A History of Babylon, from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian ConquestKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
A History of Babylon, from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Babylonia -- History
We find further confirmation of this view in one of the later
quay-walls, which succeeded that of Sargon. The three narrow walls
already referred to[47] were all the work of Nabopolassar, and
represent three successive extensions of the quay westward into the bed
of the stream, which in the inscriptions upon their bricks is given the
name of Arakhtu.[48] But the texts make no mention of the city-walls.
No inscriptions at all have been found in the structure of the next
extension, represented by the wall B, which, like the latest quay-wall
(C), is not rounded off in the earlier manner, but is strengthened at
the corner with a massive rectangular bastion. It was in this latest
and most substantial of all the quay-walls that further inscriptions
were found referring to Imgur-Bêl. They prove that this wall was
the work of Nebuchadnezzar, who refers in them to Nabopolassar's
restoration of Imgur-Bêl and records that he raised its banks with
bitumen and burnt-brick mountain-high. It is therefore clear that this
was the quay-wall of Imgur Bêl, which it supported in the manner of
Sargon's earlier structure. That the less important Nimitti-Bêl is not
mentioned in these texts does not necessitate our placing it elsewhere,
in view of Sargon's earlier reference.
We may therefore provisionally regard the two crude-brick walls along
the Ḳaṣr's northern front[49] as a section of the famous defences of
Babylon, and picture them as running eastward till they meet the inner
city-wall by Homera. The point at which they extended westward across
the Euphrates can, as yet, only be conjectured. But it is significant
that the angle of the western walls, which may still be traced under
mounds to the north of Sinjar village,[50] is approximately in line
with the north front of the Ḳaṣr and the end of the inner wall by
Homera. Including these western walls within our scheme, the earlier
Babylon would have been rectangular in ground-plan, about a quarter
of it only upon the right bank, and the portion east of the river
forming approximately a square. The Babylon of the Kassite period and
of the First Dynasty must have been smaller still, its area covering
little more than the three principal mounds; and, though part of its
street net-work has been recovered, no trace of its fortifications has
apparently survived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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