A short distance to the east of temple “Z,” in the actual Ishin aswad, lies the temple of Ninib, of which the name Epatutila, according to Hommel (Geographie Vorderasiens, p. 313), means “House of the sceptre of life” (Bit-ḫaṭ-ṭu-balâṭi).ubalâṭi?] Its principal part was built by Nabopolassar (Figs. 142, 143).

The somewhat oblique-angled ground-plan shows three entrances which led into the great court through vestibules, with the usual side-chambers. In front of the eastern one lay the altar, and opposite it on the other side of the court was the principal cella, with towered front and two side cellae. Each cella had its postament for the statue in front of the wall niche exactly opposite the door. On the north and on the south were wide gateways, also with towered façades, which must have been placed there to provide entrance and exit for the festival processions that passed in front of the cellae.

From a small secondary court in the north-west corner a long narrow passage runs behind the cellae to the chamber at the south corner, from which a concealed entrance appears to have been contrived to the three cellae, which were themselves connected with each other by doors.

The main flooring, a double layer of 31 × 31–centimetre bricks, lies 2.4 metres above zero, while the walls reach down to 22 centimetres below zero. Close under this flooring, in the doorways of the cellae, and merely laid in the sand of the filling, were the foundation cylinders of Nabopolassar (Fig. 144). In the inscriptions, which are identical, Nabopolassar says (l. 17): “The Assyrian who since many days had ruled the whole of the peoples and had placed the people of the land under his heavy yoke;—I the weak one, the humble one, who reveres the lord of lords, through the mighty war power of Nabu and Marduk my lords kept back their foot from the land of Akkad and caused their yoke to be thrown off. At that time E-pa-tu-ti-la, the temple of Ninib, which (is) in Šú-an-na-ki, which before me an earlier king had caused to be built, but had not completed his work, upon the renewing of this temple was my desire (fixed), I summoned the vassals of Enlil, Šamaš and Marduk, caused them to bear the allu, laid upon them the dupšíkku. Without ceasing I caused the work of the temple to be completed. Mighty beams I laid for its roof, lofty doors I placed in its gateways. This temple I caused to shine like the sun and for Ninib my lord to glow like the day” (trans. by Weissbach). There is nothing in the ruins to show how much of the lower part of the walls should be ascribed to the earlier building mentioned in this inscription.

A number of brick caskets lay at each side of the main gateways and in the entrance of those at the north and south. In them, formed of some perishable material (wood?) (Fig. 145), there stood figures of which some remains have been recovered; sword belts with a copper sword, a silver girdle, small clubs with knobs of onyx still clasped in the wooden hand, and small copper buckets (situlae). About 1 metre below the postament of the principal cella stood a well-preserved figure of Papsukal, the divine messenger, now so well known to us, in his narrow brick simâku (Fig. 146).

After the time of Nabopolassar the floor was three times raised with Nebuchadnezzar’s bricks to a height of 4.2 metres above zero. At 6 metres above zero the wall ruins end. Here in the rubbish of the ruins lie the trough sarcophagi of the Seleucid period.

The exterior (Fig. 147), as well as the court, is enriched with plain towers, while the gateway towers are grooved. At the northern door, through which the processions passed out, the projection of the towers is less than in the other two. At the south-east corner, where two gateways adjoin each other, an additional grooved tower is introduced. A large vertical gutter, built of 31 × 31 centimetre bricks, in the east front carried off the rain-water from the roof.

Among the terra-cottas found here during the excavations, the most frequent types are: (1) a bearded figure holding a vase in both hands (see Fig. 212) and wearing a long frilled garment on the cylindrical lower part of the body; (2) a nude female figure with arms hanging down (see Fig. 211); (3) an ape. If the two first represent Ninib and his consort Gula, the third cella is left for the ape. What part was played by these creatures in Babylon I will not attempt to discover. It must have been an important one, for the figures of these squatting apes are found not only here, but over the whole area in great numbers (Fig. 148). The workmanship varies; some are modelled in the finest and most realistic manner, others are treated more or less as idols, and many are practically mere crude upright lumps of clay, in which the figure of an ape would be unrecognisable were it not possible to compare them with innumerable examples of somewhat better workmanship.

Beside these types we found a number of small figures of horsemen. The oldest of these, which date back to the time before Nabopolassar, and of which several have been found in the temple, are some of them glazed (Fig. 149); the details are always roughly modelled by hand, and the rider sits like a lump of clay on the neck of a barely recognisable horse. Later on these riders were more carefully worked, the horse’s head was slightly modelled, while the legs remain shapeless stumps, the rider becomes a long strip sitting across the animal, and only the bearded head of the rider is produced from a fairly good mould (Fig. 150). He wears a hood, which in one type has the point erect, while in another it falls on one side, as in the figure of Darius in the mosaic of Pompeii.

It is only in yet later examples that the complete modelling of both horse and rider first makes its appearance. The figure of a woman, of which several examples have been found in the temple, is entirely analogous both in form and general workmanship. She is carried on a horse in a covered litter with a semicircular top (Fig. 151). A similar form of litter is in use in the neighbourhood to-day under the name of Ketshaue.