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

DURING VJTii CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 229
another fine sculptured fragment rescued from the rubbish
below the pavement of the same palace, 1 are indicated with
even greater detail by a plant growing out of the vase and
by a fish swimming against the current in each river.
Close to the middle of the southwest wall of the palace
just described, and extending considerably into its
principal
courts, there rose two massive structures, or terraces of
baked bricks laid in
bitumen, above the remains of the Parthian
building. Both joined each other at one corner, but
they were reached by separate stairs
and differed from each
other also as to their height. As they interfered greatly
with the general plan and arrangement of the interior of the
palace, it
was evident from the beginning that they belonged
to an older building, lifting, so to speak, its head out of a
lower stratum into the post-Babylonian period, as the last
witness of a by-gone age. The fact, however, that the inscribed
bricks, so
far as examined, bore the name of Gudea
on their upper 2 sides, was in itself a proof that the visible
portion of this ancient structure had in
part been relaid and
otherwise changed in accordance with its different use in the
Seleucidan times. The two terraces, affording a grand view
over the surrounding plain, must have been important to
the late inhabitants from a
military standpoint, while at the
same time they served as a kind of elevated gallery or esplanade
where the residents of the palace could enjoy a fresh
breeze of air in the cooler evening hours of a hot Babylonian
summer.
No sooner had De Sarzec commenced to examine the
ground around the vertical walls of these peculiar structures
than, to his great astonishment, he came upon other remains
of the same building imbedded in the crude brick terrace.
Unfortunately, the rebellion breaking out among the Muntefik(j)
tribes, in 1 88 1
, brought the explorer's work to a sudden
1
Comp. Decouvertes, pi. 25, no. 6.
2
Comp. the end of p. 31, above.