We now turn our attention to the three fortification walls, that follow the direction of the ancient Arachtu walls, but which overlap them and stretch farther to the west.

The northernmost consists of brick rubble, and extends from the cross wall near the Ishtar Gate right over the ancient fosse wall, apparently to the moat wall of Imgur-Bel. In front of it lay a building of which several parallel lines of wall still remain. In these are cavities, due to the insertion of upright bricks, where the beams of an upper storey rested; the lower storey, of which the flooring still exists, has the very moderate height of about 1.5 metres. Corresponding cavities for beams are hewn out in the wall of brick rubble, as well as some isolated niches, which may well have served to afford more space in these narrow chambers. The two mud-brick walls are of course later than the Nabopolassar walls that lie below them, but older than Nebuchadnezzar’s Ishtar Gate. Where the southern thicker wall abuts on the wing of the gate, there was a space one metre wide, enclosed on the north side only by a slight mud wall. Here also it is obvious that the mud wall was cut off for the purpose of building the Ishtar Gate. At the time when the latter was built the two walls were repaired and raised, and the narrower wall was turned slightly northward in order to secure a flush fitting to the wing of the gate erected there. The southern wall, which is 6 metres thick and has a scarcely perceptible batter, has a curtain length of 15.3 metres, with large towers placed across it and smaller ones placed lengthways in regular alternation (see Fig. 81). At the west it ends with a specially large tower. In the second mesopyrgion from the west there is a door, of which the earliest embrasure consists of unstamped burnt bricks measuring from 32 × 32 to 31 × 31 centimetres. The pavement is only 2 metres above zero. At a later period the jamb also was faced with burnt brick with Nebuchadnezzar’s stamps, and the pavement was raised to 2.65 metres, and later again to 4.5 above zero. At this later period the part of the Southern Citadel which is opposite our door did not yet exist, and the threshold rested on a sharply sloped supporting wall which lies immediately in front of the Southern Citadel. It is built of mud brick, and on the inside every second course was laid with broken brick. It is possible that this supporting wall was made in order to safeguard the path while these portions of the Citadel were built. At a later period the embrasure was strengthened and the pavement was raised to 5.5 metres above zero. It is a double layer, the lower one of broken brick and the upper one of Nebuchadnezzar’s paving tiles, 51 centimetres square, and completely covered the interval to the Southern Citadel. In the pavement and in holes made for the purpose in the mud walls there were interments in brick coffins, with gable-shaped covers formed of bricks placed edgeways, which are very characteristic of the culture of Greece and its allies. It is the latest important style of pavement lying here, and we can scarcely err if we assign it to the Babylonian kingdom on account of its great similarity with the pavement of the Southern Citadel. On this floor rests also a reinforcement of a section of the mud wall accompanying it on the south side.

All these pavements lead upwards from west to east, and under each is the drain belonging to it that carried off the water towards the west.

On the 5th tower from the west, at a height of 13 metres above zero, there can be seen the cavities of a thick grid work laid lengthways. It apparently carried the baulks of a cross grid which no longer exists, and both were intended to serve as a new footing for a heightening of the wall. The corners of the towers are secured in places by wooden braces inlaid at the corners one over another.

In the space between the walls we again find several pavements laid one above another. Among them, in the eastern part, are the great paving tiles of Nebuchadnezzar, 13 to 14 metres above zero. Less substantial mud walls have been patched in the central part and extend over the northern wall, which must therefore have been ruined at that time. On the other hand, near the 3rd tower from the east, there is part of an older thick mud wall, which was cut through at the building of the double wall. It is over 3 metres thick, with a marked batter on the north side, and descends as deep as 3 metres above zero. Its direction differs somewhat from that of the double wall, and is roughly that of the Sargon wall. It is not probable, however, that it dates back to the time of Sargon; we have dug especially deep at this point, as much as one metre below zero (Fig. 92), and can therefore state with certainty that there is no foundation here such as that of the Sargon wall. Remains of a flooring of bricks measuring 29 × 29 centimetres lie 20 centimetres below zero.

Originally the northern wall consisted entirely of mud bricks, but at the time of the building of the Ishtar Gate it was faced on both sides with broken brick laid in asphalt and mud. On the east these descend as deep as 4.5 metres above zero, and on the west, where the whole enclosure lay lower, 2.2 metres. This refacing formed only part of the alterations (see Fig. 87). At the level where the old mud wall ended a massive wall of burnt brick began, of the thickness of the mud wall, including its two facings. At the western part this was placed at a height of 13 metres, where, as in the southern wall, the thick wooden grid still remains in its cavities. At the west end the burnt-brick wall begins at 3.5 metres, and still stands in place on the mud wall. Thus the wall appears as one of burnt brick, containing an older core of mud brick in the lower part.

That the refacing was not part of the original plan is shown by the fact that in some of the mud-brick towers the cavities of walled-up gutters still remain, such as we find in the city walls and the temples. The brick casings of the gutters were taken away, and in their place the brickwork of the facing was jointed in. With the exception of being widened the wall was little altered by the new building. The towers correspond in no way with those of the principal wall, at any rate it is only in the eastern portion that the same principle has been adopted, and a tower placed crossways is always succeeded by a smaller one placed lengthways. Here too, however, the western end consists of an especially large tower exactly in a straight line with that of the principal wall.

The gateway in the west forms, in its position, its facings, and alterations a fairly exact counterpart of that in the principal wall. But, besides this, the mud wall had also four other gateways, of which only the one in the 5th mesopyrgion was retained in the rebuilding. A drain with two inlet shafts carried off the surface water from here with a sharp fall to the south, probably to the main conduit behind the principal wall.

In front of the two wall heads at the west lay a building with the usual arrangement of a court and surrounding chambers. It was built over the ancient fosse wall, which by that time was destroyed, and might well represent the dwelling of the commandant of the walls.

There were also two wall lengths of mud brick of a similar kind on the east of the Ishtar Gate. They are not long. The thicker one breaks off in the 2nd mesopyrgion, and is there supported by a later sloping embankment wall, which turns off in a south-easterly direction, where we have already followed it for 25 metres. The northern wall length is still shorter. The excavations, which at this point were carried considerably below the base of the mud wall, yielded mud and river sediment that apparently came from the Euphrates, which during the Persian period washed the eastern side of the Acropolis. In Nebuchadnezzar’s time these walls certainly extended farther east, and united themselves in some way, which is not yet entirely explained, with the inner city wall, which according to the inscriptions found there is to be recognised as the Nimitti-Bel of Sardanapalus. This is the more certain because the Ishtar Gate is also named in inscriptions as belonging to Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel. Thus it is imperative that we should make a slight digression of 1000 metres to the east in order to observe this fortification. After that we will return to the Kasr.