Another palace of great fame was that of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon, known as the El-Ḳasr (cf. p. 69). This palace has been excavated by Koldewey and Andrae. The outer wall was made of bricks stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar, and was some 23-1/2 feet thick, the inner wall also made of brick being over 44 feet thick, while the space between the two walls, nearly 70 feet, was filled in with sand and other material, the total thickness thus being nearly 136-1/2 feet. The burnt bricks of which the retaining walls were composed were laid in asphalt and are so compactly joined that it is impossible to separate them into their layers. The Ḳasr mound, which represents a new suburb of the city of Babylon itself, has revealed nothing earlier than the seventh century. Ashur-bani-pal (668-626 B.C.) built a temple here which has been duly excavated, but Nebuchadnezzar’s palace is the principal building which has been discovered on this famous site. Before the time of Nebuchadnezzar there had seemingly been a palace here, which had undergone a course of reconstruction at the hands of Nabopolassar (625-604 B.C.) the founder of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty, but it subsequently suffered grievously from an inundation of the Euphrates, and was accordingly repaired and enlarged by Nebuchadnezzar who rebuilt it with burnt brick; so enduring was his work that the lower portions of it have remained in position till our own day. The interior of the palace consisted in a great number of rooms arranged around courtyards. The large hall, situated on the south of the main court, had a niche in its southern wall and was further provided with three doors in its northern wall, where traces were also to be found of what may have been at one time a colonnade. The roof of the palace was made of cedar-wood, as were also the doors, which latter were covered with bronze, just as was the case with the famous gates at Balâwât (cf. Fig. 43). The thresholds were made of the same metal, as also were the steps in the temple E-zida at Borsippa, one of which has come down to us and bears this king’s name, while gold, silver and precious stones of various kinds were used with an unsparing prodigality in the decoration of the royal residence. Nebuchadnezzar further erected another building on the northern side of the wall, which was apparently a fortress, and was connected with the palace. According to the India House Inscription, and the statement of Berosus the Babylonian historian (about 300 B.C.) whose history unfortunately is lost, but from which extracts have been handed down to us by Josephus, this building was completed in the incredibly short period of fifteen days. [Illustration: FIG. 8.—Restoration of “Sargon’s Palace” at Khorsabad. (After Place.)]