If the principal statues were of gold others consisted of a combination of stones of many colours, which we discovered in separate pieces in our find. The hair was made of separate fragments of lapis lazuli which formed curls and locks and fitted into each other. The white of the eyes was represented by the core of a shell, the iris by a conical piece of stone, which was surrounded by a thin cornet-shaped piece of lapis lazuli forming a narrow blue line round the iris. For decorating the garment and the feather crown, the numerous button-shaped discs of onyx were employed, which are frequently inscribed with dedicatory texts. They are usually fixed on to the underlay by means of an invisible hole bored in the top. Numbers of them can easily be recognised on the crown of Marduk in our illustration. We do not yet know what formed the main part of such a statue. According to his Bavian inscription, Sennacherib battered the statues to pieces, and it is quite possible that such broken-up statues may yet be found in the lowest levels of Esagila. From a throne, and apparently from the projecting end of the chair back, comes a thick piece of rock-crystal the size of a hand, bored through with irregularly disposed holes, to which at some time other separate ornaments were attached. All this when considered as a whole may give some idea of the exceptional splendour of such statues of the divinities. XXXVIII THE OTHER PARTS OF THE HILL OF AMRAN IBN ALI Close to the sacred tomb of Amran, where there is also the cupola of a private burial, lies the modern Arab cemetery, which stretches out as far as the western plain. Here a high mud wall called a _Tof_ surrounds the palm gardens of the village of Djumdjumma. Towards the south the hill gradually falls away in irregular lines. We have not yet dug there, but isolated walls of mud brick, which project out of the ground, show that here also there are ruins of dwelling-houses. On the eastern slope some excavations undertaken by us yielded dated business tablets of the time of the Persian kings. Here also the great Nimitti-Bel cylinder was found which had been removed here, and of which we have already (p. 173 _et seq._) given an account. XXXIX TEMPLE “Z” Opposite Amran on the east there stretch out the low “Ishin aswad” (Fig. 136), as the heaped-up city ruins are called. In the valley between them lie the ruins of a temple of which we have not yet found the name, and which we therefore distinguish as “Z.” [Illustration: FIG. 136.—Plan of Ishin aswad. ] [Illustration: FIG. 137.—Ground-plan of temple “Z.” ] [Illustration: FIG. 138.—Cella façade in temple “Z.” ]