A Babylonian temple seems to have stood commonly within a walled enclosure. In the case of the great temple of Belus at Babylon, the enclosure is said to have been a square of two stades each way, or, in other words, to have contained an area of thirty acres. The temple itself ordinarily consisted of two parts. Its most essential feature was a _ziggurat_, or tower, which was either square, or at any rate rectangular, and built in stages, the smallest number of such stages being two, and the largest known number seven. At the summit of the tower was probably in every case a shrine, or chapel, of greater or less size, containing altars and images. The ascent to this was on the outside of the towers, which were entirely solid; and it generally wound round the different faces of the towers, ascending them either by means of steps or by an inclined plane. Special care was taken with regard to the emplacement of the tower, either its sides or its angles being made exactly to confront the cardinal points. It is said that the temple-towers were used not merely for religious purposes but also as observatories, a use with a view to which this arrangement of their position would have been serviceable. Besides the shrine at the summit of the temple-tower or ziggurat, there was commonly at the base of the tower, or at any rate somewhere within the enclosure, a second shrine or chapel, in which the ordinary worshipper, who wished to spare himself the long ascent, made his offerings. Here again the ornamentation was most costly, lavish use being made of the precious metals for images and other furniture. Altars of different sizes were placed in the open air in the vicinity of this lower shrine, on which were sacrificed different classes of victims, gold being used occasionally as the material of the altar. The general appearance of a Babylonian temple, or at any rate of its chief feature, the tower or _ziggurat_, will be best gathered from a more particular description of a single building of the kind; and the building which it will be most convenient to take for that purpose is that remarkable edifice which strikes moderns with more admiration than any other now existing in the country, and which has also been more completely and more carefully examined than any other Babylonian ruins--the Birs-i-Nimrud, or ancient temple of Nebo at Borsippa. The plan of this tower has been almost completely made out from data still existing on the spot; and a restoration of the original building may be given with a near approach to certainty. [PLATE XV., Fig. 1.] [Illustration: PLATE XV.]