In the house court, _v_ 27, we found a brick built into the wall low down, bearing a 6–lined inscription (Fig. 55), which ran thus: “Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I. The palace, the dwelling of my kingship on the soil of Babylon (or “the place Babil” [Delitzsch]), which is in Babylon, I built. Mighty cedars from the mountain of Lebanon the splendid forest, I brought, and for its ceiling I laid them. Marduk the compassionate god who hears my prayer: the house that I built, may it satisfy him by its delights; the Kisu that I constructed, may its decay be renewed; in Babylon may my walks therein be continued to old age; may my posterity for ever rule over the blackheads” (trans. by Weissbach). Thus the palace was ceiled with cedars of Lebanon, and with exceptions to be dwelt on later, it was not vaulted. By the Kisu the king must have meant the strengthening wall that we have already seen on the eastern side, and that we shall see on other parts of the surrounding walls. These 6–lined inscribed bricks, of which we have found 80, were principally in the eastern part of the Southern Citadel, but few are in position. Strewn over the whole of the Southern Citadel, more especially in the central part, was a second kind of inscribed brick, the 8–lined legend on which ran much like the previous one (Fig. 56), but the cedars of Lebanon are not mentioned: “Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, the fosterer of Esagila and Ezida, son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I. The palace, the dwelling place of my Majesty I built on the Babil place (irṣit Babil) of Babil. I grounded its foundations firm on the bosom of the underworld, and with asphalt and baked bricks I raised it mountain high. By thy behest, wise one of the gods, Marduk, may I be satisfied with the fullness of the house that I have built, along with my posterity. May my posterity bear rule in it for ever over the blackheads” (trans. by Delitzsch, cf. _K.B._ iii. 2, p. 69). Of these 8–lined bricks we have found altogether 412, many of them in the foundations of the great hall of the Principal Court and of its great gateway. Here they were frequently laid in the same course (Fig. 57), only separated by a few uninscribed bricks. The script is Neo-Babylonian, and always very good and carefully executed. The arrangement of the lines is always the same; they almost convey the impression that a certain rhythmic utterance was intended, which was expressed by the arrangement, for while in some lines the signs are placed so far apart as to produce considerable gaps, in others the signs are crowded together. The lines of inscription are separated by dividing lines which appear to have been made by a 2–ply cord stretched across and pressed into the pottery. Such numerous and monotonous repetitions are very vexatious for the excavator. He would be better pleased if the texts varied on the different bricks, and afforded him an opportunity of