Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/337

 ORIENTATION AND FOUNDATION CEREMONIES. 315 a peculiar importance was attached. It must also be remembered that such an arrangement gave a more agreeable dwelling than the other. No facade being turned directly to the north there was none entirely deprived of sunlight, while at the same time there was none that faced due south. The sun as it ran its daily course would light for a time each face in turn. > The religious ideas that led to orientation are revealed in other o details, in the time chosen for commencing the foundations of temples or palaces, and in certain rites that were accomplished afterwards doubtless with the help of the priesthood in order to place the building under the protection of the gods and to interest them in its duration. There were ceremonies analogous to those now practised when we lay foundation stones. In the Chaldee system the first stone, the seed from which the rest of the edifice was to spring, was an angle stone, under or in which were deposited inscribed plaques. These contained the name of the founder, together with prayers to the gods and imprecations on all who should menace the stability of the building. This custom dated from the very beginning of Chaldaean civilization, as is proved by a curious text translated by M. Oppert. 1 It was dis- covered at Sippara and dates from the time of Nabounid, one of the last kings of Babylon. Many centuries before the reign of that prince a temple raised to the sun by Sagaraktyas, of the first dynasty, had been destroyed, and its foundations were traditionally said to inclose the sacred tablets of Xisouthros, who has been identified with the Noah of the Bible. Nabounid recounts the un- successful efforts that had been made before his time to recover possession of the precious deposit. Two kings of Babylon, Kourigalzou and Nebuchadnezzar, and one king of Assyria, Esarhaddon, had made the attempt and failed. One of the three had commemorated his failure in an inscription to the following effect : " I have searched for the angle stone of the temple of Ulbar but I have not found it." Finally Nabounid took up the quest. After one check caused by an inundation he renewed the search with ardour ; he employed his army upon it, and at last, after digging to a great depth, he came to the angle-stone: "Thus," he says, " have I recovered the name and date of Sagaraktyas." In the ruins of the ancient royal city recovered by M. de Sarzec at Tello the traces of similar precautions have everywhere been 1 OPPERT, Expedition sdentifique de Mesopotamia, vol. i. p. 273.