Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/199

Rh walls, the outermost being 60 stades (7 miles) in circuit. The inner walls were decorated with hunting-scenes painted on brick, fragments of which have been discovered by modern explorers. Two of its gates were of brass, and had to be opened and shut by a machine; and Mr Smith has found traces of two libraries among its ruins. The palace, called &quot;the Admiration of Mankind&quot; by Nebuchadnezzar, and commenced by Nabopolassar, overlooked the Ai-ipur-sabu, the great reservoir of Babylon, and stretched from this to the Euphrates on the one side, and from the Imgur-Bel, or inner wall, to the Libil, or eastern canal, on the other. Within its precincts rose the Hanging Gardens, consisting of a garden of trees and flowers on the topmost of a series of arches at least 75 feet high, and built in the form of a square, each side measuring 400 Greek feet. Water was raised from the Euphrates by means, it is said, of a screw (Strab., xvL 1, 5; Diod., ii. 10, 6). Some of the materials for the construction of this building may have been obtained from the old ruined palace of the early kings, now represented by the adjoining Amram mound. The lesser palace in the western division of the city belonged to Neriglissar, and contained a number of bronze statues. The most remarkable edifice in Babylon was the temple of Bel, now marked by the Babil, on the north-east, as Professor Eawlinson has shown. It was a pyramid of eight square stages, the basement stage being over 200 yards each way. A winding ascent led to the summit and the shrine, in which stood a golden image of Bel 40 feet high, two other statues of gold, a golden table 40 feet long and 15 feet broad, and many other colossal objects of the same precious material. At the base of the tower was a second shrine, with a table and two images of solid gold. Two altars were placed outside the chapel, the smaller one being of the same metal. A similar temple, represented by the modern Birs Nimrud, stood at Borsippa, the suburb of Babylon. It consisted of seven stages, each ornamented with one of the seven planetary colours, the azure tint of the sixth, the sphere of Mercury, being produced by the vitrifaction of the bricks after the stage had been completed. The lowest stage was a square, 272 feet each way, its four corners exactly corresponding to the four cardinal points, as in all other Chaldean temples, and each of the square stages raised upon it being placed nearer the south-western than the north-eastern edge of the underlying one. It had been partly built by an ancient monarch, but, after lying unfinished for many years, like the Biblical tower of Babel, was finally completed by Nebuchadnezzar. The amount of labour bestowed upon these brick edifices must have been enormous, and gives some idea of the human force at the disposal of the monarch. If any further illustration of this fact were needed, it would be found in the statement made by Nebuchadnezzar in one of his inscriptions (and quoted also from Berosus), that he had finished the Imgur-Bel in fifteen days. The same monarch also continued the embankment of the Euphrates for a considerable distance beyond the limits of Babylon, and cut some canals to carry off the overflow of that river into the Tigris. The great reservoir, 40 miles square, on the west of Borsippa, which had been excavated to receive the waters of the Euphrates while the bed of its channel was being lined with brick, was also used for a similar purpose. The reservoir seems to have been entered by the Arakhtu or Araxes, &quot;the river of Babylon/ which flowed through a deep wady into the heart of Northern Arabia, as Wetzstein has pointed out. Various nomad tribes, such as the Nabathseans or the Pekod, pitched their tents on its banks ; but, although it is not unfrequently mentioned in early Babylonian history, we hear no more of it after the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It is possible, therefore, that it was drained by the western reservoir. (Author:Archibald Henry Sayce)

BABYLONIA ASSYRIA. Geographically, as well as ethnologically and historically, the whole district enclosed between the two great rivers of Western Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates, forms but one country. The writers of antiquity clearly recognised this fact, speaking of the whole under the general name of Assyria, though Babylonia, as will be seen, would have been a more accurate designation. It naturally falls into two divisions, the northern being more or less mountainous, while the southern is flat and marshy ; and the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends still more completely to separate them. In the earliest times of which we have any record, the northern portion was comprehended under the vague title of Gutium (the Goyim of Gen. xiv. 1), which stretched from the Euphrates on the west to the mountains of Media on the east ; but it was definitely marked off as Assyria after the rise of that monarchy in the 16th century B.C. Aram-Naharaim, or Mesopotamia, however, though claimed by the Assyrian kings, and from time to time overrun by them, did not form an integral part of the kingdom until the 9th century B.C., while the region on the left bank of the Tigris, between that river and the Greater Zab, was not only included in Assyria, but contained the chief capitals of the empire. In this respect the monarchy of the Tigris resembled Chaldea, where some of the most important cities were situated on the Arabian side of the Euphrates. The reason of this preference for the eastern bank of the Tigris was due to its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend upon the streams which flowed into the Euphrates. This vast flat, the modern El-Jezireh, is about 250 miles in length, interrupted only by a single limestone range, rising abruptly out of the plain, and branching off from the Zagros mountains under the names of Sarazur, Hamrin, and Sinjar. The numerous remains of old habitations show how thickly this level tract must once have been peopled, though now for the most part a wilderness. North of the plateau rises a well-watered and undulating belt of country, into which run low ranges of limestone hills, sometimes arid, sometimes covered with dwarf-oak, and often shutting in, between their northern and north-eastern flank and the main mountain-line from which they detach themselves, rich plains and fertile valleys. Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Niphates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan. The name Assyria itself originally denoted the small territory immediately surrounding the primitive capital &quot;the city of Asur &quot; (alAsur, the Ellasar of Genesis), which was built, like the other chief cities of the country, by Turanian tribes, in whose language the word signified &quot; water-meadow.&quot; It stood on the right bank of the Tigris, midway between the Greater and the Lesser Zab, and is represented by the modern Kalah Sherghat. It remained the capital long after the Assyrians had become the dominant power in Western Asia, but was finally supplanted by Calah (Nimrud), Nineveh (Neli Yunus and Kouyv.njiK), and Dur-Sargina (Khorsalad), some 60 miles further north. See. In contrast with the arid plateau of Mesopotamia, stretched the rich alluvial plain of Chaldea, formed by the deposits of the two great rivers by which it was enclosed. The soil was extremely fertile, and teemed with an industrious population. Eastward rose the mountains of Elam, southward were the sea-marshes and the ancient kingdom of Nituk or Dilvun (the modern Bender-Dilvun), while on the west the civilisation of Babylonia encroached beyond the banks of the Euphrates, upon the territory of the Semitic nomades (or Suti). Here stood Ur (now