Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/382

 Abu Hubba—about 30 miles south-east from Bagdad—on one of the canals branching eastward from the Euphrates. Abu Hubba proves to be the ancient Sippara, the Biblical Sepharvaim, whence some of the people were taken, to re-people Samaria after the ten tribes of Israel were carried away. The Hebrew name being in the dual form, and signifying the two Sippars, we look for duality in the ruins, and we find them actually on the two sides of the stream. Sippara, we knew from Berosus, was a great seat of sun-worship; the temple of the god Shamas was here, and it was here that Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, was said to have buried the records of the antediluvian world. The explorations of Mr Rassam have restored to us the remains of the Sun-god's temple.

The citadel occupies the southern portion of the enceinte, and its highest point on the south-west face was once on the banks of a stream, either the Euphrates itself or a broad canal communicating with the river. The trenches excavated in the mound soon struck the walls of a building, and by following the line of this wall the outer face of a large square edifice was uncovered. Trenches and shafts sunk in the interior showed that within the outer rampart there were more than one hundred chambers ranged round a central court. In the central portion of the mound an important pair of chambers were found, and in the centre of one of them a large brick altar platform, about 30 feet square, upon which it was evident that the altar of burnt-offering had stood, for there were charred fragments about. The axis of this chamber was north-east and south-west, and at the north-east end a doorway was found, leading into a smaller chamber, the floor of which was paved with a material resembling asphalt. Under this floor Mr Rassam discovered a terra cotta box containing three inscribed records, namely, a stone tablet with a sculptured panel, representing the worship of the Sun-god, and two cylinders,