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

DURING 19TB CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 287
in large masses, were found at the base of the stage-tower
at Nippur, 1 were observed on the upper platform. With
the exception of its circular form, which, however, cannot
be regarded as a serious objection to my theorv, the solid
brick structure of Kl-Hibba presents all the characteristic
features of a ziggurrat, with which I regard it as identical, 2
the more so because I have recently found evidence that,
like the Egyptian pyramid, the Babylonian
stage-tower (or
step-pyramid) without doubt was viewed in the light of a
sepulchral mound erected in honor of a god, 3 and because it
seems impossible to believe that a deeplv religious people,
as the early inhabitants of Shumer doubtless were, should
have cremated and buried their dead without appropriate
religious ceremonies, and should have left this vast necropolis
without a temple. It is certainlv no accident that the
only remains of pictorial representations in stone discovered
in the course of the German excavations (part of a
wing, fragments of a stool, and a pair of clasped hands)
were unearthed at the foot of this structure, and near the
second large elevation of El-Hibba— the only two places
which can be taken into consideration as the probable
sites for such a sanctuary.
1
Evidently they had fallen from a building once crowning its summit.
2
I am also inclined to see a last reminiscence of the Babylonian ziggurrat
in the meftul, the characteristic watch-tower and defensive bulwark of the
present Ma'dan tribes of Central Babvlonia. Notwithstanding the etymology
of the Arabic word, a meftul is seldom round (against Sachau, Am Euphrat
und Tigris, Leipzig, 1900, p. 43, with picture on p. 45 J,
but like the
ziggurrat, generally rectangular, and from fortv to eightv feet high. Almost
without exception these towers are built of clay laid up en masse. Throughout
my wanderings in Babylonia I met with only one fine (rectangular ) specimen
constructed entirely of kiln-burnt bricks. It is situated on a branch of the
Shatt el-Kar, a few miles to the west from the ruins of Abu Hatab and
Fara, which I recently recommended for excavations to the German Orient
Society.
8
Comp. my later remarks in connection with the results of the excavations
at NufFar, Fourth Campaign, Temple Mound, section 3.
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