Like the Pharaohs, the rulers of Babylon sought their fame in magnificent buildings. But their works have not been able to withstand the ravages of time with the same durability as the stone mountains and porticoes on the Nile. The lower Euphrates does not lie, like the Nile, between walls of rocks, from which the most beautiful and hardest stone could be obtained. The plain of Babylonia afforded nothing but earth for the bricks, which were sometimes burnt, sometimes dried in the sun; and excellent mortar was to be obtained from the large asphalt pits on the Euphrates, especially at Hit. Hence it was necessary to unite the walls more strongly. In the palaces, and temples, the walls of brick were covered with slabs of gypsum, or limestone, which must often have been brought from a distance, and these slabs were then covered with sculptures, like the stone walls of the Egyptian buildings. But more commonly the ornaments on the inner walls, and occasionally even those on the outer walls, consist of bricks coloured and glazed. Though the material in Babylonia was more fragile than the granite of Egypt, the extent, scale, and splendour of these buildings were so great, that remains even of the oldest have come down to our time. The upper portions of the brick walls have fallen down, and the ruins of the Babylonian cities have thus for the most part become unsightly enough; but not the less do they point out the positions of the old buildings, and under the heaps are hidden the most valuable remains of those ancient periods. As has been already remarked, the cities in the south of Babylonia are the first to emerge in the progress of the country. The oldest princes call themselves kings of Ur and Nipur; they build at Ur, at Nipur, at Erech, and at Senkereh, between Erech and Ur. Not till the time of Hammurabi, and perhaps through his power, did Babylon become the centre and metropolis of the kingdom. He and his successors built at Babylon, Borsippa, Sippara, and Kutha, as well as in the southern cities. The universal characteristic of these buildings, so far as the remains allow us to pass any judgment, is the extraordinary strength of the walls and the obvious effort to obtain, by placing one story of solid masonry upon another, higher positions, better air, and a more extensive view in the level plain. The temples seem almost universally to be built in this tower-like style, either in order to be nearer the gods in the purer and higher air, or because the gods, as spirits of the heaven, and as bright luminaries of the sky, received the sacrifices here offered to them, and the prayers hence addressed to them with greater favour. On the inside their structures were built of square bricks three or four inches in thickness, and on the outside these bricks are lined with burnt tiles. The tiles almost invariably carry in the middle the impression of the stamp of the king who used them.