That the refacing was not part of the original plan is shown by the fact
that in some of the mud-brick towers the cavities of walled-up gutters
still remain, such as we find in the city walls and the temples. The
brick casings of the gutters were taken away, and in their place the
brickwork of the facing was jointed in. With the exception of being
widened the wall was little altered by the new building. The towers
correspond in no way with those of the principal wall, at any rate it is
only in the eastern portion that the same principle has been adopted,
and a tower placed crossways is always succeeded by a smaller one placed
lengthways. Here too, however, the western end consists of an especially
large tower exactly in a straight line with that of the principal wall.
The gateway in the west forms, in its position, its facings, and
alterations a fairly exact counterpart of that in the principal wall.
But, besides this, the mud wall had also four other gateways, of which
only the one in the 5th mesopyrgion was retained in the rebuilding. A
drain with two inlet shafts carried off the surface water from here with
a sharp fall to the south, probably to the main conduit behind the
principal wall.
In front of the two wall heads at the west lay a building with the usual
arrangement of a court and surrounding chambers. It was built over the
ancient fosse wall, which by that time was destroyed, and might well
represent the dwelling of the commandant of the walls.
[Illustration:
FIG. 92.—Space between the two mud walls.
]
There were also two wall lengths of mud brick of a similar kind on the
east of the Ishtar Gate. They are not long. The thicker one breaks off
in the 2nd mesopyrgion, and is there supported by a later sloping
embankment wall, which turns off in a south-easterly direction, where we
have already followed it for 25 metres. The northern wall length is
still shorter. The excavations, which at this point were carried
considerably below the base of the mud wall, yielded mud and river
sediment that apparently came from the Euphrates, which during the
Persian period washed the eastern side of the Acropolis. In
Nebuchadnezzar’s time these walls certainly extended farther east, and
united themselves in some way, which is not yet entirely explained, with
the inner city wall, which according to the inscriptions found there is
to be recognised as the Nimitti-Bel of Sardanapalus. This is the more
certain because the Ishtar Gate is also named in inscriptions as
belonging to Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel. Thus it is imperative that we
should make a slight digression of 1000 metres to the east in order to
observe this fortification. After that we will return to the Kasr.
XXV
THE INNER CITY WALL
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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