Herodotus (i. 181) names the group of buildings “the brazen-doored sanctuary of Zeus Belus.” The zikurrat inside the sanctuary he describes as a massive tower on which stood a second, third, up to an eighth tower, above which was a “great temple.” This is the sole ground for our conception of the “terraced towers” of Mesopotamia. In Khorsabad there was the ruin of a tower, where the excavators suspected similar retreating stages to have existed, but Place clearly formed his conclusion under the long-accepted suggestion drawn from the description given by Herodotus, and the ruins themselves no longer exist. In the words of Herodotus himself, however, there is nothing whatever about stepped terraces. He speaks of 8 towers standing one above another, but he does not say that each was smaller than the one below it. I myself desired to accept the general conception of stepped towers, but I know of no safe ground for such a conception. The only remedy I can see for this difficulty is to excavate the best-preserved zikurrat we possess, that of Borsippa. From the ruins as they now exist before excavation, we must assume that a colossal stairway led up from the south to the top of the immense mass of building. Steps in antiquity were always extremely steep, as we have found them here, and the height and breadth were usually the same, so according to the measurements of the length of the foundations of the steps we may take their height to have been 50 metres. We do not know the complete height of the tower. Nabopolassar, however, lays great stress on it (M’Gee, _Zur Topographie Babylons_, A. i.), and so does Nebuchadnezzar (M’Gee, B. vi.) in his cylinder inscription of Etemenanki. Nabopolassar says: “At this time Marduk commanded me ...; the tower of Babylon, which in the time before me had become weak, and had been brought to ruin, to lay its foundation firm on the bosom of the underworld, while its top should stretch heavenwards” (trans. by Delitzsch). Nebuchadnezzar says: “To raise up the top of Etemenanki that it may rival heaven, I laid to my hand.” In both inscriptions mud brick, burnt brick, asphalt, mud, and mighty cedars of Lebanon are mentioned as the materials employed. The latter could scarcely have been employed otherwise than to roof in the temple on the top of the tower.