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

536 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
facing or boundary wall, — a huge buttress of the same kind
as repeatedly excavated by Koldewey at the edges of the
vast cemeteries of Surghul and El-Hibba (pp. 285,.^.).
supported the light masses of ashes and dust of the fire
necropolis of Nippur, which otherwise would have been
blown into the plain or washed away by the rains of the
winter. In view of the characteristic form and size of its
yellow bricks, which are similar to those found in
It
the lowest
strata of a section of Nimit-Marduk> to the east of the temple,
1 we can state positively that this buttress belongs to a
period immediately preceding Sargon I. When the cemetery
rose higher and higher, its facing wall did not prove
strong enough to bear the additional pressure. " The
burned bricks were therefore overlaid by large crude
bricks," completely imbedding the old wall and extending
considerably beyond the exterior face of the latter, into the
plain, as indicated by the cross-lines in the diagram above.
In many cases it was extremely difficult and often impossible
to ascertain the thickness 2 of this additional wall, as
the material of which it consisted had " been subjected to
a process of infiltration and compression for so many centuries
that the debris at the foot of the mound was practically
a homogeneous mass." This much, however, was
learned with certainty, that the bottom course
of the outer
crude brick wall was laid at a higher level than the upper
courses of the remaining inner burned brick wall, thus illus-
1
The average size of the well-baked bricks from the cemetery wall was
13^ to 1 3 i/2 inches square by 3^
inches thick, while the corresponding
bricks from the lower strata of Ntmit-Marduk measured only 11^ inches
square by zlA inches thick. The latter evidently were somewhat older than
the former.
Apart from their color we noticed another characteristic feature of
both classes of bricks. They were not entirely flat, but slightly raised at their
longer edges.
2
Outside the central section of the burned brick wall, which required
strengthening most, the crude brick wall was from 22 to 28 feet thick, while
at its east end it was not quite 1 9 feet.