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

DURING 19TU CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 493
to give a correct answer.
A careful examination of the large
adobes which characterize all the true Parthian buildings at
Nippur revealed the fact that they were made of clay previously
worked. It is generally known among the present inhabitants
of 'Iraq el-'Arab! that the clay of old mud houses
refashioned into bricks furnishes a much more tenacious and
lasting building material than the clay taken directly from
the soil. We have ample evidence to show that the early
Babylonian builders had acquired the same knowledge by
experience. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the
enormous mass of clay required for the construction of
the huge fortress erected on the temple mound, and for the
extensive Parthian settlements on the site of the library, on
the mounds to the east of the temple, and on the west side
of the Chebar, was principally obtained from the abandoned
outer walls of the ancient city. This theory was fully corroborated
by our excavations in the wide gap of the northeast
wall, marked III on the plan of the ruins (p. 305).
While searching there for the possible remains of one of
the former city gates, we came upon a very large hollow or
depression in the ground filled with mud washings and drift
sand from the desert. It proved to be one of the clay beds
worked by the brick-makers of the post-Babylonian period,
who, after having torn down a section of about 360 feet
from the old rampart, penetrated to a considerable depth
into the soil
below and around it.
In descending somewhat deeper into the ground than the
Parthian clav diggers before us had done, we disclosed the
ruins of a pre-Sargonic gate, or more exactly, part of its
substructure and stepped ascent. It lay four to eight feet
below the present level of the plain, which at this point is
considerably higher than elsewhere in the vicinity of Nufrar.
The structure, as it now stands, is entirely isolated. But
while excavating we observed a mass of worked clay, largely
disintegrated adobes, and a number of bricks of Naram-Sin