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

390 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
shaped tiles, 15^ feet in aggregate length, with an average
depth of 1 inches and an average breadth of 3
x / 2 inches,
and continued on either side by peculiarly arranged bricks
laid in a clay cement (comp. frontispiece).
As Ur-Gur's pavement rested in some places almost
directly upon that of his predecessor, no remains of other
buildings were noticed by Haynes in the thin layer between
them. However, beneath the storeroom referred to above,
but separated from its floor by two feet of rubbish, was
found an earlier cellar of the same form, yet slightly smaller
in its dimensions. 1 It was also provided with a ledge, upon
which a circular tablet, two small rectangular ones, and
the fragments of five others were still lying. Four brick
stamps of Sargon, with broken handles, which, together
with the tablets just mentioned, seem to have been left
intentionally or bv mistake when Ur-Gur removed the contents
of this earlier vault into his own cellar, were recovered
from the debris which filled it, while a fifth one was found
immediately underneath its eastern corner. The partly
ruined walls of this lower structure were only 3 feet high,
but originally they must have measured between 5 and 6
feet. About one foot below their top was a deep bowl of
yellow pottery, decorated with a rope-pattern ornament
on its outside, and set in a rim of thumb-marked bricks.
Its use could no longer be determined. The building
material of both storerooms was identical in form and
size, though somewhat different in color and texture. It
follows, therefore, that the small mould employed by Ur-
Gur for his crude flat bricks originated at a much earlier
period, a result which is in entire accord with what we
learned from our study of the interior mass of the ziggurrat
(p. 374, above). The important new fact derived
from an examination of this lower cellar is that these small
crude bricks (9
by 6 by 3 inches) can be traced to about the
1
It was 32 feet long by 7 feet wide.