is no room elsewhere in the neighbourhood for a temple proper, and the adjacent parts of the palace were certainly used for secular and not religious purposes. The block would appear to contain three temples the entrance to each of which was through a central court; the temples consisted in a broad-room or vestibule, a long-room or hall at the end of which was another room—presumably the sanctuary where the statue of the god was enshrined. The entrance to the sanctuary from the hall was through a broad opening and up some stairs.

In addition to these salient parts of the building there were various subordinate rooms, which in one temple flanked the right side, in another the left, and in the third both sides of the main hall, these rooms being connected in one case with the broad-room, the hall and the sanctuary, in the second with the hall and sanctuary, and in the third with the hall only. Sometimes they further have surrounding corridors; it will be thus seen that though they show considerable variation among themselves, they exhibit the same general type, a type totally different from that to which the Assyrian palaces and houses conform, the general shape of which was broad rather than long.

But in spite of the general similarity of Assyrian temples, the earlier buildings differ from those of later date in at least one important respect; in the former the sanctuary is simply a deep niche in the back wall of the main long-room or hall, while in the later temples of Sargon, the niche has been developed into a special sanctuary chamber.

It has been already demonstrated that the ziggurats in Mesopotamia did not by any means all conform to the same plan; not only did the number of their stages vary however, but occasionally their shape also. As a rule they were square, or at all events rectangular, but the ziggurat excavated at El Hibba by the Deutsche Orient Gesellschaft proved to be an exception to this general rule. The tower in question is circular in form, and comprises two stages; it is not built on an artificial mound, but on the natural soil, and is still standing to the height of twenty-four feet. The diameter of the first storey[68] is over four hundred feet, while that of the upper storey is only a little over three hundred feet. The last-named is protected with a casement-wall of burnt bricks laid in bitumen, and the upper surfaces of both stories were coated with the same material in order to protect them from the disintegrating effects of the rain. The structure was drained by means of canals made of burnt bricks, which served the further purpose of strengthening the lower storey, and acted in fact as a buttress. A number of clay cones or nails were found on the surface of the upper storey, similar to those found at the foot of the Nippur ziggurat, but none of them apparently bore any inscription.

PALACES

Other buildings in Babylonia of a more secular character have been preserved in a more satisfactory state than those specifically dedicated to the gods, but the royal palaces themselves have for the most part undergone such a course of reconstruction that it is very difficult to determine the precise form which the original building assumed. Ur-Ninâ has bequeathed to us the remains of an elaborate building which he erected at his royal city Lagash, but it appears to be a storehouse rather than an integral part of a palace; Ur-bau and Gudea some centuries later have also left unmistakable signs of their building activity at this famous city of the past. In the course of the excavation of a large palace in one of the ruined mounds of Tellô, many bricks inscribed with the name of Gudea were found, and this discovery not unnaturally led to the hasty conclusion that this elaborate building so wonderfully preserved, was actually the royal residence of this long deceased ruler, but a closer investigation revealed the presence of other bricks bearing the name of one, Hadadnadinakhe, in both Greek and Aramæan characters, thereby proving conclusively that the building in question belonged to the Parthian period and could not be assigned to a date earlier than the latter half of the second century B.C. The bricks belonging to Gudea’s early building had been re-used as material for this later structure, a practice to which recourse was frequently had in Mesopotamia. Parts however of Gudea’s early building were actually incorporated in the Parthian palace, the best preserved of which are a gateway (cf. Pl. [V]) and a portion of a tower, while underneath one corner of the palace, part of a wall erected by Ur-bau, one of Gudea’s immediate predecessors, was discovered.

Another palace of great fame was that of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon, known as the El-Ḳasr (cf. p. [69]). This palace has been excavated by Koldewey and Andrae. The outer wall was made of bricks stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar, and was some 23-1/2 feet thick, the inner wall also made of brick being over 44 feet thick, while the space between the two walls, nearly 70 feet, was filled in with sand and other material, the total thickness thus being nearly 136-1/2 feet. The burnt bricks of which the retaining walls were composed were laid in asphalt and are so compactly joined that it is impossible to separate them into their layers. The Ḳasr mound, which represents a new suburb of the city of Babylon itself, has revealed nothing earlier than the seventh century. Ashur-bani-pal (668-626 B.C.) built a temple here which has been duly excavated, but Nebuchadnezzar’s palace is the principal building which has been discovered on this famous site. Before the time of Nebuchadnezzar there had seemingly been a palace here, which had undergone a course of reconstruction at the hands of Nabopolassar (625-604 B.C.) the founder of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty, but it subsequently suffered grievously from an inundation of the Euphrates, and was accordingly repaired and enlarged by Nebuchadnezzar who rebuilt it with burnt brick; so enduring was his work that the lower portions of it have remained in position till our own day.

The interior of the palace consisted in a great number of rooms arranged around courtyards. The large hall, situated on the south of the main court, had a niche in its southern wall and was further provided with three doors in its northern wall, where traces were also to be found of what may have been at one time a colonnade. The roof of the palace was made of cedar-wood, as were also the doors, which latter were covered with bronze, just as was the case with the famous gates at Balâwât (cf. Fig. [43]). The thresholds were made of the same metal, as also were the steps in the temple E-zida at Borsippa, one of which has come down to us and bears this king’s name, while gold, silver and precious stones of various kinds were used with an unsparing prodigality in the decoration of the royal residence.

Nebuchadnezzar further erected another building on the northern side of the wall, which was apparently a fortress, and was connected with the palace. According to the India House Inscription, and the statement of Berosus the Babylonian historian (about 300 B.C.) whose history unfortunately is lost, but from which extracts have been handed down to us by Josephus, this building was completed in the incredibly short period of fifteen days.