The excavations at Babylon

by Robert Koldewey

Below, the signs of dwellings are again more scanty until the level of 2.4 above zero is reached, when there are once more thick house walls similar to those of the Neo-Babylonian level, though at wider distances apart. At this level there were tablets with the dates of Merodach-Baladan, Belnadinshum, Melishikhu, and others. Thus the stratum dates from about 1300 to 1400 B.C.

Deeper down the strata were irregular. Here they do not lie throughout in one solid uniform line. At 1 metre below zero we came once more on a uniform, clearly marked stratum with houses lying rather closely together, in which were found tablets with dates of the time of the first Babylonian kings, the immediate successors of Hammurabi (2250 B.C.), Samsuiluna, Ammiditana, Samsuditana, etc. The mud-brick walls of the houses are not very thick, but all of them rest on a foundation of burnt brick. They show numerous traces of a conflagration in which they were destroyed. The tablets lay among these undisturbed ashes, so there can be no doubt that they were contemporary (see section on Fig. [237]).

Fig. 155.—Plan of Merkes.

This is a bare outline of the find in the north of Merkes. If we dig farther in the plain, we find the Nebuchadnezzar stratum nearer the surface, and the Hammurabi stratum disappears below water-level. This means undoubtedly that as far back as the latter period the town level here was rising in the form of a mound, and that at the Parthian period no substantial buildings stood in the plain.

The streets, though not entirely regular, show an obvious attempt to run them as much in straight lines as possible, so that Herodotus (i. 180) was able to describe them as straight (ἰθέαι). They show a tendency to cross at right angles, about 16 degrees west of north, and therefore as many degrees north of east. The Procession Street on the whole follows the same direction, and so do the inner city walls and all the temples, including Esagila, which may perhaps be held mainly responsible for this orientation. Only the Palace buildings on the Kasr and the mound Babil face exactly towards the astronomical north. The lower and more ancient levels also maintain this direction, in general with very slight deviations in the lines of the streets. Too little is known of the Hammurabi period at present to give any general valid rule with certainty; the house walls that have been excavated face somewhat accurately to the north, as do those of the upper levels. It was this fact, in conjunction with the usual inexact rectangular arrangement of the plots of land, and the exact rectangles of the inner chambers that gave rise to the peculiar construction of the street walls, which on their whole length were furnished with projecting corners or steps, an extraordinary characteristic of Neo-Babylonian architecture, which we have already met with at the Southern Citadel (Fig. [156]).

Where there was a house door the corner is advanced so that the door might be placed in a sufficiently wide wall surface. As the corners frequently lie very close together, we may conclude that there were no windows toward the street. Also we observe no stalls for selling or other trade facilities, although this is no proof that they may not exist in other parts of the city, not yet excavated. For this reason it is much to be wished that the streets of Babylon could be laid bare to a much larger extent than has hitherto been possible, so that we might be able to study the entire plan of a very wide area. Outside Babylon it is only in Fara and Abu-Hatab that a small part of the town has been unearthed, and there the streets are noticeably more irregular and crooked than those of the metropolis. Of other Babylonian towns nothing is known of the planning of the streets.

Fig. 156.—View of street in Merkes.

The latest researches do not uphold the statement that is to be found in modern literature of some years back, that the Babylonian buildings were orientated with their corners towards the four points of the compass. The orientation is different in every town, and in every case the circumstances determining it must be studied separately.