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

366 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
a few stray Babylonian antiquities which later may have been
used again, all the typical objects gathered in these rooms
are decidedly later than 300 b. c, as I convinced myself by a
careful investigation. Among the objects betraying an undoubtedly
Greek influence I only mention several fragments
of a cornice in limestone representing the vine-branch, well
known from the so-called sarcophagus of Alexander the
Great, and the stamped handle of a Rhodian amphora bearing
the inscription EIII 0EAIAHTOT BATPOMIOT, i. e. 3
" [this amphora was made or gauged] under [the eponymous
magistrate] Theaidetos in [the month of] Badromios."
1 According to Professor Furtwangler of Munich,
to whom I submitted a photograph of the last mentioned
antiquity, this magistrate is known from other similar
handles found on the isle of Rhodes itself, 2 and must have
lived in the second or first century preceding our era. The
same scholar confirmed my conclusions with regard to the
age of the characteristic terra-cotta figurines previously
described (comp. pp. 330, seq.), which I
had unhesitatingly
assigned to the Parthian, i. e., the Hellenistic and Roman
periods.
The removal of the enormous mass of crude bricks
with
which the builders of this latest settlement had covered,
changed, and enlarged the old stage-tower of Bel was a
slow and tedious task. But it was not without interesting
results. Babylonian antiquities of the Cassite, and even
much earlier times, were repeatedly discovered inside these
bricks. Their comparatively fine state of preservation, their
frequent occurrence, and, in a few cases, their large size,
proved sufficiently that they had not gotten accidentally
into these walls, while the long period of about two thousand
1
The T in the name of the month as offered by the inscription is a mistake
of the scribe, as Furtwangler informs me.
2
Comp. Hiller de Gaertringen, Inscription es Graca insularum RhoJi, etc.,
1895, No. 1 1 3 5.