There is no source from which we can definitely discover the exact manner of Babylonian and Assyrian sacrifices. As civilization advanced what was intended for the god almost invariably went for the use of the temple. Certain parts of the animal which were not fit to eat were burned to the glory of the deity. The blood of the animal may, however, have been regarded as more directly pleasing to the gods, and was probably poured out upon the altar. This practice is distinctly of magical origin. The wizard believes that the dead, demons, and supernatural beings in general have a special desire for blood, and we remember Homer's vivid description of how, when the trench was cut and the blood of the victims poured therein, the shadowy presentments of the dead flocked about it and devoured the steam arising from the sacrifice. In some cults blood alone is offered to the gods, and perhaps the most striking instance of this is afforded by the religion of ancient Mexico, in which blood was regarded as the pabulum or food of the gods, and the body of the victim as the ceremonial corpse of the deity to be eaten by his worshippers. [Illustration: 1. Zikkurats of the Anu-Adad at Ashur. 2. Stage-tower at Samarra.--From _Religions Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria_, by Professor Morris Jastrow By permission of Messrs G.P. Putnam's Sons.] The Temples of Babylonia and Assyria The temple-building phase is characteristic of Babylonian religion from an early stage. More than 3000 years before the final extinction of the cult we find places of worship being raised in the Euphrates Valley. Even in later times these Babylonian structures would appear to have been built for practical rather than æsthetic purposes, and in the early part of the temple-building epoch they were of the crudest description, mere rude structures of brick, without an attempt at architectural elaboration. An early ideal was to reproduce in miniature the 'mountain of all lands'--Khursag-kurkura, the birthplace of the gods--and to this end the temple was erected on a mountain-like heap of earth. To the primitive one-storied building other stories came to be added, till in pursuit of a general ideal of height they came to be veritable Towers of Babel, aspiring to reach to heaven. These _zikkurats_, or staged towers, as they have been called, were built of brick, and were quadrangular in form, their four sides facing north, south, east, and west respectively. Their sombre and unlovely appearance was relieved to some extent by the use of brilliant colourings, but in neither form nor colour need we look for any particular artistic interest, nor any especial religious or other symbolism, though attempts have been made both in later Babylonian and in our own times to find astrological interpretations of these. By and by the zikkurat came to be more of a 'high-place' than a temple, the altars and sanctuary proper being disposed about its base.