Chapter 4

10. "In this dilemma," says Layard, "I ordered a recess to be cut into the bank of the river where it rose perpendicularly from the water's edge. By screening the front with reeds and boughs of trees, and covering the whole with similar materials, a small room was formed. I was much troubled, however, with scorpions and other reptiles, which issued from the earth forming the walls of my apartment; and later in the summer by the gnats and sandflies which hovered on a calm night over the river." It is difficult to decide between the respective merits of this novel summer retreat and of the winter dwelling, ambitiously constructed of mud bricks dried in the sun, and roofed with solid wooden beams. This imposing residence, in which Layard spent the last months of his first winter in Assyria, would have been sufficient protection against wind and weather, after it had been duly coated with mud. Unfortunately a heavy shower fell before it was quite completed, and so saturated the bricks that they did not dry again before the following spring. "The consequence was," he pleasantly remarks, "that the only verdure on which my eyes were permitted to feast before my return to Europe, was furnished by my own property--the walls in the interior of the rooms being continually clothed with a crop of grass."

11. These few indications are sufficient to give a tolerably clear idea of what might be called "Pleasures and hardships of an explorer's life in the desert." As for the work itself, it is simple enough in the telling, although it must have been extremely wearisome and laborious in the performance. The simplest way to get at the contents of a mound, would be to remove all the earth and rubbish by carting it away,--a piece of work which our searchers might no doubt have accomplished with great facility, had they had at their disposal a few scores of thousands of slaves and captives, as had the ancient kings who built the huge constructions the ruins of which had now to be disinterred. With a hundred or two of hired workmen and very limited funds, the case was slightly different. The task really amounted to this: to achieve the greatest possible results at the least possible expense of labor and time, and this is how such excavations are carried out on a plan uniformly followed everywhere as the most practical and direct:

12. Trenches, more or less wide, are conducted from different sides towards the centre of the mound. This is obviously the surest and shortest way to arrive at whatever remains of walls may be imbedded in it. But even this preliminary operation has to be carried out with some judgment and discernment. It is known that the Chaldeans and Assyrians constructed their palaces and temples not upon the level, natural soil, but upon an artificial platform of brick and earth, at least thirty feet high. This platform was faced on all sides with a strong wall of solid burned brick, often moreover cased with stone. A trench dug straight from the plain into the lower part of the mound would consequently be wasted labor, since it could never bring to anything but that same blind wall, behind which there is only the solid mass of the platform. Digging therefore begins in the slope of the mound, at a height corresponding to the supposed height of the platform, and is carried on straight across its surface until a wall is reached,--a wall belonging to one of the palaces or temples. This wall has then to be followed, till a break in it is found, indicating an entrance or doorway.[E] The burrowing process becomes more and more complicated, and sometimes dangerous. Shafts have to be sunk from above at frequent intervals to introduce air and light into the long and narrow corridor; the sides and vault have to be propped by beams to prevent the soft earthy mass from falling in and crushing the diggers. Every shovelful of earth cleared away is removed in baskets which are passed from hand to hand till they are emptied outside the trench, or else lowered empty and sent up full, through the shafts by means of ropes and pulleys, to be emptied on the top. When a doorway is reached, it is cleared all through the thickness of the wall, which is very great; then a similar tunnel is conducted all along the inside of the wall, the greatest care being needed not to damage the sculptures which generally line it, and which, as it is, are more or less injured and cracked, their upper parts sometimes entirely destroyed by the action of fire. When the tunnel has been carried along the four sides, every doorway or portal carefully noted and cleared, it is seen from the measurements,--especially the width--whether the space explored be an inner court, a hall or a chamber. If the latter, it is sometimes entirely cleared from above, when the rubbish frequently yields valuable finds in the shape of various small articles. One such chamber, uncovered by Layard, at Koyunjik, proved a perfect mine of treasures. The most curious relics were brought to light in it: quantities of studs and small rosettes in mother-of-pearl, ivory and metal, (such as were used to ornament the harness of the war-horses), bowls, cups and dishes of bronze,[F] besides caldrons, shields and other items of armor, even glass bowls, lastly fragments of a royal throne--possibly the very throne on which King Sennacherib sat to give audience or pronounce judgments, for the palace at Koyunjik where these objects were found was built by that monarch so long familiar to us only from the Bible, and the sculptures and inscriptions which cover its walls are the annals of his conquests abroad and his rule at home.

A description of the removal of the colossal bulls and lions which were shipped to England and now are safely housed in the British Museum, ought by rights to form the close of a chapter devoted to "Layard and his work." But the reference must suffice; the vivid and entertaining narrative should be read in the original, as the passages are too long for transcription, and would be marred by quoting.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] "Nineveh and its Remains," and "Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon."

[D] Rawlinson's "Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World," Vol. I., Chap. II.

[E] See Figure 15, on p. 53.

[F] See Figures 5, 6, and 7.

III.

THE RUINS.

"And they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and slime for mortar."--_Gen._ xi. 3.

1. It is a principle, long ago laid down and universally recognized, that every country _makes_ its own people. That is, the mode of life and the intellectual culture of a people are shaped by the characteristic features of the land in which it dwells; or, in other words, men can live only in a manner suited to the peculiarities of their native country. Men settled along the sea-shore will lead a different life, will develop different qualities of mind and body from the owners of vast inland pasture-grounds or the holders of rugged mountain fastnesses. They will all dress differently, eat different food, follow different pursuits. Their very dwellings and public buildings will present an entirely different aspect, according to the material which they will have at hand in the greatest abundance, be it stone, wood or any other substance suitable for the purpose. Thus every country will create its own peculiar style of art, determined chiefly by its own natural productions. On these, architecture, the art of the builder, will be even more dependent than any other.

2. It would seem as though Chaldea or Lower Mesopotamia, regarded from this point of view, could never have originated any architecture at all, for it is, at first sight, absolutely deficient in building materials of any sort. The whole land is alluvial, that is, formed, gradually, through thousands of years, of the rich mud deposited by the two rivers, as they spread into vast marshy flats towards the end of their course. Such soil, when hardened into sufficient consistency, is the finest of all for cultivation, and a greater source of wealth than mines of the most precious ore; but it bears no trees and contains no stone. The people who were first tempted to settle in the lowlands towards the Persian Gulf by the extraordinary fertility of that region, found nothing at all available to construct their simple dwellings--nothing but reeds of enormous size, which grew there, as they do now, in the greatest profusion. These reeds "cover the marshes in the summer-time, rising often to the height of fourteen or fifteen feet. The Arabs of the marsh region form their houses of this material, binding the stems together and bending them into arches, to make the skeletons of their buildings; while, to form the walls, they stretch across from arch to arch mats made of the leaves."[G]

3. There can be no doubt that of such habitations consisted the villages and towns of those first settlers. They gave quite sufficient shelter in the very mild winters of that region, and, when coated with a layer of mud which soon dried and hardened in the sun, could exclude even the violent rains of that season. But they were in no way fitted for more ambitious and dignified purposes. Neither the palaces of the kings nor the temples of the gods could be constructed out of bent reeds. Something more durable must be found, some material that would lend itself to constructions of any size or shape. The mud coating of the cabins naturally suggested such a material. Could not this same mud or clay, of which an inexhaustible supply was always on hand, be moulded into cakes of even size, and after being left to dry in the sun, be piled into walls of the required height and thickness? And so men began to make bricks. It was found that the clay gained much in consistency when mixed with finely chopped straw--another article of which the country, abounding in wheat and other grains, yielded unlimited quantities. But even with this improvement the sun-dried bricks could not withstand the continued action of many rainy seasons, or many torrid summers, but had a tendency to crumble away when parched too dry, or to soak and dissolve back into mud, when too long exposed to rain. All these defects were removed by the simple expedient of baking the bricks in kilns or ovens, a process which gives them the hardness and solidity of stone. But as the cost of kiln-dried bricks is naturally very much greater than that of the original crude article, so the latter continued to be used in far greater quantities; the walls were made entirely of them and only protected by an outward casing of the hard baked bricks. These being so much more expensive, and calculated to last forever, great care was bestowed on their preparation; the best clay was selected and they were stamped with the names and titles of the king by whose order the palace or temple was built, for which they were to be used. This has been of great service in identifying the various ruins and assigning them dates, at least approximately. As is to be expected, there is a notable difference in the specimens of different periods. While on some bricks bearing the name of a king who lived about 3000 B.C. the inscription is uncouth and scarcely legible, and even their shape is rude and the material very inferior, those of the later Babylonian period (600 B.C.) are handsome and neatly made. As to the quality, all explorers agree in saying it is fully equal to that of the best modern English bricks. The excellence of these bricks for building purposes is a fact so well known that for now two thousand years--ever since the destruction of Babylon--its walls, temples and palaces have been used as quarries for the construction of cities and villages. The little town of HILLAH, situated nearest to the site of the ancient capital, is built almost entirely with bricks from one single mound, that of KASR--once the gorgeous and far-famed palace of Nebuchadnezzar, whose name and titles thus grace the walls of the most lowly Arab and Turkish dwellings. All the other mounds are similarly used, and so far is the valuable mine from being exhausted, that it furnishes forth, to this day, a brisk and flourishing trade. While a party of workmen is continually employed in digging for the available bricks, another is busy conveying them to Hillah; there they are shipped on the Euphrates and carried to any place where building materials are in demand, often even loaded on donkeys at this or that landing-place and sent miles away inland; some are taken as far as Baghdad, where they have been used for ages. The same thing is done wherever there are mounds and ruins. Both Layard and his successors had to allow their Arab workmen to build their own temporary houses out of ancient bricks, only watching them narrowly, lest they should break some valuable relic in the process or use some of the handsomest and best-preserved specimens.

4. No construction of bricks, either crude or kiln-dried, could have sufficient solidity without the help of some kind of cement, to make them adhere firmly together. This also the lowlands of Chaldea and Babylonia yield in sufficient quantity and of various qualities. While in the early structures a kind of sticky red clay or loam is used, mixed with chopped straw, bitumen or pitch is substituted at a later period, which substance, being applied hot, adheres so firmly to the bricks, that pieces of these are broken off when an attempt is made to procure a fragment of the cement. This valuable article was brought down by water from IS on the Euphrates (now called HIT), where abundant springs of bitumen are to this day in activity. Calcareous earth--i.e., earth strongly mixed with lime--being very plentiful to the west of the lower Euphrates, towards the Arabian frontier, the Babylonians of the latest times learned to make of it a white mortar which, for lightness and strength, has never been surpassed.

5. All the essential materials for plain but durable constructions being thus procurable on the spot or in the immediate neighborhood, the next important point was the selection of proper sites for raising these constructions, which were to serve purposes of defence as well as of worship and royal majesty. A rocky eminence, inaccessible on one or several sides, or at least a hill, a knoll somewhat elevated above the surrounding plain, have usually been chosen wherever such existed. But this was not the case in Chaldea. There, as far as eye can see, not the slightest undulation breaks the dead flatness of the land. Yet there, more than anywhere else, an elevated position was desirable, if only as a protection from the unhealthy exhalations of a vast tract of swamps, and from the intolerable nuisance of swarms of aggressive and venomous insects, which infest the entire river region during the long summer season. Safety from the attacks of the numerous roaming tribes which ranged the country in every direction before it was definitely settled and organized, was also not among the last considerations. So, what nature had refused, the cunning and labor of man had to supply. Artificial hills or platforms were constructed, of enormous size and great height--from thirty to fifty, even sixty feet, and on their flat summits the buildings were raised. These platforms sometimes supported only one palace, sometimes, as in the case of the immense mounds of Koyunjik and Nimrud in Assyria, their surface had room for several, built by successive kings. Of course such huge piles could not be entirely executed in solid masonry, even of crude bricks. These were generally mixed with earth and rubbish of all kinds, in more or less regular, alternate layers, the bricks being laid in clay. But the outward facing was in all cases of baked brick. The platform of the principal mound which marks the place of ancient UR, (now called MUGHEIR),[H] is faced with a wall ten feet thick, of red kiln-dried bricks, cemented with bitumen. In Assyria, where stone was not scarce, the sides of the platform were even more frequently "protected by massive stone-masonry, carried perpendicularly from the natural ground to a height somewhat exceeding that of the platform, and either made plain at the top, or else crowned into stone battlements cut into gradines."[I]

6. Some mounds are considerably higher than the others and of a peculiar shape, almost like a pyramid, that is, ending in a point from which it slopes down rapidly on all sides. Such is the pyramidal mound of Nimrud, which Layard describes as being so striking and picturesque an object as you approach the ruins from any point of the plain.[J] Such also is the still more picturesque mound of BORSIP (now BIRS NIMRUD) near Babylon, the largest of this kind.[K] These mounds are the remains of peculiar constructions, called ZIGGURATS, composed of several platforms piled one on the other, each square in shape and somewhat smaller than the preceding one; the topmost platform supported a temple or sanctuary, which by these means was raised far above the dwellings of men, a constant reminder not less eloquent than the exhortation in some of our religious services: "Lift up your hearts!" Of these heavenward pointing towers, which were also used as observatories by the Chaldeans, great lovers of the starry heavens, that of Borsip, once composed of seven stages, is the loftiest; it measures over 150 feet in perpendicular height.

7. It is evident that these artificial hills could have been erected only at an incredible cost of labor. The careful measurements which have been taken of several of the principal mounds have enabled explorers to make an accurate calculation of the exact amount of labor employed on each. The result is startling, even though one is prepared for something enormous. The great mound of Koyunjik--which represents the palaces of Nineveh itself--covers an area of one hundred acres, and reaches an elevation of 95 feet at its highest point. To heap up such a pile of brick and earth "would require the united exertions of 10,000 men for twelve years, or of 20,000 men for six years."[L] Then only could the construction of the palaces begin. The mound of Nebbi-Yunus, which has not yet been excavated, covers an area of forty acres and is loftier and steeper than its neighbor: "its erection would have given full employment to 10,000 men for the space of five years and a half." Clearly, none but conquering monarchs, who yearly took thousands of prisoners in battles and drove home into captivity a part of the population of every country they subdued, could have employed such hosts of workmen on their buildings--not once, but continually, for it seems to have been a point of honor with the Assyrian kings that each should build a new palace for himself.

8. When one considers the character of the land along the upper course of the Tigris, where the Assyrians dwelt, one cannot help wondering why they went on building mounds and using nothing but bricks in their constructions. There is no reason for it in the nature of the country. The cities of Assyria--NINEVEH (Koyunjik), KALAH (Nimrud), ARBELA, DUR-SHARRUKIN (Khorsabad) were built in the midst of a hilly region abounding in many varieties of stone, from soft limestone to hard basalt; some of them actually stood on rocky ground, their moats being in part cut through the rock. Had they wanted stone of better quality, they had only to get it from the Zagros range of mountains, which skirts all Assyria to the East, separating it from Media. Yet they never availed themselves of these resources, which must have led to great improvements in their architecture, and almost entirely reserved the use of stone for ornamental purposes. This would tend to show, at all events, that the Assyrians were not distinguished for inventive genius. They had wandered northward from the lowlands, where they had dwelt for centuries as a portion of the Chaldean nation. When they separated from it and went off to found cities for themselves, they took with them certain arts and tricks of handicraft learned in the old home, and never thought of making any change in them. It does not even seem to have occurred to them that by selecting a natural rocky elevation for their buildings they would avoid the necessity of an artificial platform and save vast amount of labor and time.

9. That they did put stone to one practical use--the outward casing of their walls and platforms--we have already seen. The blocks must have been cut in the Zagros mountains and brought by water--rafted down the Zab, or some other of the rivers which, springing from those mountains, flow into the Tigris. The process is represented with perfect clearness on some of the sculptures. That reproduced in Fig. 13 is of great interest, as showing a peculiar mode of transport,--rafts floated on inflated skins--which is at the present moment in as general and constant use as it appears to have been in the same parts three thousand years ago and probably more. When Layard wished to send off the bulls and lions which he had moved from Nimrud and Koyunjik down the Tigris to Baghdad and Busrah, (or Bassorah), there to be embarked for Europe, he had recourse to this conveyance, as no other is known for similar purposes. This is how he describes the primitive, but ingenious contrivance: "The skins of full-grown sheep and goats, taken off with as few incisions as possible, are dried and prepared, one aperture being left, through which the air is forced by the lungs. A framework of poplar beams, branches of trees, and reeds, having been constructed of the size of the intended raft, the inflated skins are tied to it by osier twigs. The raft is then complete and is moved to the water and launched. Care is taken to place the skins with their mouths upward, that, in case any should burst or require refilling, they can be easily reached. Upon the framework are piled bales of goods, and property belonging to merchants and travellers.... The raftmen impel these rude vessels by long poles, to the ends of which are fastened a few pieces of split cane. (See Fig. 14.) ... During the floods in spring, or after heavy rains, small rafts may float from Mosul to Baghdad in about eighty-four hours; but the larger are generally six or seven days in performing the voyage. In summer, and when the river is low, they are frequently nearly a month in reaching their destination. When they have been unloaded, they are broken up, and the beams, wood and twigs, sold at considerable profit. The skins are washed and afterward rubbed with a preparation, to keep them from cracking and rotting. They are then brought back, either on the shoulders of the raftmen or upon donkeys, to Mossul and Tekrit, where the men engaged in the navigation of the Tigris usually reside." Numerous sculptures show us that similar skins were also used by swimmers, who rode upon them in the water, probably when they intended to swim a greater distance than they could have accomplished by their unassisted efforts. (See Figure 16.)