So far we have traced the eastern, official portion of the palace, which is quite distinct from the private part on the western side of the Principal Court. Here the lowest part represents the earliest palace of those we can recognise on the Kasr. We have named this the palace of Nabopolassar, without, however, having found written authority for it on the site itself. Our grounds for the hypothesis are as follows. In the great _Steinplatten_ inscription, 7, 34, Nebuchadnezzar says: “In Babil, my favourite city, that I love, was the palace, the house the marvel of mankind, the centre of the land, the shining residence, the dwelling of Majesty, upon the Babil place in Babil, from Imgur-bel to the eastern canal Libil-ḫigalla, from the bank of the Euphrates to Aiburšabû, which Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, my father, my begetter, built of crude bricks and dwelt in it—in consequence of high waters its foundations had become weak, and owing to the filling up of the street of Babil the gateways of that palace had become too low. I tore down its walls of dried brick, and laid its corner-stone bare and reached the depth of the waters. Facing the water I laid its foundation firmly, and raised it mountain high with bitumen and burnt brick. Mighty cedars I caused to be laid down at length for its roofing. Door leaves of cedar overlaid with copper, thresholds and sockets of bronze I placed in its doorways. Silver and gold and precious stones, all that can be imagined of costliness, splendour, wealth, riches, all that was highly esteemed I heaped up within it, I stored up immense abundance of royal treasure within it” (trans. by Delitzsch). Nebuchadnezzar undoubtedly speaks here of the whole Southern Citadel. We need not infer from this, however, that the palace of Nabopolassar was of the same extent, for the ancient kings were not too exact with regard to such statements (cf. the inscription of Neriglissar). The walls of mud brick of which the ancient palace consisted can of course no longer be found, as Nebuchadnezzar states that he destroyed them, but the foundations remain, which he improved and strengthened, and which therefore must have been built of burnt brick and not of crude brick. This method adopted by Nabopolassar of building a wall of crude brick on a foundation of burnt brick is actually seen on the north-west corner of his Arachtu wall, and appears also in the houses in Merkes that date from the time of Hammurabi. It is my opinion that these burnt brick foundations of Nabopolassar still exist on the western part of the Southern Citadel, and if so Nebuchadnezzar made use of them without any alteration in laying out his new building.