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

DURING 10 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 369
Parthian rulers, who were able to erect similar castles on the
top of most of the large temple ruins in the country. In
view of the great difficulties in his way, Haynes confined
himself to a complete removal of the southeastern wing, cutting
away only so much of the other three arms as was absolutely
necessary to disengage the earlier building from its
surrounding brickwork by means of narrow perpendicular
trenches. Applied to the huge massive lateral arms alone,
this method was doubtless correct, as it saved considerable
time and expense, and did not deprive us of any essential
carried further than this it
knowledge for the time being. But as soon as it was
became incompatible with a systematic
investigation of the entire mound. These dimly
lighted narrow corridors prevented the photographing of
important details of the lowest story of the stage-tower,
while at the same time they gave cause for Haynes' further
descent into the depth, before the rest of the sacred enclosure
had received proper attention. Consequently it was
impossible until very recently to determine the precise relation
of the ziggurrat to the temple with which it
formed an
organic whole, or even to find out what the entire court
around the former looked like at any given period of its
long and varied history. As a matter of fact, the following
picture presented itself to me upon my arrival at Nuffar in
1900. The crumbling remains of the ziggurrat had been
exposed to the level of the period of Kadashman-Turgu,
large sections in its neighborhood were explored only to
the level of the Parthian fortress, others had not been
touched at all, again others were cleared to the platform of
Ur-Gur, still others down to the upper Pre-Sargonic remains,
while by far the greater part of the large place in
front of the stage-tower, which contained a number of brick
pavements, serving as an excellent means for dating the different
strata of the whole enclosure, had been excavated
down to the virgin soil (comp. frontispiece). At one time