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

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 457
levels, without, however, reaching the water level, are drains
which protected the single tombs and the gradually rising
mound as a whole. The less frequent wells, always constructed
of plano-convex bricks, were to provide the dead
with that " clear [but I fear in this case often brackish !]
water," which the departed pious souls were believed to drink
in the lower regions. 1
Koldewey has described the fire necropoles of Surghul
and El-Hibba (comp. pp. 283, seqq., above), so intelligently
that it is unnecessary to repeat all the details of my own
investigations in
the pre-Sargonic cemetery of ancient Nippur,
which confirm the German scholar's results in all
essential
details and at the same time prove conclusively that
his view concerning the great age of these two South Babylonian
ruins is perfectly correct. Suffice it to state, that
here as there " ash-graves " and " body-graves " occur
alongside each other in the upper layers, while the former,
as the older burials, appear exclusively in the lower strata.
In all the three ruins we observe the same peculiar forms
and positions of urns and vases, the same kinds of sacrifices
offered in connection with the cremation and the final burial,
the same customs of depositing weapons, instruments, seals,
jewelry, toys, etc., both with the body to be cremated and
with the remains interred, the same praxis of building drains,
wells and houses for the dead, the same characteristic deep
red color of so many potsherds (pointing to their long exposure
to an open fire), and, above all, the same scattering
of ashes, charred pieces of wood, fragments of vases and
other remains of human burials which is
so appalling to the
1
Apart from other cuneiform passages, comp. the closing words of several
recently published terra-cotta cones from Babylonian tombs : If a person
finds a coffin and treats it with due respect, " his manes may drink clear
water below!" Comp. Thureau-Dangin in Orient. Litteratur-Zeitung,
Jan. 15, 1
90 1, pp. 5, seqq., and Delitzsch in Mitteilungen der Deutsche?!
Oriefit-Gesellschaft, no. 11, pp. 5, seq.