It was also in Chaldæa, as we have seen, that those towers in stages (_zikkurat_) were invented, painted in bright and varied colours, which constitute one of the original features of Mesopotamian architecture. If the staged towers of Mugheir, Tello and Abu Shahrein, are too much destroyed for us to be able to restore their different steps except in thought, we are sure, nevertheless, that these old Chaldæan edifices were similar to the towers the lower stories of which were excavated at Kouyunjik, Nimroud, Khorsabad, and finally at Babylon, where stood, from the remotest antiquity, the two famous temples called E-saggil and E-zida and where Nebuchadnezzar built, according to the testimony of his inscriptions, the famous Tower of the Seven Lights. Who can say whether this architectural form was not inspired by the sight of the pyramids in steps of the Nile valley? In any case the Greek historians agree in affirming that the staged towers were of a height comparable to that of the loftiest Egyptian pyramids, and the mass of the mounds of débris which represent the ruins of these towers is a sure warrant of this assertion. Birs-Nimroud at Babylon is still, at the present day, 235 feet high, and it has certainly lost at least half of its primitive height. The ruin of Babil is still 130 feet high. What European monument is there, even if built of hewn stone, which, after crumbling in upon itself, would reach 130 feet after thirty centuries of ruin and decay? It is improbable, then, that Strabo deserves to be taxed with exaggeration when he assigns the height of a stadium of 591 ft. 9 in., to the temple of Bel at Babylon. Herodotus describes the same building in the following manner: “This temple is square, and each side is two stadia in length (1,183 ft. 6 in.). In the centre is a massive tower, of one stadium in length and breadth; on this tower stands another tower, and another again upon this, and so on up to eight. A spiral staircase has been built outside leading round all the towers. Towards the middle of the ascent there is a room, and there are seats upon which visitors rest; upon the last tower stands a large shrine, in which is a large bed with rich coverings, and near it a golden table.” Modern excavations enable us to affirm that this description is exact in all points, and that all the staged towers of Assyria and Chaldæa were constructed upon the same principle.