we may recognise the initial letters of Nimitti-Bel.
Among other signs more symbolic in character are the lion, the double axe, and the symbol of Marduk, a triangle on a shaft, either alone or combined with other stamps.
The manufacture of these bricks was carried on as it is with us at the present day. The fairly pure clay was well kneaded and pressed into a rectangular wooden frame laid on a rough reed matting. Nebuchadnezzar’s bricks almost invariably show the impress of the matting on one side, while the bricks of the other monarchs appear to have been made without this underlay. The frames were frequently grooved on one or more of their inner sides, which caused corresponding ridges on the narrow edges of the bricks. We can thus distinguish bricks with 1, 2 (see Fig. [71]), or even 7 of these ridges. In Nebuchadnezzar’s first building period the bricks had no ridges, then only one, while in his latest buildings, such as the Principal Citadel, there are seven. It thus happens that no 7–ridged brick has a 6–line stamp, as by that time they were disused. Besides their number, the ridges vary in breadth, depth, and position. The sign of early manufacture is that they are placed in the centre of the side, and are of greater breadth, while later they are placed near the corners. Thus we have ample material for dividing them, not only according to the places where they were made but also as to their age. In the course of the 43 years’ reign of Nebuchadnezzar, it is obvious that with the gradual multiplication of brick factories the necessity of being able to distinguish between their several productions increased in like measure. The bricks are not always accurately separated from each other in the buildings, according to their marks, but on the whole the stamps, in addition to the ridges on the sides, enable us to distinguish the relative ages of the various walls.
Fig. 53.—Aramaic addition on Nebuchadnezzar brick.
It is evident from the bricks themselves that the burning was done in ovens, which can scarcely have differed materially from the brick-kilns used to-day both here and in Bagdad. They are built outside the town, where the clay is good and fuel—the low bushes of the desert—is abundant. They form great fantastic groups of buildings, to which the people attach tales of horror. With the Persians it was a favourite method of execution to throw persons into these heated ovens, and when one sees the flickering glare from their mouths rising up against the evening sky of Babylon, one is unconsciously reminded of the striking account in the third chapter of Daniel of the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the fiery furnace. Herodotus states that the manufacture of bricks for the town walls was always carried on close to the site where they were to be used. This may have been done in exceptional cases, but ordinarily the ovens were certainly farther outside.
The whole of the walls of the Southern Citadel have been pillaged by brick robbers even below the pavement, the level to which our excavations usually extend (Fig. [54]). Everywhere we have laid the walls bare as far as the bricks still remain in position. Here in the south-east corner we have gone still deeper and have dug down to the foundation fillings, reaching nearly to water-level. The fillings consist almost exclusively of sand and clayey earth, river settlement with occasional patches of ancient building material, rubbish, charcoal and ashes, bones and some broken pottery. Possibly the sediment was taken from the watercourse that flowed past the southern side of the Citadel, and which would then be considerably deepened and widened. The footings are carried down almost to water-level, of the same even thickness without any broadening. At this depth the soil is interspersed with the remains of a very ancient settlement, characterised, as in other quarters of the city, by pipe wells and much pottery. Thus in the foundations everything is avoided that could prevent the settlement of the walls, and they are perfectly free to sink vertically. In laying the foundations the doorways were left open. Hence there are separate blocks of buildings, which doubtless even before the floor-level was reached settled independently of each other during the course of erection. In order to bind these blocks together across the door spaces, beams of poplar wood soaked in tar were inserted at intervals and fixed in the wall head with short transverse pieces, thus forming huge ├──┤-rivets.
Fig. 54.—Excavations in Southern Citadel, from the north.