_Merkes_, which means a city as a trade centre in distinction to a village, is the name given by the Arabs to the line of mounds to the north of Ishin aswad (Fig. 155). Here the houses of the citizens of Babylon are easier of access than in the lower quarters of the town. They occupy in different levels, one above another, the entire mass of the hill, which rises to 10 metres above zero. Our excavations cut through the layers down to a depth of 12 metres below the surface, where the water-level stopped farther progress, although the ruins themselves continued lower. Thus the water must now stand at a higher level than in ancient times. As it did not seem advisable to accumulate great masses of rubbish in the vicinity where occupied town area was everywhere to be expected, we worked over the site with a system of pits 7 metres square, with gangways between them 3 metres wide. Thus when the first pit had been sunk completely to water-level the earth from the next one could be thrown into it, thus avoiding any possible damage to the ruins, for the upper layers at any rate had to be removed in order to reach the lower ones. I need not say that all the walls, graves, and separate finds were recorded in the drawings and sections we made of the site. In the 2 to 3 upper metres lay the scanty ruins of the Parthian period, thin house walls of mud brick or of brick rubble, with wide spaces between them, which may be regarded as gardens or waste land. The 4 metres below this represent the brilliant time of the city under the Neo-Babylonian kings on into the Persian and Greek periods. The houses are closely crowded together in the narrow streets. There was little open ground, and what was at first a court or the garden of a house was increasingly required for house building. It was at this time that the population was richest and most numerous. The houses have strong walls of mud brick, good brick floorings, and numerous circular wells and sunk shafts, which bear witness to the comparatively high level of the requirements demanded by the culture of that time. Greek sherds and tablets with dates of the Persian period lay at the height of 7 metres above zero, and bricks with the stamps of Nabonidus and Nebuchadnezzar at 5.5 metres. Below, the signs of dwellings are again more scanty until the level of 2.4 above zero is reached, when there are once more thick house walls similar to those of the Neo-Babylonian level, though at wider distances apart. At this level there were tablets with the dates of Merodach-Baladan, Belnadinshum, Melishikhu, and others. Thus the stratum dates from about 1300 to 1400 B.C.