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

288 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
There can be no doubt that most of these tombs belong
to the true Babylonian age. The entire absence of the slipper-shaped
coffin, which forms one of the most characteristic
features of the Parthian and Sassanian periods, enables us
to speak on this point more positively. On the other hand,
the thin terra-cotta cups, in form very similar to a female
breast, which Koldewey mentions, 1
betray late foreign influence.
They cannot be older than about 300 b. c, and are
probably somewhat younger, as they occur exclusively in the
upper strata of Nuffar. It is more difficult to determine
the time when these cemeteries came first into use. However,
the scattered fragments of statues and stone vessels of
the same type and material as
those discovered at Tello and
Nuffar (near the platform of Sargon and Naram-Sin), the
inscribed
bricks and cones referred to bv various explorers,
the characteristic situation of the two mounds in the
neighborhood
of the first-named ruin, the peculiar form and small
height of the ziggurrat, the pre-Sargonic existence of which
was recently proved by the present writer, 2
certain forms of
clay vessels which are regularly found only in the lowest
strata of Nuffar, and various other reasons 3 derived also from
the
study of the inscriptions and bas-reliefs of Tello go far
to show that the pyres of Surghul and El-Hibba already
blazed when the Sumerian race was still in the possession of
the country.
1
Koldewey, /. c, p. 418.
2
Comp. p. 232, above, note 2.
3
It is to be regretted that Koldewey did not give a description of the forms
and sizes of the various bricks, which, as I have pointed out in my " Old
Babvlonian Inscriptions chieflv from Nippur," part ii, p. 45, are a very
important factor in determining pre-Sargonic structures. The rudely formed
bricks mentioned by him fcomp. p. 284 above )
point to the earliest kind of
bricks known from Nuffar and Tello.