A third cella has been excavated on the north side of the court. It is apparently the sanctuary of the god Ea, who in Greek times was identified with Serapis (see _Tempel von Babylon_, p. 43). It was here that the generals of Alexander sought counsel of the god with regard to his illness, whether the king should permit himself to be transported hither in search of healing. Doors lead north to two chambers behind the cella, an arrangement that is not found in any other cella. If my expressed opinion is correct these chambers may have been the dormitories in which oracular dreams could be secured. In the cella, which also had a side chamber at the east end, the postament for the statue still stands in front of the niche. Imprinted on the asphalt covering of its flat top we found traces of a wooden throne, which, during the conflagration, had become charred and broken up. Of the richly carved work some fragments could still be recognised, the figures that supported the throne, holding the water vase with which Ea, god of the abyss of waters, was usually represented, a fine head of a dragon, a fish, and so forth. The paved floor with its wash of asphalt is slightly dominated by the postament, which has in front of it a shallow step flanked by two small balustrades. [Illustration: FIG. 125.—Esagila brick of Sardanapalus. ] The pavement was repeatedly raised, and with it the mighty door sockets and the postament (Fig. 124). Of the six pavements the two upper ones are Nebuchadnezzar’s, and the two middle ones are of Sardanapalus, who states on the stamps of his brick, 33 × 33 centimetres (Fig. 125), that he made the “bricks of Esagila and Etemenanki.” In this pavement there was one, 40 × 40 centimetres, brick of Esarhaddon, which, according to the stamp, belonged to “the pavement of Esagila” (Fig. 126). The name of the temple is therefore fully established by inscription as Esagila. On bricks found by us in the vicinity, Esagila is often mentioned in conjunction with Etemenanki or with Babylon (Fig. 127). The two lower pavements have no stamps. The walls of the court at this lower and more ancient level are adorned with mouldings, while the walls above are plain. At the doors, and in front of the wall piers, we again found the brick caskets; in one of these lay a clay figure of a bearded man with bull’s feet, and holding a palm or something of the kind (Fig. 128). [Illustration: FIG. 126.—Esagila brick of Esarhaddon. ] The upper pavement lies on an average 4.5 metres above zero. The enclosing walls, which, including the 2–metres-thick kisu, are 6 metres thick, consist, like the entire building, of mud brick, and the kisu of 32 × 32–centimetre unstamped burnt brick; it must therefore be older than the time of Nebuchadnezzar, who does not appear to have carried out any vigorous restoration here.