Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Athens-BOI

BABYLON
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
“the Admiration of Mankind” 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., xvi. 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 Kawlinson 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
Sirs 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 un¬
finished 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
P-Pose. The reservoir seems to have been entered by
he Arakhtu or Araxes, “the river of Babylon,” which
owed through a deep wady into the heart of Northern
rabia, as Wetzstein has pointed out. Various nomad
ri es, such as the Nabathaeans or the Pekod, pitched their
ents on its banks; but, although it is not unfrequently
mentioned in early Babylonian history, we hear no more of
i a er the time of Nebuchadnezzar. It is possible, there-
01 o, hat it was drained by the western reservoir, (a.h. s.)
183
BABYLONIA and ASSYRIA. Geographically, as well
as ethnologically and historically, the whole district en¬
closed 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 wdiere 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 sur¬
rounding the primitive capital “the city of Asur5’ (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 “ water-meadow.” 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 (AYmrikZ), Nineveh (Nebi Yunus
and Kouyunjik), and Dur-Sargina (Khorsabad), some 60
miles further north. See Nineveh.
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