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

286 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
time to time, therefore, it became necessary to construct large
walls
and buttresses at the edges of the principal elevations
in support of the light mass of ashes and dust easily blown
away; to level the ground enclosed; to cover it with a thick
layer of clay, and to provide the houses of the dead with
drains 1 to keep the mound dry and the tombs intact. The
rectangular platforms thereby obtained were reached by
means of narrow staircases erected at their front sides.
Thus while most of these artificial terraces owe their origin
to secondary considerations, the large solid brick structure
of El-Hibba must be viewed in a somewhat different light,
contrarv to the theory of Koldewey, who is inclined to regard
even this
important tomb.
elevation as the mere substructure of an especially
It represents a circular stage-tower of two
stories, resting directly on the natural soil, and in its
present
ruinous state still twenty-four feet high. The diameter of
the lower story, rising 13 feet above the plain, is 410 feet,
while that of the second story is only 315
entire building is constructed with adobes, and the second
feet. The
story, besides, encased with baked bricks laid in bitumen.
The upper surfaces of both stories are paved with the same
material to protect them against rain. Water was carried
off by a canal of baked bricks, which at the same time
served as a buttress for the lower story. Remains of a
house and many of those uninscribed terra-cotta nails which,
1
That the " wells " mentioned by Koldewey had this more practical purpose
rather than to provide fresh water for the dead, becomes very evident
from the fact that they are frequently constructed of jars with broken bottoms
joined to each other, that the terra-cotta rings of which they are usually composed,
like the top-pieces covering their mouths, are often perforated, and —
apart from manv other considerations — that in no case the numerous similar
wells examined bv me at Nuffar descended to the water level. Real wells,
intended to hold fresh water, doubtless existed in these two ancient cemeteries,
but they are always constructed of baked bricks (arranged in herring-bone
fashion in pre-Sargonic times), and have a much larger diameter than any of
these terra-cotta pipes described by Koldewev.