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

DURING 10 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 377
the first. If ever it covered the entire court, 1 only fractional
parts of it
had been preserved, so that the illustration
facing this page does not even indicate its former existence.
The layer of earth enclosed between the upper and the
lower pavements was " so firmly stratified that it seemed
to have been formed gradually by the agency of water,"
which was incessantly washing away the unprotected parts
of the ziggurrat. But Haynes' observation is not quite
accurate ; for a band of " mingled bitumen, charcoal, and
wood ashes, varying in thickness from two to four inches,"
and running nearlv through the middle of this stratum, indicates
sufficientlv that some kind of light structures must
have existed on this part of the court at some time during
the second millennium, to which I
ascribe the second pavement.
In all probability it was laid by a Cassite ruler, presumably
Kadashman-Turgu, who not only restored but enlarged
the ziggurrat and provided it with new casing walls.
If I
interpret correctly Haynes' somewhat confused reports
of the different sections of the court excavated by him,
and adjust his results properly with one another, this pavement
must be regarded as a continuation of the lower course
of a border pavement, which surrounded the four sides of
Kadashman-Turgu's stage-tower, being ten feet wide in
front of the latter and somewhat narrower on its
other three
sides, where it terminated in a gutter. This border pavement
consisted of two courses of bricks laid in bitumen, and
served as a basis for a sloping bed of bitumen designed to
protect the foundations of the pyramid from falling rain.
None of the bricks were inscribed except one, which contained
the name of Ur-Ninib on its upper face, thereby indicating
that it was out of its
1
original position and belonged
It seems as if the pavement of baked bricks was confined to the immediate
environments of the ziggurrat and continued by a pavement of crude
bricks (uj4 by 1 1 *^ by \Y2
about the same level.
inches), repeatedly referred to by Haynes at