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32
The HISTORY Chap. IV.
ceeded at Nineveh, and Nabonajfar, who reigned
over Chaldea.
Nabonajfar, called alfo Belejis and Baladan, was
an excellent architett and aftronomer ; and, during
his whole reign, employed and encouraged the craft,
particularly in building the great Babylon, which
is not mentioned by any author before Ifaiah, who
writes both of its rile and ruin. From the be¬
ginning of his reign, commenceth the famous aflro-
nomical sera, which ftill bears his name. The
fcience and the art long flourifhed under the Baby¬
lonian princes, and extended now to the remotell
parts of Afia. About this time alfo, we find that
old mafonry took a weftem courfe; for the difci-
ples of Solomon's travellers, by the encouragement
of princes and Hates in the weft, built, enlarged,
embellilhed, and adorned cities part number, par¬
ticularly Conjlantinople, Rome, Ravenna, and many
more ih Greece, Italy\ Spain, and Gaul.
The Syrians adorned Damafcus, by the affiftance
Year of the flood of Solomon's mafons, with a lofty
160S. Before Chrift temple, a royal palace, and a pu-
74°' blic altar of' mpft admirable
workmanlhip; which laft fo ravilhed Ahaz, king
of Judah, that he caufod a pattern thereof to be
taken, and font it to Urijah, the high prieft of Je-
rufalem ; and upon his return, having removed the
altar of the Lord out of its place in the temple, or¬
dered this new altar to be fot up in its Head.
Nebuchadnezzar