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

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 521
sively with the lowest building remains. As it is extremely
difficult to distinguish wet crude bricks laid in mud mortar
from the earth and rubbish around them, the Arab workmen
could not always avoid injuring them or cutting them
away entirely. Consequently it often was impossible to
ascertain the original thickness and direction of the walls
with any degree of certainty. In accordance with what is
generally known as a characteristic feature of Babylonian
architecture, we observed that " the walls of chambers are
frequently not made at right angles to one another." In
some cases, especially in the southwest section, extremely
narrow openings are to be seen. Being too narrow, and
otherwise unsuitable for passageways, and sometimes terminating
abruptly, they may have been used as recesses for
storing tablets and other objects.
The excavated part of the southwest wing of the large
complex comprises forty-four rooms and galleries, more or
less connected with each other ; the northeast section about
forty. The various chambers differ greatly as to their dimensions,
varying, as they do, from 3 % by 9 feet to 14 by 25
feet. The average thickness of the walls being only 2j4 to
3 feet, it is safe to assume that the houses had but one story.
We nowhere discovered traces to indicate how the rooms
were originally lighted, nor how they were roofed. " The
roofing probably was by means of wooden beams which
supported flat roofs of matting and mud, similar to those
constructed in the country at the present day." If ever
there were windows in the rooms, they must have been very
small and high up near the ceiling. The explored sections
are not large enough to show whether the halls and chambers
were grouped around open courts and constituted one
enormous building, or, as seems more probable, belonged
to separate houses which formed one organic whole, but
were divided into single quarters bv narrow streets and covered
passageways. In not a single case was any trace
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