The route from the south-west corner of the Kasr to Amran leads first to a small mound which we have named the south-west building. It consists largely of mud-brick masonry that belongs to the later Parthian (?) period. So far we have done little excavation here. We next pass the long low-lying stretch that now represents a water-channel that once lay here. We then ascend a range of mounds that also extends from east to west. A cross-cut has shown that it consists of the ruins of Babylonian houses of crude brick, lying one above another, as we shall find them later in Merkes. This was the town site of the common people.

On the other side of this range of mounds a somewhat considerable plain of remarkable uniformity stretches away to the hill of Amran Ibn Ali, cut through diagonally by the road that leads from our village of Kweiresh to Hilleh. It is called Sachn, literally “the pan,” a term which in modern days is applied to the open space enclosed by arcades that surrounds the great pilgrimage mosques, such as those of Kerbela or Nedjef. Our Sachn, however, is no other than the modern representation of the ancient sacred precinct in which stood the zikurrat Etemenanki, “the foundation stone of heaven and earth,” the tower of Babylon, surrounded by an enclosing wall against which lay all manner of buildings connected with the cult (Fig. 114).

This enclosing wall forms almost a square, divided by cross walls into separate parts, three of which we have already recognised. All the buildings consisted largely of crude brick, and only, as an exception, the very considerable crude-brick core of the tower in the south-west corner was enclosed in a thick wall of burnt brick, which has been removed deep down by brick robbers. Now only their deep and broad trenches are to be seen, but these enable us to recognise the site of a great open stairway which led up to the tower from the south. The ruin is not yet excavated.

Many additions and restorations were carried out in connection with these buildings, and they can clearly be distinguished, especially in the enclosing wall itself. The east end of the northern front is very instructive in this respect. We can distinguish the original building and a strengthening wall, the kisu, in front of it. Here it is of crude brick, but on the west front, like the kisu of Emach, it is of burnt brick. On the original building three periods lie superposed, as also on the kisu. Of each of these building periods slightly projecting towers are placed on the walls close together, and differently distributed, which considerably aids us in distinguishing the periods, as the mud-brick courses are frequently placed immediately over each other (Fig. 115). Inside the lowest kisu, somewhat farther to the west, there is a vertical gutter of the kind we have already observed in the inner city walls. In this were inscribed bricks of Esarhaddon (Fig. 116), with the statement that he built the zikurrat of Etemenanki. The two upper portions of the kisu must therefore belong to a later period, and the lower part of the main building to an earlier period, than that of Esarhaddon. The other excavations have produced in addition 12 stamped bricks of Sardanapalus (Fig. 117) and 4 inscribed bricks of Nebuchadnezzar (Fig. 118), all of which refer to the building of Etemenanki. Even if these bricks were not intended for the peribolos, but for the tower itself, their occasional use for the former is in no way surprising. All that we have been able to excavate so far is connected with the original building, of which the later repairing and rebuilding carefully follow the ancient line of wall. We need not therefore lay too much stress on the various periods.

The surrounding wall is for the greater part a double wall, in which uniform broad chambers are constructed by means of cross walls. The ornamental towers on the inner walls are always placed between two doors of these chambers, while on the outside, where the two ornamental grooves that used to decorate both the towers and the intermediate spaces still exist in places, both towers and spaces are of the same breadth.

There are buildings at other points of the encircling walls always joined to the outer wall. Large as they are, they have none of the characteristics of temples. Two large buildings lay on the east side, each with a large court surrounded by deep chambers uniform in size. In the corner there is a dwelling grouped round a courtyard, and on the south side there are four similar ones, which, although smaller, are very large and dignified mansions. At the east of the northern part the usual small private houses form an independent line of street.

Two doors in the north and ten elaborate gateways with an inner court and towered façade afforded access to the interior. The two eastern of these and the four at the south are placed at the end of deep recesses formed by the outer wall being carried back, thus forming roomy forecourts. The four southern gateways have the typical towered façade also on the side that faces inwards. The southern gate on the east side, which was the largest, is destroyed, but we can reconstruct it without difficulty.

Very little remains of the south-east corner. Near the south-west corner a chambered wall projects to the north, and with the outer wall forms a long narrow court in which there were no other chambers than those formed in the wall. Apparently this narrow court extended as far as the northern gateway in the western wall, and here apparently it joined at right angles another wall which extended here in the same line as the northern front of the great building on the east side; of this wall, however, only the western end now exists. It skirted a northern area, in which the above-mentioned private houses lay.

We have thus three divisions inside the peribolos: the northern court (NH on Fig. 114) with the small houses, the long narrow western court (WH), and the principal court (HH) which contained the zikurrat of Etemenanki (ET) and all the other monumental buildings (Fig. 119).

Low down on the north, close to the zikurrat, there were ancient buildings orientated in an entirely different direction, and on the east front, also at a great depth, there lay a large ancient building (Ä), over which the main building of the peribolos was carried. Neither of these had anything to do with the sanctuary as such.

We can only hazard a guess as to the purpose of all those buildings. The wall chambers are adapted by their simplicity to house a number of pilgrims, who could dwell there and have direct access to the great courts. The buildings in the south I take to have been priests’ dwellings. Under no circumstances can they have been temples, as all the necessary features are absent, such as the towered façade and the postament niche. The priests of Etemenanki must have occupied very distinguished positions as representatives of the god who bestowed the kingship of Babylon, and the immense private houses to the south of our peribolos agree very well with the supposition in regard to this Vatican of Babylon, that the principal administrative apparatus would be housed there. The numerous chambers of the two great buildings in the east will be recognised by all as store-rooms where the property of the sanctuary and the things needed for processions, etc., could be stored. In one of these chambers, which for the most part are not yet cleared, we found a great stone weight in the form of a duck (Fig. 120), the usual form of such weights. It weighs 29.68 kilogrammes and, according to the chiselled inscription on it, was called a “correct talent.” All the buildings are much ruined, often as low down as beneath the ancient pavement. In the north-east corner of the peribolos a stela with emblems of the gods was found (Fig. 121).

The main approach lay between the two store-houses just mentioned, where from the existence of a specially deep and wide recess we can surmise a specially large gateway, which, though it exists no longer, admits of easy reconstruction. The turminabanda pavement of the Procession Street reaches as far as this, and continues in the recess where the paving-blocks still lie that bear the inscription of Nebuchadnezzar on their edge. Some of these have the name and title of Sennacherib on the under side (cf. Fig. 36).

In the Ripley-cylinder of Neriglissar (K.B. iii. 2, p. 79) the peribolos is called “lânu ma-ḫir-tim.” According to Muss-Arnolt’s dictionary the words mean “enclosure” and “storehouse.” With the exception of these two words I give Bezold’s translation, which otherwise only requires correction in slight details: “The peribolos of the store-houses of Esagila to the north, wherein the consecrated temple treasury of Esagila rests (trans. by Delitzsch, ‘wherein the priests of Esagila dwell’) whose foundations an earlier king laid but did not build its summit, (this building) had sunk in its foundations, its walls were fallen down, its joints were loosened, and its base had become weak. Then my lord the great Marduk inspired me to raise up the building, entrusted me (?) with the splendour (?) and the regulation of the temple tribute. In order to incur no Shiddim and no offences, I dug up the ancient foundation stone and read it (its records). On its ancient foundation stone I based it (the building), its summit I raised like a mountain, I made firm its threshold and fixed the doors in its doorway. The firm Kisu I built of asphalt and burnt brick (?)” According to this the Kisu of burnt brick which was found in the excavations on the west side was of Neriglissar.

The original of the second Babylonian text that refers to the enclosure has disappeared. We possess only an epitome of it given by Smith^[3] (Hommel, Geographie Vorderasiens und Nordostafrikas, p. 315, and Thureau-Dangin, Journal asiatique, janvier 1909). But the statements can only be reconciled with the existing remains with great difficulty, and then only in general. The measurements given for the three courts should agree with the ruins, at least as regards the relations of length to breadth, but this is not so whether we take the measurement of the walls outside or of the open space within the courts. The only possible solution appears to me to be that we take the measures given as those of the “great court” to be meant for the south-east portion, including the buildings surrounding it, that we take the “court of Ishtar and Zamana” to mean what we call the north court, and the third to mean the inner open space of our great court. But even so there are difficulties. Under these circumstances we need not attach any great importance to the measurements given for the alleged 7 stages of the tower. Those uncertainties are caused by the fact that the original inscription is not at hand, we do not know the object for which these statements were made (see App. p. 327).

Herodotus (i. 181) names the group of buildings “the brazen-doored sanctuary of Zeus Belus.” The zikurrat inside the sanctuary he describes as a massive tower on which stood a second, third, up to an eighth tower, above which was a “great temple.” This is the sole ground for our conception of the “terraced towers” of Mesopotamia. In Khorsabad there was the ruin of a tower, where the excavators suspected similar retreating stages to have existed, but Place clearly formed his conclusion under the long-accepted suggestion drawn from the description given by Herodotus, and the ruins themselves no longer exist. In the words of Herodotus himself, however, there is nothing whatever about stepped terraces. He speaks of 8 towers standing one above another, but he does not say that each was smaller than the one below it. I myself desired to accept the general conception of stepped towers, but I know of no safe ground for such a conception. The only remedy I can see for this difficulty is to excavate the best-preserved zikurrat we possess, that of Borsippa.

From the ruins as they now exist before excavation, we must assume that a colossal stairway led up from the south to the top of the immense mass of building. Steps in antiquity were always extremely steep, as we have found them here, and the height and breadth were usually the same, so according to the measurements of the length of the foundations of the steps we may take their height to have been 50 metres.

We do not know the complete height of the tower. Nabopolassar, however, lays great stress on it (M’Gee, Zur Topographie Babylons, A. i.), and so does Nebuchadnezzar (M’Gee, B. vi.) in his cylinder inscription of Etemenanki. Nabopolassar says: “At this time Marduk commanded me ...; the tower of Babylon, which in the time before me had become weak, and had been brought to ruin, to lay its foundation firm on the bosom of the underworld, while its top should stretch heavenwards” (trans. by Delitzsch). Nebuchadnezzar says: “To raise up the top of Etemenanki that it may rival heaven, I laid to my hand.” In both inscriptions mud brick, burnt brick, asphalt, mud, and mighty cedars of Lebanon are mentioned as the materials employed. The latter could scarcely have been employed otherwise than to roof in the temple on the top of the tower.

In distinction to this upper temple Herodotus calls Esagila lying before it to the south the κάτω νηός, the lower temple. In the upper temple, according to Herodotus, there was only a golden table and a κλίνη, and according to Ctesias three gold figures of Zeus, Hera, and Rhea. My opinion is that the designation of the zikurrat as bearing a temple is confirmed by this. The Babylonian term only expresses height, and nothing that can suggest stages. It is obvious that the roof of so lofty a temple would be welcomed by the Babylonian astronomers as a platform for their observations. It would be necessary for them to be raised above the thick atmosphere of the plain. Owing to excessive dryness, the air is almost opaque at a distance, and the horizon up to a height of 10 or 20 grades is a dusky circle of dust, through which the sun and moon often assume torn and distorted forms, if their setting can be seen at all.

It is true that during the summer we have no clouds, with the exception of the Bachura, a type of weather that occurs at the beginning of August, but we have sandstorms, through which the sun appears like a blood-red disc. The greatly-renowned clearness of the Babylonian sky is largely a fiction of European travellers, who are rarely accustomed to observe the night sky of Europe without the intervention of city lights.

The original complete height of the tower of Babylon we do not know. The east side of the peribolos, which is almost similar to the north side, measures 409 metres in round numbers. For the entire sacred enclosure Herodotus gives a measure of 2 square stadia, and 1 stadion as the side length of the area of the zikurrat; the ruins themselves show 90 metres.

But what is all this written information in comparison with the clearness of the evidence we gain from the buildings themselves, ruined though they are. The colossal mass of the tower, which the Jews of the Old Testament regarded as the essence of human presumption, amidst the proud palaces of the priests, the spacious treasuries, the innumerable lodgings for strangers—white walls, bronze doors, mighty fortification walls set round with lofty portals and a forest of 1000 towers,—the whole must have conveyed an overwhelming sense of greatness, power, and wealth, such as could rarely have been found elsewhere in the great Babylonian kingdom.

I once beheld the great silver standing statue of the Virgin, over life-size, laden with votive offerings, rings, precious stones, gold and silver, borne on a litter by forty men, appear in the portal of the dome of Syracuse, high above the heads of the assembled crowds, to be brought out in festival procession with inspiring music and among the fervent prayers of the people into the garden of the Latomia. After the same fashion I picture to myself a procession of the god Marduk as he issued forth from Esagila, perhaps through the peribolos, to proceed on his triumphant way through the Procession Street of Babylon.

Herodotus must have seen the enclosure in a comparatively good state of preservation. Under Alexander it needed repairs, and 600,000 days’ wages were spent on clearing out the precincts and removing the rubbish (Strabo, xvi. 1). During the eleven years of our work we have expended about 800,000 daily wages for the great clearance of Babylon.

Before we pass to the temple of Esagila, which was so closely connected with Etemenanki (p. 204), we will inspect the walls that lie to the west of the enclosure, and the Euphrates bridge.