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

DURING 19TH CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 485
nels through the northeastern ridge (near III), thereby ascertaining
that both Naram-Sin and Ur-Gur, whose bricks at
some places lie directly upon each other, had done work on
His deductions, however, with regard to its
the outer wall.
original size and construction, turned out to be erroneous, as
accidentally he had struck a kind of large
buttress, through
which his tunnels ran obliquely. At the committee's request,
he had resumed his excavation there in the fall of
i
899, in order to search for the northeast city gate, the original
position of which seemed to be indicated by an especially
large gap near the middle of the ridge. Soon after
my arrival at the ruins in 1900, I placed a large force, divided
into a number of small gangs, along the whole line, with
The
the intention of tracing the course of the entire wall.
examination of the northern section was completed within
seven weeks ; that of the eastern will require considerably
more time and work to obtain a full insight into the meaning
of the many fragmentary walls which sometimes run alongside
and sometimes above, and sometimes overlap each
other. Owing to the heavy mass of ruins, particularly of
the Parthian period, under which these remains are buried,
they cannot be exposed and understood fully without subjecting
to a critical examination the whole group of mounds
adjoining them in the direction of the temple. It may be
safely asserted that extensive excavations in this section of
the ruins will yield important results.
large tablets which trial
For, aside from very
trenches brought to light, we have
reason to believe that the buildings which occupied this site
stood in a closer relation to the sanctuary, in all probability
representing the palace of the patesis of Nippur and the
houses of the higher class of priests and temple officers
serving immediately under them.
The excavations conducted along the outer face of Nimit-Marduk
yielded several interesting objects. At the
base of the pre-Sargonic and Sargonic walls we gathered a