Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

180 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
the second story. " Pieces of agate, alabaster, and marble,
finely cut and polished, small pieces of pure gold, goldheaded
and plain copper nails, cover the ground about the
basement" of the latter — sufficient to indicate that a small
Temple Ruin at Abu Shahrain from the South
but richly embellished sacred chamber formerly crowned the
top of the second stage. Around the whole tower there is
a pavement of inscribed baked brick placed upon a large
laver of clav two feet thick.
From several trenches cut in various parts of these remarkable
mounds, Taylor reached the startling conclusion
that all the ruined buildings he met with, including the
ponderous mass of the stage-tower, rested on the fine sand
of the desert confined by a coating of sun-dried brick, upon
which the above-mentioned sandstone wall rises. In contrast
to all the other Babylonian ruins, where natural stone
is almost entirely unknown as building material, we find
sandstone and granite and marble liberally employed in
Abu Shahrain, a fact which illustrates and proves the correctness
of the theorv that the extensive use of clay in
ancient Babylonia is due only to the complete absence of
any kind of stone in the alluvial ground of the country.