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

;
DURING 19TH CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 451
that all the Babylonian temples and stage-towers have Sumerian
names, and other considerations had convinced me
that the origin of the ziggurrat at Nippur must lie far beyond
the time of Ur-Gur. The mere circumstances that the
pavement of Sargon and Naram-Sin covered about the same
space between the inner wall and the later ziggurrat as those
of the following rulers ; that nowhere in the excavated large
section of the temple court it extended beneath the tower
that the store-room or cellar found within the southeast enclosing
wall by the third expedition (pp. 386, 390, above),
occupied exactly the
same place at the time of Sargon as in
the days of Ur-Gur, — indicated sufficiently
enclosure showed practically the same characteristic
that the temple
features
at 3800 b. c. as at 2800 b. c.
The massive L-shaped structure (p. 395, above) underlying
the east corner of Ur-Gur's ziggurrat, and constructed
of the same unusually large bricks as those which thus
far at Nippur have been connected exclusively with the
names of Sargon and Naram-Sin, evidently was the work
of a member of that powerful ancient dynasty. As it
descended eleven feet below Naram-Sin's pavement, it
is also clear that this structure, which puzzled Haynes
so much, must have served a similar purpose as Ur-
Gur's crude brick pavement, which was eight feet deep and
extended all around and beneath the edges of the stagetower
in support of the latter. In other words, it was the
foundation for the east corner of Naram-Sin's ziggurrat.
Similar foundations may be found at the three other corners,
but it is more probable to assume that it occurs only
at this particular point, where the necessity of an extraordinary
foundation can be explained without difficulty. We
saw above (p. 397), that Haynes discovered a ruined vaulted
aqueduct, about 3 feet high, beneath it. With the exception
of a small section near the orifice (directly below the ancient
curb and supported by the T-shaped structure) the whole