Fig. 150.—Later horseman, Parthian (?).
Fig. 151.—Woman in covered litter, on horseback.
It is only in yet later examples that the complete modelling of both horse and rider first makes its appearance. The figure of a woman, of which several examples have been found in the temple, is entirely analogous both in form and general workmanship. She is carried on a horse in a covered litter with a semicircular top (Fig. [151]). A similar form of litter is in use in the neighbourhood to-day under the name of Ketshaue.
XLI
THE EXCAVATIONS TO THE NORTH OF THE NINIB TEMPLE
North-east of the Ninib temple we have cut four trenches through the hill to the plain beyond. Here we found the same strata of private houses and streets that we shall meet with again in Merkes.
Here, at the depth of the water-level, were some small plano-convex clay tablets with carefully modelled reliefs of lions, fabulous creatures, etc., on the flat side, as well as some figures in the round, also worked with great minuteness. Among these there is a fine bearded head with the hair tied up in a napkin, as, beside others, it is worn by Marduk on the piece of lapis lazuli described above. They appear to be working models for a large statue.
Beside the numerous scantily ornamented pottery vases, there were some decorated in coloured glazes with concentric lines, rosettes, and plaited bands (Fig. [152]—Frontispiece). They come from the lower levels, which apparently date back to the time of the Assyrian domination. In one place where rubbish had been thrown, there were numerous tablets containing business, literary, or scientific inscriptions. It is possible that they came from the temple and formed part of the temple library, which, as is generally supposed, every temple possessed. No systematic storing of inscriptions has yet been discovered in any temple, including those of Babylon, Khorsabad, and Assur, all of which have been completely excavated. It is true that these were buried under a proportionately shallow covering of earth, while Esagila lay protected under fully 20 metres of untouched accumulations, and is still unexcavated.
The mound itself proves to be thickly strewn throughout with potsherds, and the mud-brick walls of the houses lie close below the surface. They are only thinly covered by a uniform layer of dust. In the plain, on the contrary, as our trenches at the Ninib temple have shown, the house ruins lie under a layer more or less high, of drifted sand, and the surface contains exceedingly few potsherds. All this is explained if we take the trouble to realise the antecedents of the formation of these ruins. At the time when the site was deserted and fell into ruins the surrounding contours were far more marked than they are at present. The heights were higher and the depths were deeper. The mud-brick walls, which at first stood out above the soil, crumbled away after they lost their roofs into dusty heaps of clay, which accumulated against the walls and covered the pavement higher and higher, while the walls themselves, so far as they over-topped these heaps, disappeared, and thus all was levelled to an irregular undulating surface.
