[Illustration: FIG. 31. PLAN OF THE MERKES MOUND, SHOWING PART OF THE STREET NET-WORK OF BABYLON. A: The Sacred Way or Procession-Street of Babylon. B: E-makh, the temple of the goddess Ninmakh. C: South-east corner of the Southern Citadel with the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar. D: Canal and basin. E: Northern Court of the Peribolos of E-temen-anki. P: Main Court of the Peribolos. G: The mound Merkes. H: Temple of Ishtar of Akkad. J: Greek Theatre. K: Old canal. (After Koldewey.)] From the accompanying plan it will be seen that the street net-work has been recovered over a considerable area. The entire structure of the mound consists of the dwellings of private citizens, rising layer above layer from below water-level to the surface of the soil. The upper strata date from the Parthian period, and here the houses are scattered with wide spaces of garden or waste land between them. In striking contrast to these scanty remains are the streets of the Greek, Persian and Neo-Babylonian periods, where the houses are crowded together, and open spaces, which were at one time courts or gardens, have later on been surrendered to the builder. We here have striking proof of the value of house-property in Babylon during the city's period of greatest prosperity. Still deeper in the mound a level can be dated to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, for in the houses were found tablets inscribed in the reigns of Merodach-baladan I., Meli-Shipak II., and Enlil-nadin-shum. In the northern part of the mound, in the lowest stratum of all and lying partly above and partly below water-level, contract-tablets of the First Dynasty were uncovered, bearing date-formulæ of Samsu-iluna, Ammi-ditana and Samsu-ditana. Here the mud-brick walls of the houses, though not very thick, all rest upon burnt-brick foundations, a method of building which, as we have seen,[184] survived into the Neo-Babylonian period. This is the earliest city of which traces have been recovered, and a thick layer of ashes testifies to its destruction by fire. There can be no doubt that the town so destroyed was that of Hammurabi and his immediate successors, for the dated tablets were found lying in the layer of ashes undisturbed. We here have additional proof that Babylon's First Dynasty ended in disaster. It is possible that the conflagration, in which the city then perished, was the work of the Hittite raiders whose onslaught we know took place in Samsu-ditana's reign.