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

400 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
Apart from Rawlinson and other earlier explorers, who
actually searched for the two above-mentioned tombs, it was
Hommel who first expressed it as his conviction that "the
Babylonian stage-towers originally were sepulchral monuments,"
l and that Ningirsu's temple at Tello was a combination
of a sanctuary for the god and of a mausoleum for
Gudea, his patesi. Though the former statement is too
general and comprehensive according to the scanty material
at our disposal, and the latter incorrect, since, according to
the context, Gudea clearly erected not his own, but his god's
"sepulchral chapel" in the temple of Ningirsu, Hommel
deserves credit for having recognized an important fact in
connection with Babylonian stage-towers and for having
endeavored to find proofs for his theory in the inscriptions,
before he could have known of the results of a series of investigations
carried on by the present writer at Nuffar in
March and April, 1900.
It does not lie within the scope of this book to treat
all the cuneiform passages which directly or indirectly bear
upon the important question under consideration. I shall
therefore confine myself to a single text from the latest
excavations at NufFar which will throw some light on the
way in which the Babylonians viewed the ziggurrat ot Bel
at Nippur, and to a few passages of published inscriptions
referring to other ziggurrats.
Among the antiquities found in the debris that covered
the pavement of Ashurbanapal near the east corner of the
court of the stage-tower at Nippur, there were three inscribed
fragments of baked clay which seemed to belong to a barrel
cylinder. When trving to fit them together, I found that
thev constituted the greater part of a truncated cone of an
interesting shape 2 similar to that of the recently published
i Comp. Hommel, Jufsatze und Abhandlungen, part iii, 1 (Munich,
1901), pp. 389, seqq., especially p. 393.
2
Comp. p. 457, above, note. The same peculiar form is known from