would have conducted an important stream of traffic to the main gate in the southern city-wall, passing on its way between the temples dedicated to the god Ninib and to another deity not yet identified.[121] [Illustration: THE SACRED WAY OF BABYLON] Apart from the royal palaces, the five temples of Babylon were the principal buildings within the city, and their excavation has thrown an entirely new light upon our ideas of the religious architecture of the country. The ground-plans of four of them have now been ascertained in their entirety, and we are consequently in a position to form some idea of the general principles upon which such buildings were arranged. The first to be excavated was the little temple E-makh, dedicated to the goddess Ninmakh, which, as we have already seen, was built on the citadel itself, in the north-east corner of the open space to the south of the Ishtar Gateway. Its principal façade faces the north-west, and, since the eastern entrance of the Ishtar Gate opens just opposite the corner of the temple, a wall with a doorway in it was thrown across, spanning the passage between temple and fortification.[122] The only entrance to the temple was in the centre of the façade; and in the passage-way immediately in front of it, surrounded by a pavement of burnt-brick, is a small crude-brick altar.[123] It is an interesting fact that the only other altar yet found in Babylon is also of crude brick and occupies precisely the same position, outside a temple and immediately opposite its main entrance;[124] while in a third temple, though the altar itself has disappeared, the paved area which surrounded it is still visible.[125] We may therefore conclude that this represents the normal position for the altar in the Babylonian cult; and it fully substantiates the statement of Herodotus that the two altars of Belus were outside his temple.[126] One of these, he tells us, was of solid gold, on which it was only lawful to offer sucklings; the other was a common altar (doubtless of crude brick) but of great size, on which full-grown animals were sacrificed. It was also on the great altar that the Chaldeans burnt the frankincense, which, according to Herodotus, was offered to the amount of a thousand talents' weight every year at the festival of the god.