DATES. Nimrod B.C. 2234 ? Urukh. Bowariyeh, Wurka 2093 Ilgi 2070 Chedorlaomer 1976 Ismi Dagon 1850 Shamas Vul. Kaleh Sherghat 1800 Sin Shada. Wuswus? 1700 Sur Sin 1660 Purna Puryas 1600 Arab conquerors 1500 ?[67] Already the names of fifteen or sixteen kings belonging to these old dynasties have been recovered, and the remains of some ten or twelve temples have been identified as founded by them; but unfortunately none of these are in a sufficiently perfect state to afford any certainty as to their being entirely of this age, and all are in such a state of ruin that, making use of all the information we possess, we cannot yet properly restore a temple of the old Chaldean epoch. Notwithstanding this, it is a great gain to the history of architecture to have obtained so much knowledge as we have of temples which were only known to us before from the vague descriptions of the Greeks, and which are the earliest forms of a type of temples found afterwards continually cropping up in the East. It would be contrary to all experience to suppose that a people of Turanian origin should be without temples of some sort, but, except the description by the Greeks of the temple or tomb of Belus, we have nothing to guide us. We have now a fair idea what the general outline of their temples was, and even if we cannot trace their origin, we can at least follow their descendants. There seems now no doubt but that many, perhaps most, of the Buddhist forms of architecture in India and further eastward, were derived from the banks of the Euphrates. Many of the links are still wanting; but it is something to know that the Birs Nimroud is the type which two thousand years afterwards was copied at Pagahn in Burmah, and Boro Buddor in Java; and that the descent from these can easily be traced in those countries and in China to the present day. The principal reason why it is so difficult to form a distinct idea of this old form of temple is, that the material most employed in their construction was either crude, sun-dried, or very imperfectly-burnt bricks; or when a better class of bricks was employed, as was probably the case in Babylon, they have been quarried and used in the construction of succeeding capitals. A good deal also is owing to the circumstance that those who have explored them have in many cases not been architects, or were persons not accustomed to architectural researches, and who consequently have failed to seize the peculiarities of the building they were exploring.