(A. The Principal Building)

The ancient celebrated temple, Esagila, according to Jastrow “the lofty house” (Religion of Babylonia, p. 639), the temple of Marduk, lies beneath the hill of Amran Ibn Ali (Fig. 123) buried to a depth of 21 metres below the upper level of the hill. We have already excavated some part of it, and by means of deep shafts and galleries we have established the ground-plan and the different divisions. There are two buildings adjacent to each other; the principal one on the east is very regularly and magnificently planned, of the Western Annex we have only recovered the outer circuit. We will first survey the principal building.

The temple is almost square, with its northern front of 79.3 metres and its western front of 85.8 metres long. Inside it is a court 31.3 metres broad and 37.6 metres long. On the west of this court, as we learn from the mighty-towered façade, there was the principal cella, that of Marduk. The chambers are not yet excavated. On the south side towards the east there is a smaller cella, which can be recognised as such by the niche in the wall. The cella lies on the east side of a square, which on the west side has a door leading to a small chamber which may also be the remains of a cella.

A third cella has been excavated on the north side of the court. It is apparently the sanctuary of the god Ea, who in Greek times was identified with Serapis (see Tempel von Babylon, p. 43). It was here that the generals of Alexander sought counsel of the god with regard to his illness, whether the king should permit himself to be transported hither in search of healing. Doors lead north to two chambers behind the cella, an arrangement that is not found in any other cella. If my expressed opinion is correct these chambers may have been the dormitories in which oracular dreams could be secured. In the cella, which also had a side chamber at the east end, the postament for the statue still stands in front of the niche. Imprinted on the asphalt covering of its flat top we found traces of a wooden throne, which, during the conflagration, had become charred and broken up. Of the richly carved work some fragments could still be recognised, the figures that supported the throne, holding the water vase with which Ea, god of the abyss of waters, was usually represented, a fine head of a dragon, a fish, and so forth.

The paved floor with its wash of asphalt is slightly dominated by the postament, which has in front of it a shallow step flanked by two small balustrades.

The pavement was repeatedly raised, and with it the mighty door sockets and the postament (Fig. 124). Of the six pavements the two upper ones are Nebuchadnezzar’s, and the two middle ones are of Sardanapalus, who states on the stamps of his brick, 33 × 33 centimetres (Fig. 125), that he made the “bricks of Esagila and Etemenanki.” In this pavement there was one, 40 × 40 centimetres, brick of Esarhaddon, which, according to the stamp, belonged to “the pavement of Esagila” (Fig. 126). The name of the temple is therefore fully established by inscription as Esagila. On bricks found by us in the vicinity, Esagila is often mentioned in conjunction with Etemenanki or with Babylon (Fig. 127). The two lower pavements have no stamps. The walls of the court at this lower and more ancient level are adorned with mouldings, while the walls above are plain.

At the doors, and in front of the wall piers, we again found the brick caskets; in one of these lay a clay figure of a bearded man with bull’s feet, and holding a palm or something of the kind (Fig. 128).

The upper pavement lies on an average 4.5 metres above zero. The enclosing walls, which, including the 2–metres-thick kisu, are 6 metres thick, consist, like the entire building, of mud brick, and the kisu of 32 × 32–centimetre unstamped burnt brick; it must therefore be older than the time of Nebuchadnezzar, who does not appear to have carried out any vigorous restoration here.

The treatment of the walls is similar to that of Emach in an intensified form. Here every tower is placed between two flanking towers, thus forming a unit of three towers. This also occurs in the great temple of Nebo in Borsippa. Exactly in the middle of each side there is a great gateway elaborated with massive projecting towers. Paved ramps, with side balustrades, lead up to the three gateways on the north, west, and south. All is on a larger scale than in other temples. The symmetrical planning which in other temples leaves much to be desired, is here remarkably accurate, and here alone is an entrance to be found on each side.

Although from the outside these gateways all appear to be alike, the east gate must have been the principal entrance, as it has a passage through a magnificent vestibule that leads direct to the court, while the entrance through the north and south doors leads first into a small vestibule and then through a corridor that runs by the side of it. On the walls of the court also doorways and towers are symmetrically alternated.

A considerable similarity exists between our temple and the description of the “temples” that lay near the zikurrat given in Smith’s summary of an inscription (see p. 192 et seq.). Smith was not then aware of the difference between Esagila and the Bel sanctuary of Herodotus. His “temples” have measurements and proportions which, on account of their disproportionate length, are entirely impossible as such. For enclosed chambers they are far too widely spanned. They can therefore only be measurements of the area of separate parts of the temples, including the adjacent walls. If all of these are added together we find that they amount almost exactly to the occupied area of Esagila. Furthermore, these areas can with ease be arranged so as to fill in the ground plan of Esagila with very few discrepancies.

Then again the principal cellae are here, that of Marduk and of Zarpanit in the west, and that of Ea in the north, while that of Anu and Bel may at least find its counterpart in the double cella in the south of Esagila. Thus the measurements of Smith’s “temples” must have been taken either directly from Esagila or perhaps from the temple on the top of the zikurrat, which must then have had much the same dimensions and arrangements as Esagila. It is to be expected that the further excavations of Esagila will throw light on these most interesting questions.

Allusions to Esagila, and information regarding its rebuilding and endowment, are, of course, very frequent in Babylonian inscriptions, especially in those of Nebuchadnezzar, who calls himself the “fosterer of Esagila” on every one of his millions of bricks. In the Steinplatten inscription he says (col. 2, 30, K.B. iii. 2, p. 15): “Silver, gold, costly precious stones, bronze, mismakannu—and cedar wood, all conceivable valuables, great (?) superabundance, the product of the mountains, the wealth of the sea, a heavy burden, a sumptuous gift, I brought to my city of Babil before him, and deposited in Esagila, the palace of his lordship, a gigantic abundance. Ekua, the chamber of Marduk, lord of the gods, I made to gleam like the sun. Its walls I clothed with solid (?) gold instead of clay (?) or chalk (?), with lapis and alabaster the temple area. Kaḫilisir, or the ‘door of state,’ as also the Ezida gate of Esagila, I caused to be made bright as the sun—Du-azag, the place of the naming of destiny, that is Ub-šu-ukkenna, the chamber of destiny, in which at Zakmuk or the New Year, on the 8th and 11th day, the ‘King of the gods of heaven and of earth’ the lord of the gods takes up his abode, while the gods of heaven and of earth, reverentially awaiting him, bow before him, at the place where he allotteth the destiny of eternal duration as the lot of my life:—the same chamber, the chamber of majesty, the chamber of the lordship of the wise one among the gods, the exalted Marduk, that an earlier king had furnished with silver, I clothed with shining gold, a magnificent adornment. The outfit of the temple of Esagila I beautified with solid (?) gold, the Kua-ship with sarîr and stones like unto the stars of heaven.—The temples of Babil I caused to be re-established and I took care of them. I covered the top of Etemenanki with blue glazed burnt brick.—My heart impels me to build Esagila, I keep it perpetually before mine eyes. The best of my cedars, that I brought from Lebanon, the noble forest, I sought out for the roofing over of Ekua, the chamber of his lordship, with deliberate care, the mightiest cedars I covered with gleaming gold for the roofing of Ekua. The šîbi below the roofing cedars I decorated with gold and precious stones. For the restoration of Esagila I make supplication every morning to the king of gods, the lord of lords” (trans. by Delitzsch).

The four doors of Esagila are mentioned by Neriglissar in his cylinder inscription (K.B. iii. 2, p. 73): “Esagila and Ezida I beautified. The temples I placed in order, noble worship (?) I adhered to (?) perpetually. The bronze serpents ... (?) on the face of the walls (i-na ki-si-i) of the doorways of Esagila which ... are placed standing at the ‘door of the Rising Sun,’ at the ‘door of the Setting Sun,’ at the ‘door of Abundance,’ at the ‘door of ...’ (which) no earlier king had erected, I the humble, the submissive, who am learned in the worship of the gods, have erected. Eight serpents standing upright (sirruš) ... (?) which hiss deadly poison against the nefarious and the foe, I have clothed with a covering of shining silver; and at the door of the Rising Sun, at the door of the Setting Sun, at the door of Abundance, and at the door of ... on the walls of these self-same doors according to ancient custom ... silver ... in accordance with its exalted destiny, set up in ...” (trans. by Bezold). The eight sirrush were undoubtedly on the balustrades of the entrance ramps, two at each gate.

Herodotus calls the temple the κατω νηος, in which, according to him, there was a great seated statue of Zeus, that like the throne, the footstool, and table was formed of gold of the weight of 800 talents.

Small objects found on the pavement show that this must have remained open as late as the Seleucid period. Thus the building existed long unroofed, and crumbled into an accumulation of rubbish amounting to 4 or 5 metres high. Then the mud walls fell down flat, and in this position we found them (Fig. 129), and over them rubbish of all sorts was accumulated for a long period, which, during our excavations, appeared in most unpleasant guise as a horrible, black, powdery mass. At a height of 14 metres above zero mud-brick houses begin once more, which become poorer in the higher parts of the midden, until at last they almost entirely disappear. The upper layer certainly contains traces of habitation, and among them many Arabic glazed sherds, but scarcely walls, and the Babylon of that period, whose inhabited area was confined to this mound, must have presented a somewhat miserable aspect. As Hilleh was founded in the eleventh century A.D., we may assume that Babylon ceased to be inhabited at that time. The sacred tomb of Amran Ibn Ali (Fig. 130), somewhat to the south of the temple, consists of two cupolas inside the walls of a court, against which various halls and secondary buildings are placed. It is the latest building on the town site of Babylon, for the Euphrates flowed previously where the village of Kweiresh now lies.