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

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 503
who erected the first
fortified palace on the site of the ancient
temple. Consequently the banking-house of Murashu
Sons, situated on the western side of the Chebar, must have
been in ruins for some time previous to the building of
that palace. Hence it follows that the latter cannot be
older than the second half of the fourth century, when cuneiform
writing no longer was understood
by the mass of the
people, and under the influence of a foreign power that
new civilization, to which I referred above, began to be
grafted upon the native Babylonian. This leads us to the
period of the Seleucidan rulers as the earliest possible time
when the first fortress was constructed on the temple mound
of NufFar. To this period must be ascribed all the remains
marked I on the plan of the " Parthian Palace built over
the Ruins of the Temple of Bel," which appears below. 1
They are comparatively insignificant, consisting only of a
few rooms and two round towers, one of which was incorporated
with the second fortress.
But, as the two architects
observed correctly, they can easily be distinguished from the
other buildings by the size and quality of their bricks, 2 the
greater depth of their level, 3
and the direction of their walls,
the later walls crossing the earlier ones at an angle of 8° 10'.
" A line drawn through the centres of the two earlier
towers is parallel
to the walls of the various groups of rooms
of that period; and similarly a line through the centres of
the two larger towers [forming part of the inner wall] is
parallel to the rooms of the second palace," 4
and — we may
add — also to the principal facades of the ancient ziggurrat.
1
In the chapter " On the Topography of Ancient Nippur."
2
The earlier bricks measure I 2 ^ by \z]/ 2 by 6 inches, and contain less
potsherds than the later bricks, which are almost cubical, measuring 12^ by
1 1 ^3 by 9 inches.
8
The remains of the older fortress lie six to eight feet below the rooms of
the later palace.
4
Quoted from Geere's report.