So far we have traced the eastern, official portion of the palace, which is quite distinct from the private part on the western side of the Principal Court. Here the lowest part represents the earliest palace of those we can recognise on the Kasr. We have named this the palace of Nabopolassar, without, however, having found written authority for it on the site itself. Our grounds for the hypothesis are as follows. In the great Steinplatten inscription, 7, 34, Nebuchadnezzar says: “In Babil, my favourite city, that I love, was the palace, the house the marvel of mankind, the centre of the land, the shining residence, the dwelling of Majesty, upon the Babil place in Babil, from Imgur-bel to the eastern canal Libil-ḫigalla, from the bank of the Euphrates to Aiburšabû, which Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, my father, my begetter, built of crude bricks and dwelt in it—in consequence of high waters its foundations had become weak, and owing to the filling up of the street of Babil the gateways of that palace had become too low. I tore down its walls of dried brick, and laid its corner-stone bare and reached the depth of the waters. Facing the water I laid its foundation firmly, and raised it mountain high with bitumen and burnt brick. Mighty cedars I caused to be laid down at length for its roofing. Door leaves of cedar overlaid with copper, thresholds and sockets of bronze I placed in its doorways. Silver and gold and precious stones, all that can be imagined of costliness, splendour, wealth, riches, all that was highly esteemed I heaped up within it, I stored up immense abundance of royal treasure within it” (trans. by Delitzsch). Nebuchadnezzar undoubtedly speaks here of the whole Southern Citadel. We need not infer from this, however, that the palace of Nabopolassar was of the same extent, for the ancient kings were not too exact with regard to such statements (cf. the inscription of Neriglissar).

The walls of mud brick of which the ancient palace consisted can of course no longer be found, as Nebuchadnezzar states that he destroyed them, but the foundations remain, which he improved and strengthened, and which therefore must have been built of burnt brick and not of crude brick. This method adopted by Nabopolassar of building a wall of crude brick on a foundation of burnt brick is actually seen on the north-west corner of his Arachtu wall, and appears also in the houses in Merkes that date from the time of Hammurabi. It is my opinion that these burnt brick foundations of Nabopolassar still exist on the western part of the Southern Citadel, and if so Nebuchadnezzar made use of them without any alteration in laying out his new building.

We have dug out the ancient building to a considerable depth, especially on the north and south sides. The bricks are of the small size (32 × 32 centimetres), and bear no stamp. They are laid in asphalt and reeds and are crushed and split in every direction. The wall surfaces are daubed over with asphalt, which also covers the split and damaged portions, and thus we have ample evidence of the handiwork of the restorer. On the north side Nebuchadnezzar added to the foundations of the chambers a strengthening length of rubble wall laid with asphalt and reeds, which faced the north front for a breadth of about 10 metres. The ancient wall rises to a height of about 7 metres above zero (see p. 167). Above this lie the usual 33–centimetre bricks with Nebuchadnezzar’s 4–lined stamp, also laid in asphalt and reeds, with the border courses laid in mud. In the lower courses of the later building a number of tiles measuring 44 × 44 × 6 centimetres are built into the wall, which can be recognised with certainty as having been previously used as flagstones by the fragments of gypsum mortar that still adhere to their joints, and show that Nebuchadnezzar very naturally took up the pavement of Nabopolassar, and used it in part as material for the walls. His new pavement consists of ten courses of brick laid in asphalt alone, covered with a layer of brick rubble, over which paving-stones measuring 38·5 × 38·5 are laid. Of this pavement, however, we have found little more than a small piece, which still remains in the southern chambers. This later pavement was apparently higher than the old one, but 7 metres lower than that in the great eastern portion. Of the final alterations that brought the whole up to one and the same level there are only traces, for instance, the building by which the principal hall adjoining the Western Court (W) was enlarged.

The ancient palace comes to an end at the squaring line i of Fig. 44. Originally it extended farther, and the wall that faces west was here chipped off, when the portion farthest to the west was added. On the south, on the contrary, the ancient palace wall still stands and is distinctly escarped (Fig. 68). Here Nebuchadnezzar jointed his brickwork with a grid-like insertion of beams of poplar wood laid lengthways and crossways to strengthen it. The foundations of the adjoining chambers have also a filling of broken brick to the east and of mud brick to the west.

Of the eastern side nothing is visible except on the north. Here we see that the pillars of the doors of the three arches of the broad passage-way do not exist below in the ancient building, as was only to be expected, as the eastern building was not yet in existence at that time. Near the corner is a groove forming an expansion joint for the wall that originally joined it at this place, the fortification wall of Nabopolassar, which must have united here with the line of the palace wall. Nebuchadnezzar, however, substituted for it a brick wall of his own, which he pushed farther to the north.

The north front is in good preservation at this point and is very remarkable (Fig. 69). It is treated in the stepped or toothed fashion that we have already met with. As the deviation from the line of the walls of the building is very considerable, the steps are short, and on the façade, which is 80 metres long, there are 80 of these vertical steps, which give a unique appearance, to be met with in no other order of architecture. The stepped wall rests on a level foundation at the height at which Nabopolassar’s pavement must originally have been laid. At the same level a grid of poplar wood is inserted in the brickwork, and a beam is placed on each long side and another on the short side of each projection. This can be clearly seen in the photograph. Where the doorway leads to the passage to the court, the step is made larger in order to afford convenient space for the door.

A large part of the ground-plan is still buried under rubbish, which up to the present time has prevented our gaining a clear idea of the general arrangement. The entrance from the east consists of a three-chambered building, which differs somewhat in arrangement from the usual plan of a gateway building. The towers that are found elsewhere at the sides of gateways of any importance are absent here. The first room, which is unusually spacious, affords access to the double house 37 and 38. Two doors lead to the chamber near the court, and two more direct to the court. At these doors there are still the great stone sockets of the hinges. Owing to uneven setting they became much distorted, but they were already in this condition when they were washed over with gypsum mortar.

The houses of this part of the palace are remarkable for the strength of their walls and the admirable regularity with which they are laid out. Court 38 is reached by a passage-way from the Western Court and also by the wide passage from the Principal Court, the latter through a hall which, as in the case of 25, 26, and 27, opens with three doors on to court 38. Between the doors, pillars project from the walls, and correspond with others on the opposite side. They must have served as piers to support arches for the ceiling, although it is difficult to make out clearly what was the object of this structure. In this house, as in the neighbouring one and in the house farther east, the irregularity of the floor space has been utilised to form an alcove or niche, and these rooms may safely be regarded as sleeping chambers. In one of the doorways we found a statuette of Papsukal, such as we have elsewhere found only in the temples (Fig. 70).

At the north-west corner, where, as we have already stated, the palace is broken off, although it did not end there originally, a hole is cut from the north low down into the massive brickwork, which contained a pottery coffin of very unusual size. After it had been inserted the hole was once more bricked up with Nebuchadnezzar’s bricks. As the outer fortification wall, which runs parallel and completely concealed the opening, also dates from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, it is obvious that the burial must be of his time. The dead man must have been the object of deepest reverence, and with this his funerary outfit is in entire agreement. The place had been opened and plundered before we came, but in the rubbish concealed by the immense sarcophagus we found gold beads, and also a large number of small gold plates, with a hole by which they had been sewn on to some material, forming a sumptuous decoration. Most of them are circular, but with them are some rectangular plates somewhat larger, which bear moulded representations; a bearded man offering before the symbol of Marduk, or the gateway of a fortress with towers and battlements (see Fig. 20). When we consider that only a very small portion of the outfit has escaped the tomb robbers, we realise that the body was provided with rich gold ornaments, and arrayed in garments richly spangled with gold, and that this personage during his lifetime must have occupied a very conspicuous and important position at the court of Babylon, our thoughts turn to Nabopolassar, and we almost wonder whether he himself had not been laid within his palace wall by his son.

Of the remaining buildings on this side, we have nothing of importance to communicate owing to the unfinished state of the excavations, nor is there much to report with regard to the buildings to the south of the Western Court: only a part of the Great Hall is excavated. We recognise the additional building, with its wall pushed towards the north. It is built with the two-ridged bricks of Nebuchadnezzar, and the peculiar effect of this method of building can here be seen clearly (Fig. 71). Behind the hall we again find a series of three chambers, all apparently similar to each other, such as we find behind the great halls of the Principal and Central Courts. In the chambers next to court 40 are two circular walled-in wells, and in each case the foundation of the chamber that contains them is also filled in with rubble brickwork.