The ruins of Ur (Mugheir), on the western bank of the Euphrates, occupy a considerable space, shut in by the remains still traceable, of a wall, running in an oval shape, and from three to four miles in circumference. Amid these ruins rises, to the north-west, a heap of bricks and broken tiles, which is even now about 70 feet above the surface of the plain. On a plateau about 20 feet in height is a rectangular building, with the four sides directed exactly to the four quarters of the sky. The two longer sides are about 200 feet in length, the shorter sides are about 130 feet. It was a solid mass of brick, joined with bitumen, about 27 feet high; the outer walls, of burnt tiles, are about 10 feet thick. Buttresses of eight feet in breadth surround the whole story at short distances. The centre of the structure is pierced by narrow air-passages extending from one side to the other. On this story is a second, 120 feet in length by 75 feet in breadth, and even now about 17 feet high. The ruins lying on this point to a third story, which may have contained the actual temple. There are traces still remaining of the entrance, which led up from the outside. The tiles of the lower story bear the stamp, "Urukh, king of Ur, has erected the temple of the god Sin;" on those of the upper story we find, "Ilgi, king of Ur, king of Sumir, and Accad." This building was, therefore, the temple of Sin, which Urukh commenced and his son Ilgi continued and completed--a fact which is further proved by the inscriptions of Nabonetus, the last king of Babylon, which were found in these ruins. To the south-east of this structure lies a platform, faced with tiles, 400 feet in circuit, which probably supported another temple or a palace. The foundation walls of various chambers can still be traced. Similar structures are found in the ruins of Abu Shahrein, south of Mugheir on the Euphrates. From a wide platform rises a square structure surrounded by a wall, in which are the remains of decorated chambers. North of Ur, on the east bank of the Euphrates, the remains of Senkereh form a circular plateau, not quite five miles in circumference; the ruins rise gradually towards the centre, which is marked by the remains of a structure 320 feet long and 220 broad, the walls of which, on one side, still rise 70 feet over the plain. In these and the other ruins of Senkereh inscriptions are found in considerable numbers, which give us the names of kings from Urukh to Cambyses.