The heights of Babil afford a fine view (Fig. 6) over the entire city, especially towards evening when the long purple shadows cast on the plain throw up the golden yellow outlines of the ruins in high relief. No human habitation is in sight. The villages on the left bank of the Euphrates—Kweiresh, where our house is, and Djumdjumma farther south—are so buried among the green date palms that one can scarcely catch a glimpse of even a wall. On the other bank are Sindjar and Ananeh also concealed in the same way, although the latter village with the farm of Karabet stands forward somewhat more clearly. The Euphrates is fringed with palms which cluster more thickly near the water. To the south above their ornamental crowns the minaret of Hilleh gleams, and in the blue distance can be seen a somewhat pointed hill surmounted by a jagged wall, the ruin of E-ur-imin-an-ki, the tower of Borsippa. Due east is the mound of Oheimir, where are the ruins of the ancient Babylonian Kish (?), towards the north the palms of Khan Mhauil are to be seen, and, when the weather is favourable, Tell Ibrahim, the ancient Kutha. With these exceptions all that is visible is the sombre dun-coloured desert. The cultivated stretches are diminishing in extent and are only noticeable for those few weeks in the year when they are clothed with green.

To those accustomed to Greece and its remains it is a constant surprise to have these mounds pointed out as ruins. Here are no blocks of stone, no columns: even in the excavations there is only brickwork, while before work commenced only a few brick projections stood out on the Kasr. Here in Babylonia mounds form the modern representatives of ancient glories, there are no columns to bear witness to vanished magnificence.

The great mound, the Kasr or castle, forms the centre of the city. It is the great castle of Nebuchadnezzar that he built for a palace, completing the work of his father, Nabopolassar. The modern name Kasr thus expresses the purpose for which it was built. By Greek historians it was called the Acropolis, by Romans the Arx. In area it is three or four times as large as Babil, but it is not so high, and when observed from that hill the greater part is hidden by palms. This Acropolis, built on what is called the Irsit Babylon (Steinplatten inscription, col. 7 l. 40), the piazza or town square of Babylon, is actually the original Babylon, the Bab-Ilani, the Gate of the Gods. It commanded the approach to the greatest and most renowned sanctuary of Babylonia, the temple of Marduk called Esagila. This lies somewhat farther to the south, buried 20 metres deep under the great hill, the third of the three great mounds of Babylon, Amran Ibn Ali, a name acquired from the sanctuary which is upon it, the tomb of Amran the son of Ali. It is 25 metres high, the highest of all the mounds, and owes this to the fact that after all the other sites were abandoned it was occupied for habitation right up to the Middle Ages, under Arab rule. Close by to the north lies the rectangular ruin of the tower of Babylon, E-temen-an-ki, on a small plain called Sachn, that represents its sacred precincts. Due east of the Kasr a smaller but unmistakably higher mound rises from the plain, called from its red colour Homera. It conceals no buildings, but from top to bottom it consists of brick fragments. We shall return to it later. Close by, almost due north and south, extends the low ridge of ruins of the inner city wall that encircled the inner portion of the city in a line not yet fully traced. Between Homera and Amran, as well as to the south of the latter, and between the Kasr and Babil, we see the plain broken by a number of low mounds distributed in groups. Here clustered the dwellings of the citizens of Babylon, and the recollection of them has so far survived to the present day that one of these groups south-east of the Kasr is called by the Arabs Merkes, the city or centre of the dwellings. It is here that the dwellings and streets of the city of the time of the Persian kings, and as far back as that of the earliest Babylonian kings, have survived in the mass of ruins. Externally these remains present the appearance of mountainous country in miniature; heights, summits, ravines, and tablelands are all here. At Merkes there is a sharp hill visible from a distance, due to an excavation previous to our expedition when the rubbish dug out was collected there. There are also public buildings buried in the ruins. Thus between Homera and Merkes there is a Greek temple, on Merkes itself is a temple, and there are two in the so-called Ishin aswad, the district south-east of Amran.

Where there are no mounds, husbandry is carried on to some extent. In the eastern corner, in the angle of the outer wall, the overflow of water collects in a lake during the period of irrigation. But even in this low quarter of the city there were once dwellings, which the course of centuries has covered with the enveloping shroud of the shifting and levelling sands.