A: Open Court. C: Shrine of Ninib. NC, SC: Subsidiary shrines for other deities, _s, s, s_: Postaments for statues of Ninib and the other deities, set against niches in the wall exactly opposite the entrances. E1, E2, E3: Entrance-chambers or Vestibules, to temple, _d_: Crude-brick altar. 1, 2, 6, 7: Porters' rooms. 3-6, 11, 12: Priests' apartments or store-rooms. 10: Small open court. 8, 9: Chambers giving access to narrow passage behind the shrines, which possibly contained stairway or ramp to roof. (After Andrae.)] The most interesting temple of Babylon is naturally that dedicated to the worship of the city-god. This was the famous E-sagila, a great part of which still lies buried some twenty-one metres below the surface of Tell 'Amrân.[144] Its main portion, lying to the west, is practically square in ground-plan, and like the smaller temples of the city, it consists of chambers grouped around an open court; but their arrangement here is far more symmetrical.[145] There was a great gateway in the centre of each side, where in Neriglissar's time stood the eight bronze serpents, a pair of them beside each entrance.[146] The eastern gate was no doubt the principal one, as it gives access to the inner court through a single great vestibule or entrance-chamber, in striking contrast to the smaller vestibules on the north and south sides, from which the court can be reached only through side-corridors.[147] Around the great court within, the temple doorways and towers are arranged symmetrically. The shrine of Marduk lay on its western side, as may be inferred from the façade and towered entrance. This was the E-kua of the inscriptions, which Nebuchadnezzar states he made to shine like the sun, coating its walls with gold as though with gypsum-plaster, a phrase which recalls the mud and gypsum washes of the other temples. "The best of my cedars," he says, "that I brought from Lebanon, the noble forest, I sought out for the roofing of Ekua, [Marduk's] lordly chamber; the mighty cedars I covered with gleaming gold for the roofing of Ekua."[148] The lavish employment of gold in the temple's decoration is attested by Herodotus, who states that in this, "the lower temple,"[149] was a great seated figure of Zeus, which, like the throne, the dais, and the table before it, was fashioned of gold, the metal weighing altogether eight hundred talents.[150] [Illustration: VI. Two views of the Temple of Ninib in course of excavation.]