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

486 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
large quantity of baked terra-cotta balls, about i
% to i y z
inches in diameter, and a few small stone eggs. Both balls
and eggs had previously been classified under the general
title of playthings, but in view of the peculiar place where
they mostly occurred, this explanation can no longer be maintained.
There is little doubt in my mind but that they are
to be regarded as missiles thrown by the slingers of hostile
armies attacking the city. As stones could not be obtained
in the alluvial soil of Babylonia, clay was turned into war
material as it served many other purposes. The marble eggs
may have originally belonged to foreign invaders, notably
the Elamites, who brought them from their mountainous
districts, or they were thrown by certain
Babylonian warriors
of one of the petty states near the Arabian desert who could
afford this luxury. 1 The other weapons employed in the
battles around the walls of the temple, according to our discoveries,
were arrows, spears, axes and clubs, the heads of
the first-mentioned three weapons being made of copper;
those of the clubs of stone, especially porphyry and granite.
In one case we came upon the twisted remains of a quiver.
The wooden parts of the receptacle had decayed long ago,
but its copper fastenings, consisting of a round, thin plate
with two corroded arrowheads attached to it, a narrow copper
strap and a nail of the same metal, were still preserved.
The excavations tracing the base of Nimit-Marduk revealed
also some of the means to which the besieged inhabitants
sometimes resorted in order to protect themselves against
attacks from without. In case of necessity they seized any
heavy object upon which they could lay their hands, and
hurled it down upon the heads of the storming enemies, as
was shown bv the stone weights, mortars in dolerite, broken
statues and reliefs, stone pestles, etc., unearthed along the
outer face of the wall. We here found some of the oldest
fragments of sculptures discovered at Nuffar, e. g., several
1
Comp. p. 242, above.