United States or Andorra ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Its most essential feature was a ziggurat, or tower, which was either square, or at any rate rectangular, and built in stages, the smallest number of such stages being two, and the largest known number seven. At the summit of the tower was probably in every case a shrine, or chapel, of greater or less size, containing altars and images.
Work has hitherto been confined to the northwest corner of the mound around the ziggurat, or temple tower, and already considerable traces of Assyrian buildings have been laid bare in this portion of the site. The city wall on the northern side has been uncovered, as well as quays with steps leading down to the water along the river front.
This, indeed, is admitted on all hands; and the controversy is thereby narrowed to the question, which of two great ruins the only two entitled by their size and situation to attention has the better right to be regarded as the great and celebrated sanctuary of the ancient Babylon. That the mound of Babil is the ziggurat or tower of a Babylonian temple scarcely admits of a doubt.
In the nearby museum were plans showing how the city was believed to have been laid out, dominated by the ziggurat. A second trip of similar ancient historical interest was made to Babylon, again organised by the padre; the excavations here seemed to be on a much larger scale and had been made by German archaeologists at a time when Germany was extending her political interests in the area.
The general appearance of a Babylonian temple, or at any rate of its chief feature, the tower or ziggurat, will be best gathered from a more particular description of a single building of the kind; and the building which it will be most convenient to take for that purpose is that remarkable edifice which strikes moderns with more admiration than any other now existing in the country, and which has also been more completely and more carefully examined than any other Babylonian ruins the Birs-i-Nimrud, or ancient temple of Nebo at Borsippa.
The base of this ziggurat was a square, 167 feet 6 inches each way, composed of a solid mass of sun-dried brick, faced at bottom to the height of twenty feet with a wall of hewn stones, more than eight feet and a half in thickness.
They stood at the north-western corner of the Nimrud platform, and consisted of two edifices, one exactly at the angle, comprising the higher tower or ziggurat, which stood out as a sort of corner buttress from the great mound, and a shrine with chambers at the tower's base; the other, a little further to the east, consisting of a shrine and chambers without a tower.
One peculiarity the Babylonian temples possessed which was not shared by those of the west. Each had its ziggurat or "tower," which served for the observation of the stars, and in the topmost storey of which was the altar of the god. It corresponded with the "high-place" of Canaan, where man imagined himself nearest to the gods of heaven.
Besides the shrine at the summit of the temple-tower or ziggurat, there was commonly at the base of the tower, or at any rate somewhere within the enclosure, a second shrine or chapel, in which the ordinary worshipper, who wished to spare himself the long ascent, made his offerings.
These mounds are now known by the name of Nimrûd and are situated on the left or eastern bank of the Tigris, a short distance above the point at which it is joined by the stream of the Upper Zâb, and the great mound which still covers the remains of the ziggurat, or temple tower, can be seen from a considerable distance across the plain.
Word Of The Day