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

4*24 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
long, were constructed of specially
made soft yellow baked
bricks (12U inches square by 3 inches thick) laid in lime
mortar. They were 6 feet 9 inches thick, and still stood
7 feet 8 inches high. In the sides, which run parallel with
the four faces of the ziggurrat, were openings 7 feet 10
inches wide. The one towards the southeast was partly
occupied by an altar, which stood upon a raised platform
and consisted of three receding stages. Within the building
and exactly in front of the altar was a raised block of crude
bricks " smoothly plastered with lime mortar," like the sides
of the latter and the walls of the edifice. " Upon and around
the altar to a considerable distance from it
were wood ashes
6 inches in depth, an accumulation that could not have been
accounted for by an occasional fire." It doubtless represents
a sanctuary of the late Parthian period.
The most important discovery reported from the trenches
in the western section of the same mounds, where they slope
gradually towards the Shatt en-Nil, is the quadrangular terracotta
lid
of a coffin ornamented with the rude bas-relief of a
lion. It belongs to the same age as the building just mentioned.
For a few days excavations were carried on also in
the great elevation to the east of the temple. They revealed
the existence of unbaked cuneiform tablets of a very large size
in a part of the ruins scarcely yet touched by the expedition.
The large triangular mound to the south of the temple (in
1889 designated by the present writer as the probable site
of the temple library) was not examined by the explorer
during the three years which he passed almost without
interruption at
Nuffar.
It was stated above (p. 360) that in the summer of 1895
Haynes spent the morning hours of two weeks at the long,
narrow ridge ( 1 1 — 1 1 1
) to the north of the temple, in order
to ascertain the foundations and dimensions of the
ancient
city wall, where in 1894 he and Meyer had discovered
stamped crude bricks of Naram-Sin immediately below