We should, of course, wish to give a clearer explanation of the object
and use of the various parts of the building, but this is a difficult
matter. We have very little information as to the usages of the cult
connected with the temple. It is therefore of great importance that in
Babylon we have not only one, but a series of four temples, in which the
arrangement of the chambers is clearly repeated. From these we can
conclude with certainty that for a temple the towered façade, the
vestibule, the court, the cella with its postament in the shallow niche,
were regarded as indispensable. It is not difficult to recognise the
small side-chamber near the cella as the store-place for the various
requirements of the cult. The chamber next the vestibule can be
identified with some certainty as either a waiting-room or the porter’s
lodge. The long narrow passages near the cella are remarkable; others
exactly similar have been found in other temples. They would be well
adapted to enclose the ramps or staircases that led to the flat roof,
and some part of them may, in fact, have been used for that purpose. But
it is by no means easy to understand why two such arrangements so
completely alike as G 1, G 2, G 3 and O 3, G 4, G 5 should have been
placed close together. I might provisionally suppose that these passages
represent the remains of a more ancient and certainly an unknown type of
ground-plan. The whole arrangement gives an impression that the original
Babylonian house was essentially a four-sided walled enclosure, inside
which opposite the entrance, separated from the enclosing wall by a
narrow intermediate space, stood a detached house of one room. In course
of its development other single chambers were added, which were built
near the other sides of the enclosing wall. The intermediate space would
make it possible to guard the main house from any danger from robbers
who might break through the outer walls. But this, as we have said, is
all hypothetical, and entirely depends on the result of further
research.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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