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

458 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
senses and yet was the natural result of the combined action
of man and the elements.
It will now be clear why I was unable to accept Haynes'
view as stated above (p.
395), with regard to the large solid
structure within the ancient curb, which he interpreted as
an immense altar. The white ash-bed found on its hollowed
surface, its rim of bitumen, i. e., a material liberally used in
connection with the cremations, its extraordinary size (14 feet
long and 8 feet wide), the ash-bin discovered near its base,
and the peculiar surroundings suggest the idea that it rather
represents one of the crematoriums on which the bodies of
the dead were reduced to ashes. As it stood within the
sacred enclosure we involuntarily connect the cremation
and burying of the bodies of all
these thousands of ancient
Babylonians, who found their last resting-place around
sanctuary of their god, with the ziggurrat of Bel itself,
remembering that at El-Hibba Koldewey also excavated a
two-staged ziggurrat, or, according to his theory, " the substructure
of an especially important tomb," 1 around the
base of which, exactly as at Nippur, nothing but " ash-
was
graves " occurred. But we then naturally ask : What
the
1
The stage-tower of El-Hibba was round, consisted of two stages, and
was provided with a water-conduit like that of Nippur. Comp. pp. 286,
seq., above, and Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie, vol. ii, pp. 422, seq. It
appears almost strange at present, that the German explorer discovered and
excavated one of the earliest Babylonian ziggurrats thus so far known, without
realizing it. In view of the existence of a stage-tower at El-Hibba, I am
convinced that both Surghul and El-Hibba cannot have been cemeteries exclusively.
The German excavations carried on at the two places were by far
too brief and limited compared with the enormous extent of those ruins to
settle this question. All the pre-Sargonic ruins of Babylonia, as far as I have
had an opportunity to examine them, consist largely of tombs. They occur
in great numbers also at Nuffar, Fara, Abu Hatab, and other mounds, but it
would be utterly wrong to pronounce them for this reason nothing but " firenecropoles."
The pre-Sargonic monuments of art and the very ancient
cuneiform tablets coming from all those mounds enable us to speak more
positively on this question.