The remains that have been found of food and of domestic animals still require to be studied by experts. Charred grain and date stones are frequently found. The latter occur absolutely all over the ruins, and in all the levels of Babylon, as well as of Fara and Surgul. The ancient Babylonians do not appear to have eaten shell-fish, but on the contrary we often find fish bones, among them the lower jaw of a carp, such as is still caught in the Euphrates. Sheep, cattle, poultry, and pigeons are also not infrequent. The knuckle bones of sheep have survived more especially, possibly because they were used, as they were by the Romans, for the well-known game. They are also found cast in bronze. There is often the boar’s tusk (Fig. [194]), which was bored through at one end and carried as an amulet, perhaps on the horses’ harness. The mongoose (Herpestes mungo), of which the skull is often found, appears to have been a household pet, as it is at the present day in the neighbourhood. The fore-leg of a pachyderm, 1.15 metres long, which is almost too large to be that of an elephant, was found at a great depth, 1.2 metres below zero, in Merkes (25 n). Fragments of ostrich eggs are found sporadically.
XLIV
THE GRAVES IN MERKES
In Babylon the dead were buried by the fortification walls, in the streets, and in such parts of the inhabited town as were unappropriated for dwelling-houses at the time of the burial. They were laid from 1 to 2 metres deep in the ground. The house ruins of an earlier period were often encroached upon, and where the ancient walls were recognisable the pit was dug parallel with them; where they were not recognisable the walls of the ancient house were often cut through by the grave, while the wall of a later building period once more turned off from the burial site. If an ancient brick pavement was reached this also was frequently cut through, and the sarcophagus lay partly above and partly below it. From such clear cases, against which situations that cannot be made out can adduce no conclusive evidence, it can be distinctly seen that in Babylon, at any rate, no interments took place inside inhabited houses. We have already (p. [219] ff.) seen how various were the methods of burial at different times, and in the few ruined sites of Babylonia hitherto excavated. We cannot here enter into all the peculiarities, and we can only attempt to sketch out the classes of burial that are clear, and easily distinguishable from each other.
Fig. 195.—Double-urn burial from Merkes.
The lowest levels, of the time of the first Babylonian kings, Hammurabi and his successors, contain no sarcophagi. The bodies either lay simply in the earth, or at most were rolled in reed mats or were roughly surrounded by mud bricks. They were almost always laid out at full length, and often in an attitude that gives an impression that they were left in the same place and situation in which they died.
Fig. 196.—Trough coffin, with lid.
Fig. 197.—Trough coffin, opened.