Part 9

To the south lies the largest chamber of the Citadel, the throne-room of the Babylonian kings. It is so clearly marked out for this purpose that no reasonable doubt can be felt as to its having been used as their principal audience chamber. If any one should desire to localise the scene of Belshazzar’s eventful banquet, he can surely place it with complete accuracy in this immense room. It is 17 metres broad and 52 metres long. The walls on the longest side are 6 metres thick, considerably in excess of those at the ends, and lead us to suppose that they supported a barrel-vaulting, of which, however, there is no proof. A great central door and two equally important side doors open upon the court. Immediately opposite the main door in the back wall there is a doubly recessed niche in which doubtless the throne stood, so that the king could be visible to those who stood in the court, an arrangement similar to that of the Ninmach temple, where the temple statue could be clearly seen from the court. The pavement does not consist in the usual manner of a single layer of brick, but of at least six, which were laid in asphalt and thus formed a homogeneous solid platform which rested on a projecting ledge built out from the walls. As we have already seen from the east gate, the walls of these chambers were washed over with white gypsum.

The façade of the court was very strikingly decorated with richly ornamented enamelled tiles (_M.D.O.-G._ No. 13). On a dark blue ground are yellow columns with bright blue capitals, placed near together and connected by a series of palmettos. The capitals with the bold curves of their double volutes remind us of the forms long known to us in Cyprus (Fig. 64). Above was a frieze of white double palmettos, bordered below by a band of squares, alternately yellow, black, and white. The various colours of the decoration were effectively heightened on the dark background by means of white borders. This fantastic representation of a pillared building, such as the king and his followers would naturally have seen in their military expeditions, must have appeared strangely foreign to the Babylonian countryman, who was unaccustomed to either capitals or entablatures.

The technique is similar to that of the flat enamels of the Ishtar Gate; each colour is outlined in black, and the position marks are also employed here in the same manner. They can be better studied here than elsewhere, for the greater number of the bricks were found in their original connection. After the destruction of the wall by brick robbers the outer coating fell towards the north, and we could take them up, one piece after another, as though no accident had befallen them. The system of signs can be seen best on the capitals (Fig. 65). Here the markings consist of numerals combined with dots. They are marked on the upper edge of the bricks with a poor, somewhat blackened, glaze. The signs that distinguish the courses are in the centre, those for the lateral arrangement are close to the vertical joints. Each of the latter signs is a counterpart of the sign near the vertical joint of the brick adjoining it. Of the central signs that mark the courses the top course of the upper row of volutes has one stroke, the second has two, and so on up to seven. The seven courses of the lower row of volutes are numbered in the same way, but the groups of strokes are preceded by a dot to distinguish them from those of the upper series. For the sequence of the bricks one of the intermediate ornaments forms a single unit with the capital adjoining it on the right. All the bricks that belong to the same unit bear the same number of strokes. The counting runs from left to right. The numerals are crossed by a transverse stroke, which, in order to mark the direction of the signs, has a dot attached to it. This direction line is parallel to the vertical joint on the central ornament, and parallel with the front of the brick on the volutes. It is quite probable that the separate groups were first provisionally built together, at any rate for the purpose of drawing the design, which is still visible in red colour under the enamel, so as to secure that boldness and freedom of outline which delights us with its beauty at the present time. But when once the process of enamelling began—the transportation of the bricks, the drying, the burning, and all the unavoidable processes that had to be carried through before the bricks could be placed in the wall—it would be impossible to keep them apart. The marks would then afford the only means of placing them correctly on the walls, and rendering it easy to deliver them in groups to the respective masons.

In order to close the joints completely the bricks are slightly wedge-shaped. The joints between the courses are laid in mud over asphalt, which, as we observe in other careful building, does not extend to the front of the building but stops at a distance of half a brick, thus avoiding any blotching of the face of the wall.

In addition to the black outline and the dark blue ground, the colours employed are white, light blue, yellow, and red. The red now has everywhere the appearance of green, but where this colour is thickened, as for instance where drops have trickled down, a core of brilliant red is found coated with green, which must be the result of a superficial change of colour that has occurred during the course of ages. We have also some large pieces of enamel from ancient breakages in which we can observe this same fact. The green coating extends to a depth of 2 to 3 millimetres, which in the ordinary enamel on the brick would entirely supersede the original red colouring. This is an important point, because the manufacture of opaque red enamel has been attended with considerable difficulty even in recent times, while transparent red glaze is made with ease at the present time. Thus in forming a judgment on the sense of colour of the ancient Babylonian it must not be forgotten that this fine red was included in their scheme. We can well imagine a red-haired, but not a green-haired lion (see above, p. 28).

Beside the decoration already described we find other designs which belonged to a floral frieze. This was undoubtedly placed on the façade of the throne-room, but nothing definite has so far been found to show its exact position. It must always be remembered that an exhaustive study of these bricks and of other similar objects found in Babylon requires far more space than our Expedition House can afford; the things must be spread out, and that cannot be done here. We have always to be careful to pack away the finds as quickly as possible, and that renders them inaccessible for any further comparison, however desirable it may be. The conditions of our work are by no means easy, and in dealing with small objects such as terra-cottas, cylinder seals, implements, ceramics and the like, I have experienced serious and unavoidable difficulties.

As the purpose of the principal hall is unusual, so also the chambers behind differ considerably from the usual arrangement, but they show some similarity to the inner chambers near the great hall of the central court. They are three lofty chambers or courts each provided with a side-chamber on the south side, which can also be entered from the open passage behind the wall of the Citadel. The side courts are connected with the throne-room by an intermediate chamber, and with the side corridors by another apartment, while they communicate with each other through the central court 35. In each of the two chambers that abut on the rear wall of the throne-room there is a circular walled well, and each of these chambers is completely walled in from the floor down to water-level with broken brick, asphalt, and mud. The wells in each case lie in the south-west corner of the chamber. The object of this solid walling-off of the wells must have been to secure absolutely pure water for the use of the royal household. The river water would naturally be well filtered by the earth through which it passed before reaching the wells. A peculiarity of this country at the present time is the fine distinction made between the various kinds of drinking water, as a natural result of the climate. The people distinguish the various kinds of water, such as sweet, salt, flat or brackish, much as we distinguish our alcoholic drinks, and as we speak of light or heavy beer, so the Oriental speaks of light or heavy water. The water of the Euphrates is famed, and is considered lighter than the water of the Tigris. One of the earlier governors of Bagdad drank Euphrates water exclusively, and had it sent daily from Musseyib. Another travelled from Bagdad to Constantinople with a large supply of Euphrates water stored in leather bottles, just as a celebrated modern traveller drank nothing but champagne during a long journey to Haïl in Central Arabia. Nowadays the water in most of the wells on the town site of Babylon, as in many other ruined sites, is brackish or salt and not good. I still do not understand fully why this should be the case; it certainly was not so in early times, otherwise it would be difficult to explain the number of wells found in all the ruins, where the soil is now so salt that the Arabs in early summer collect the upper crust of earth and from it obtain salt for cooking and saltpetre for gunpowder. As a result of this the ruins are extremely bare of vegetation, and stand out grey and barren in contrast with the surrounding plain, which is green, at any rate during the spring-tide, when there is some slight rainfall.

At a later period, apparently during Persian times, two pillars formed of two roughly hewn palm stems were set up in court 36 to support a roof constructed either half way or completely over the court. They stood on the brick pavement, which here as in the adjoining chambers is composed of tiles measuring 40 × 41 centimetres. The lower end of the pillars was encased in a socket of brickwork covered with plaster (Fig. 66). The interior of this base still retains the impressions of the palm stems, the upper portion of which was also plastered. Strabo describes this kind of pillar (xvi. 1, 5): “διὰ δὲ τὴν τῆς ὕλης σπάνιν ἐκ φοινικίνων ξύλων αἱ οἰκοδομαὶ συντελοῦνται καὶ δοκοῖς καὶ στύλοις· περὶ δὲ τοὺς στύλους στρέφοντες ἐκ τῆς καλάμης σχοινία περιτιθέασιν, εἶτ’ ἐπαλείφοντες χρώμασι καταγράφουσι, τὰς δὲ θύρας ἀσφάλτῳ.” Nothing now remains of the reed rope that was twisted round the palm stems, but it is fairly certain that the stems were plastered over.

The rear wall of the group of chambers behind the throne-room is toothed in a peculiar fashion. Since the wall joins the building at an oblique angle the series of rooms must either have been oblique, or, if the architects insisted on making them rectangular, the inner face of the wall could not have been parallel with the outer face. The latter could only have been effected by inserting wedge-shaped portions in the single brick courses, which would have imperilled the cohesion of the bricks and would have been very clumsy workmanship. If, on the contrary, the wall were built in retreating steps, the inner chambers could be rectangular and the rows of bricks laid straight, thus ensuring good bonding of the wall. This very characteristic feature of the outside of the building completely dominated the whole of the secular Babylonian architecture of the later period (cf. Fig. 156). All the streets of the town excavated by us in Merkes show these walls faced with remarkable one-sided projections, a method which was still adhered to in the later Graeco-Parthian period, when so much building was done with broken brick, although it was not then justified by technical considerations. It must not, therefore, be regarded as a mere requirement of the workmen, but as a model arising from the technique of an early art, unusual but very characteristic.

In the houses 28, 29, 30, a large chamber is interposed between the court and the usual principal room lying to the south of it. This additional chamber is a hall that opens with a wide arch on to the court. This must have been a very pleasant room in summer, for the entrance lies all day in shadow. These halls opening with wide arches into the court played a prominent part in Parthian and Sassanide times in the ground-plans of Ktesiphon, Hatra, Assur and other towns of that period, especially in the palaces; and as _liwan_ they now play an important part in modern oriental architecture. Visitors to Mossul, Aleppo, and many other cities have a vivid recollection of them.

Here in Babylon the idea shows itself tentatively and timidly. The houses 13, 14, and 16 have similar rooms. In 25, 26, 27, the entrance hall opens in _liwan_ fashion on to the court. We can here observe the uncertainty that attends a new idea, which only after the course of centuries, and not without reiterated fertilisation from the west, has at last emerged into glorious fruition.

In the north-west corner of the Principal Court a broad passage guarded by a series of three arched doorways leads to a gate in the city wall. Here the eastern portion of the Citadel wall, with its closely set towers, adjoins the western portion, of which only the foundations remain which show no traces of towers. In the passage is a large drain, roofed over with corbelled brick courses, which carried off the surface water from the Principal Court through the door in the wall past the palace and then farther west to the Euphrates. The same drain also branched off to the south, down through the southern wall of the Citadel, where, as the wall was already in existence, an outlet was cut for it. Thus it had a fall to the north and another to the south.

The entire west front of the Principal Court was occupied by the façade of the earliest part of the palace, which extended from north to south, the building named by us the Nabopolassar Palace. This palace on its older and lower level was still in use when the newer eastern portion on its higher level was completed. In order, however, not to render communication between the two buildings unnecessarily difficult, the following method was adopted: the Principal Court was shut off on the west by a mud wall, which left an intermediate space between it and the old palace, of the same breadth as the northern passage, and a second one lying at the same level as the old palace. A wide doorway, which later was narrowed, led through the mud wall. Ramps led up to the higher levels (Fig. 67). At first they were constructed in the shape of shallow funnels which led upwards from the doorways in all directions. With the first relaying of the pavement, however, they were ingeniously enclosed on both sides with walls of mud brick. Finally, the old palace itself was raised to the same level as the later one, the ramps were filled up, and overlaid with fine large tiles bearing Nebuchadnezzar’s stamp on the side. As a consequence of this the two ramps with their ancient pavement of roughened limestone flags are in a state of perfect preservation. The mud wall still remained and was only demolished on a further raising of the pavement. This last pavement, which again had the usual bricks with Nebuchadnezzar’s stamps, is almost destroyed owing to its later use as a burial-place.

Such is the palace which Nebuchadnezzar in the Grotefend cylinder (_K.B._ iii. 2, p. 39, col. 3 l. 27) specially designates as a palace intended both for government and for administration, in these words: “In those days I built the palace, the seat of my kingdom, the bond of the vast assemblage of all mankind, the dwelling-place of joy and gladness, where I ... the gifts, in Babylon anew, laid its foundations on Earth’s wide breast with bitumen and bricks, mighty trunks of cedars I brought from Lebanon, the bright forest, for its roofing, I caused it to be surrounded with a mighty wall of bitumen and brick, the royal command, the lordly injunction I caused to go forth from it” (trans. by Winckler and Delitzsch).

XVI THE PALACE OF NABOPOLASSAR

So far we have traced the eastern, official portion of the palace, which is quite distinct from the private part on the western side of the Principal Court. Here the lowest part represents the earliest palace of those we can recognise on the Kasr. We have named this the palace of Nabopolassar, without, however, having found written authority for it on the site itself. Our grounds for the hypothesis are as follows. In the great _Steinplatten_ inscription, 7, 34, Nebuchadnezzar says: “In Babil, my favourite city, that I love, was the palace, the house the marvel of mankind, the centre of the land, the shining residence, the dwelling of Majesty, upon the Babil place in Babil, from Imgur-bel to the eastern canal Libil-ḫigalla, from the bank of the Euphrates to Aiburšabû, which Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, my father, my begetter, built of crude bricks and dwelt in it—in consequence of high waters its foundations had become weak, and owing to the filling up of the street of Babil the gateways of that palace had become too low. I tore down its walls of dried brick, and laid its corner-stone bare and reached the depth of the waters. Facing the water I laid its foundation firmly, and raised it mountain high with bitumen and burnt brick. Mighty cedars I caused to be laid down at length for its roofing. Door leaves of cedar overlaid with copper, thresholds and sockets of bronze I placed in its doorways. Silver and gold and precious stones, all that can be imagined of costliness, splendour, wealth, riches, all that was highly esteemed I heaped up within it, I stored up immense abundance of royal treasure within it” (trans. by Delitzsch). Nebuchadnezzar undoubtedly speaks here of the whole Southern Citadel. We need not infer from this, however, that the palace of Nabopolassar was of the same extent, for the ancient kings were not too exact with regard to such statements (cf. the inscription of Neriglissar).

The walls of mud brick of which the ancient palace consisted can of course no longer be found, as Nebuchadnezzar states that he destroyed them, but the foundations remain, which he improved and strengthened, and which therefore must have been built of burnt brick and not of crude brick. This method adopted by Nabopolassar of building a wall of crude brick on a foundation of burnt brick is actually seen on the north-west corner of his Arachtu wall, and appears also in the houses in Merkes that date from the time of Hammurabi. It is my opinion that these burnt brick foundations of Nabopolassar still exist on the western part of the Southern Citadel, and if so Nebuchadnezzar made use of them without any alteration in laying out his new building.

We have dug out the ancient building to a considerable depth, especially on the north and south sides. The bricks are of the small size (32 × 32 centimetres), and bear no stamp. They are laid in asphalt and reeds and are crushed and split in every direction. The wall surfaces are daubed over with asphalt, which also covers the split and damaged portions, and thus we have ample evidence of the handiwork of the restorer. On the north side Nebuchadnezzar added to the foundations of the chambers a strengthening length of rubble wall laid with asphalt and reeds, which faced the north front for a breadth of about 10 metres. The ancient wall rises to a height of about 7 metres above zero (see p. 167). Above this lie the usual 33–centimetre bricks with Nebuchadnezzar’s 4–lined stamp, also laid in asphalt and reeds, with the border courses laid in mud. In the lower courses of the later building a number of tiles measuring 44 × 44 × 6 centimetres are built into the wall, which can be recognised with certainty as having been previously used as flagstones by the fragments of gypsum mortar that still adhere to their joints, and show that Nebuchadnezzar very naturally took up the pavement of Nabopolassar, and used it in part as material for the walls. His new pavement consists of ten courses of brick laid in asphalt alone, covered with a layer of brick rubble, over which paving-stones measuring 38·5 × 38·5 are laid. Of this pavement, however, we have found little more than a small piece, which still remains in the southern chambers. This later pavement was apparently higher than the old one, but 7 metres lower than that in the great eastern portion. Of the final alterations that brought the whole up to one and the same level there are only traces, for instance, the building by which the principal hall adjoining the Western Court (W) was enlarged.

The ancient palace comes to an end at the squaring line _i_ of Fig. 44. Originally it extended farther, and the wall that faces west was here chipped off, when the portion farthest to the west was added. On the south, on the contrary, the ancient palace wall still stands and is distinctly escarped (Fig. 68). Here Nebuchadnezzar jointed his brickwork with a grid-like insertion of beams of poplar wood laid lengthways and crossways to strengthen it. The foundations of the adjoining chambers have also a filling of broken brick to the east and of mud brick to the west.

Of the eastern side nothing is visible except on the north. Here we see that the pillars of the doors of the three arches of the broad passage-way do not exist below in the ancient building, as was only to be expected, as the eastern building was not yet in existence at that time. Near the corner is a groove forming an expansion joint for the wall that originally joined it at this place, the fortification wall of Nabopolassar, which must have united here with the line of the palace wall. Nebuchadnezzar, however, substituted for it a brick wall of his own, which he pushed farther to the north.

The north front is in good preservation at this point and is very remarkable (Fig. 69). It is treated in the stepped or toothed fashion that we have already met with. As the deviation from the line of the walls of the building is very considerable, the steps are short, and on the façade, which is 80 metres long, there are 80 of these vertical steps, which give a unique appearance, to be met with in no other order of architecture. The stepped wall rests on a level foundation at the height at which Nabopolassar’s pavement must originally have been laid. At the same level a grid of poplar wood is inserted in the brickwork, and a beam is placed on each long side and another on the short side of each projection. This can be clearly seen in the photograph. Where the doorway leads to the passage to the court, the step is made larger in order to afford convenient space for the door.