Some of the larger apartments, including possibly the chambers of the inner gateways, must have served as courts of justice, for from the Hammurabi period onward we know that the royal palace was the resort of litigants, whose appeals in the earlier period were settled by the king himself,[74] and later by the judges under his supervision. Every kind of commercial business was carried on within the palace precincts, and not only were regular lawsuits tried, but any transaction that required legal attestation was most conveniently carried through there. Proof of this may be seen in the fact that so many of the Neo-Babylonian contracts that have been recovered on the site of Babylon are dated from the Al-Bît-shar-Bâbili, "the City of the King of Babylon's dwelling," doubtless a general title for the citadel and palace-area. All government business was also transacted here, and we may provisionally assign to the higher ministers and officials of the court the great apartment and the adjoining dwellings on the south side of the Central Court of the palace.[75] For many of the more important officers in the king's service were doubtless housed on the premises; and to those of lower rank we may assign the similar but rather smaller dwellings, which flank the three courts on the north and the Entrance Court upon the south side as well. Even royal manufactories were carried on within the palace, to judge from the large number of alabaster jars, found beside their cylindrical cores, in one room in the south-west corner by the outer palace-wall.[76] It will be seen from the ground-plan that these dwellings consist of rooms built around open courts or light-wells; most of them are separate dwellings, isolated from their neighbours, and having doors opening on to the greater courts or into passage-ways running up from them. No trace of any windows has been found within the buildings, and it is probable that they were very sparsely employed. But we must not conclude that they were never used, since no wall of the palace has been preserved for more than a few feet in height, and, for the greater part, their foundations only have survived. But there is no doubt that, like the modern houses of the country, all the dwellings, whether in palace or city, had flat roofs, which formed the natural sleeping-place for their inhabitants during the greater part of the year. Towards sunset, when the heat of the day was past, they would ascend to the house-tops to enjoy the evening breeze; during the day a window would have been merely a further inlet for the sun. The general appearance of the palace is no doubt accurately rendered in the sketch already given.[77] [Illustration Fig. 9. PLAN OF THE THRONE ROOM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND PART OF THE PRIVATE PALACE.