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

DURING 19TB. CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 505
and plastered with a stucco of mud. The floor of the tomb
was paved with two layers of baked bricks, so that dampness
was effectively
excluded from the room.
This vaulted funeral chamber was ten feet long, eight feet
wide, and a little over five feet high, while the room above it
measured almost twelve feet square. " Entering the cell a
gruesome sight was before us. Side by side upon the floor
lay two adult skeletons of more than average size." Both
were considerably injured by pieces of plaster which had
fallen from the roof. The one farthest from the door (II, p.
506), had suffered most. The skull was completely broken,
and manv of the larger bones had been pressed out of their
original position and lay buried in dust and debris. The
better preserved (I) had been placed in a wooden coffin,
which, with the exception of a few half-decomposed fragments,
had long since " crumbled away and mingled its
reddish
brown ashes with the gray ashes of the grave-clothes
and the decayed tissues of the body." By means of these
relics and a number of iron and bronze nails, which evidentlv
had held the boards together, it was comparatively
easy to trace the outlines 1 of the entire coffin. Two iron
bands (i), slightly projecting beyond the long sides of the
coffin, at either end of it, had been fastened as a support
to the bottom of the box. To the ends of these bars silver
rings (2), now badly corroded, had been attached as
for the purpose of lifting and carrying the coffin.
handles
Fortunately this tomb had not been rifled in ancient
times, like so many others of the same general period in
various parts of the ruins. We therefore found all the less
perishable objects deposited with the two bodies, as far as
they had not been damaged and displaced by the falling
stucco, exactly where they originally had been laid. Evidently
the men 2
buried there had been persons of high rank
1
Indicated by dotted lines in the accompanying zinctype.
2
Geere writes, "Judging by the clothes, bones and skulls, I should say
that there can be no doubt that the bodies were those of males."