The place lies exactly opposite the Citadel, and was divided from it in the time of Alexander by the Euphrates. The magnificent pyre, which is said to have cost 12,000 talents, when seen from the Acropolis must have stood out in a most impressive manner against the eastern horizon. LI RETROSPECT From the central position occupied by Homera we can command a peculiarly instructive view over the ruins of Babylon, and piece together and recall all that excavation has brought to light of the development of the city. In doing so, we will leave unnoticed the information obtained from written sources. They belong to a different kind of treatment. The existence of Babylon in prehistoric times, before the fifth millennium, is proved by flint and other stone implements. It is impossible to carry excavations down to that depth, owing to the rise in the water-level (p. 261). The earliest accessible ruins belong to the time of the first Babylonian kings (Hammurabi, _circa_ 2500 B.C.), and lie yonder in Merkes (p. 240). The city, therefore, by that time included at least that region. The same neighbourhood gave us the plan of houses of the time of the Kassite kings, Kurigalzu III. to Kudur-Bel (_circa_ 1400–1249), Bel-nâdin-šum to Marduk-aplu-iddina II. (_circa_ 1219–1154); and the strata above afforded those of the Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Graeco-Parthian periods. All of these show that the division of the city into streets and blocks of houses remained practically unchanged throughout the course of centuries (p. 239 _et seq._). When the Assyrian kings ruled over Babylon they repaired mainly the great temple of Esagila, now under Amran, where the pavements of Esarhaddon (680–668 B.C.) and Sardanapalus (668–626 B.C.) still lie (p. 204). Sennacherib (705–681) had caused the Procession Street near Sachn to be paved. On the Kasr, Sargon (710–705) built the wall of the Southern Citadel, with the rounded corner tower (p. 137). Sardanapalus restored Nimitti-Bel lying close to our point of observation, Homera, and Emach on the Kasr. At that time the great extension of the Southern Citadel itself was not built, nor yet that part of the Kasr that lay to the north of it, the mound of Babil and the outer city wall. All that belongs to the building period of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom (625–538 B.C.). Nabopolassar (625–604) began with the western part of the Southern Citadel, built the Arachtu wall from the Kasr as far as Amran, and also the temple of Ninib (p. 229), and Imgur-Bel on the Kasr.