CHAPTER IX.

BAGHDAD AND BABYLON.

 

The British Resident— A Turkish Toothache— Antiquity Dealers— Our Commissioner— Ancient Baghdadu—Modern Baghdad— The Date Mark— A Trip to Ctesiphon— The Palace of Chosroes— Purchase of Antiquities— A Holy Shrine— Audience of the Wali Pasha— Leave to Depart— The Start— A Khan— Excavations at Abu Habba— The Garden of Eden— Babil— Nebuchadrezzar’s Tree— Antiquity Ferrets— The Hanging Gardens— Hillah— Birs Nimrud— The Tower of Babel.

 

OUR house in Baghdad was on the eastern side of the Tigris, where all the consuls and foreign residents reside. The rent which we paid for this residence, unfurnished, was eighteen piastres (seventy-two cents) a day. It was a large and commodious building, containing accommodations for the whole party, our luggage, our servants, and our horses. We had scarcely alighted on the day of our arrival, before Major Talbot, acting Indian Resident and British Consul-General in the absence of Colonel Tweedy, and Mr. Blockey, our financial correspondent in Baghdad, called upon us. That evening Harper, Field, and I, together with Mr. Blockey, dined with Major and Mrs. Talbot at the British Residency, and the following evening the other members of the party were entertained in a similar manner. The Talbots were charming in every way, and Major Talbot took as much pains with us as though we had been an expedition sent out by his own government. He proposed to go with me to see the Wali Pasha, and offered to send the next day and inquire when the latter would receive me. He informed me that Mustafa Assim Pasha, the then Governor-General, was, on the whole, a good official, and one who would be likely to do what he could to be obliging, more especially to any one presented by the British Resident. The English Government maintains a large establishment at this point, and the British Resident is a man of much importance. The expenses of this establishment are borne by India, the British Consul-General being Resident in behalf of the Indian administration. He has a force of Sepoys at his disposal, and a gunboat on the river; and there is in the Residency a post-office, which is a station of the Indian postal system. Owing largely to this display, the British Resident takes a high position in the estimation both of government and people. He is reckoned as second in importance only to the Governor-General. It was accordingly of the greatest value to us to have Mr. Talbot so ostentatiously and immediately acknowledge ' us as his countrymen. His conduct was all the more graceful, because he had not received any official notification in regard to the mission in advance of our arrival.

The next morning Major Talbot sent to the Governor General to inquire when he would see me, and ascertained that he was sick with a toothache, and could see no one. I went with Bedry Bey to see Mr. Blockey, our correspondent, and M. Henri Pognon, the distinguished assyriologist, who was then acting as French and Russian Consul at Baghdad. I soon ascertained that there was a great deal of work to be done to put matters in shape before leaving Baghdad. The boxes, which had been sent directly from England and America, had all been opened, and a good deal of small pilfering had taken place at the custom-house. It was necessary to have everything repacked, re-adjusted, and divided into suitable weights for mule-loads. Then there were a great many small things to be bought, both for the excavations and also for our own personal comfort. Among other things, it was necessary to have tools and baskets made for the use of the workmen in excavating at Nippur.

It was also desirable to ascertain what antiquities, if any, were in Baghdad, and where they came from. This was not an easy task, as Bedry watched us with the eyes of a lynx, and when he was not himself in our house, so arranged that Ins man-servant, Elias, should be there. We were therefore under constant espionage. Bedry was said to be in league with the Daoud Thoma ring of antiquity dealers, and to confiscate antiquities found in the possession of others. Consequently the dealers fought very shy, and we found the greatest difficulty in opening communications with them. Daoud Thoma was Hormuzd Rassam’s head man in his excavations, and it is publicly claimed by the British Museum officials that tablets belonging to those excavations have been making their appearance piecemeal ever since. Certainly, Daoud Thoma and his brothers have conducted a considerable business in antiquities ever since Rassam left Babylonia, purchasing from the Arabs of Jimjimeh and other towns, who make their living chiefly by digging in the ruin mounds; and also, it is said, employing their own paid agents to dig at various points. In addition to this, Daoud has a large general business in Manchester-goods of all sorts, which he imports and sells in Baghdad. Bedry was very intimate with him, and lived in one of his houses.

The stories regarding Bedry current in Baghdad were many and curious. He had been sent out as commissioner to accompany M. de Sarzec and M. Sevelinges in the excavations at Tello. After the close of those excavations he had been retained in Irak, and employed in various capacities by the museum; and now he was to be our commissioner. Munif Pasha had informed me that Bedry was his appointee and a friend of his, and told me that I could make arrangements with him to my own satisfaction. This I understood to mean that Bedry was there for the purpose of being bribed to let us have what we wanted, and, in case we did not bribe him, to put every possible obstacle in the way of the expedition. We had information from others whom Bedry had accompanied as commissioner, which led us to suppose that we were dealing with a very hard customer, who was there exclusively for the purpose of getting money, and would sell us our own antiquities if we would buy them; and otherwise would sell them to Daoud Thoma or his brothers. It became necessary, therefore, to take every precaution to render it impossible for him to carry off without our knowledge the antiquities found by us. Bedry began by recommending to us as workmen persons whom we knew to be connected in one way or another with Daoud Thoma, and we naturally concluded that he was attempting to impose upon our ignorance, bringing us into a connection which would allow Daoud to rob our trenches. Those were days of intrigue, treachery, and suspicion. Bedry suspected us of trying to outwit him and purchase contraband antiquities, and we suspected him of undertaking to victimize us by making us dig antiquities for the benefit of his friends.

One day M. Pognon took us all to see the remains of old Baghdad, or Baghdadu. On the Mesopotamian side of the river are the remains of a terrace or platform of an old temple or palace. Two great fragments of masonry jut out into the river near the upper bridge. Beneath, for nine or ten feet above the water, these consist of large, hard-burned bricks laid in bitumen, and stamped with the stamp of Nebuchadrezzar. Above is later work of the Arabic period, the bricks of which are different in shape, smaller in size, and not laid in bitumen. We went to the ruin of this old quay or terrace in a very large kufa, a round-bottomed boat, or coracle, made of wicker-work covered with bitumen. These boats are still a characteristic feature in Babylonia, and they have been in use from the earliest times, as is attested by the ancient Assyrian bas-reliefs. We examined a number of bricks with the Nebuchadnezzar stamp upon them. 1 am not aware that any other ruins of the Babylonian period have been discovered in Baghdad, but this quay is quite enough to show that it was built long before the time of the Arabic conquest.

 

The Tomb of Zobeide, the favorite Wife of Harun-er-Rashid, at Baghdad

 

Baghdad is mentioned in old inscriptions as early as the year 2000 B.C. It bore at that time the name of Bughdadu. It was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar, as the bricks in the quay prove. Later, it seems to have fallen into ruins, and the Arab historians speak as though the city built by Mansur in the year 762 A.D. was an entirely new foundation. According to their account, there was at that time nothing at the place, about fifteen miles north of Ctesiphon, but an old monastery. Mansur planned to make of it a stronghold to control an unfriendly region, and robbed both Wasit and Madain to strengthen and beautify his new fortress. Under Mansur’s successors, and especially under Harun-er-Rashid, it became the greatest and most wealthy city of the day, a centre of art and literature.

Outside of the ruins above mentioned, there is little in the way of antiquities to be seen at Baghdad. There are a few minarets containing tiles of beautiful workmanship of the time of the Abbasside Caliphs. The tomb of Zobeide, the favorite wife of Harun-er-Rashid, is shown just outside the city walls. This, with its pineapple dome, is rather curious than beautiful. As for the old walls of the city, they are entirely ruined. But if there is little to be seen in the way of antiquities, the town and the people are certainly sufficiently curious and interesting. It is the unadulterated Orient. Among the other curiosities of the place, at the time of my first stay in Baghdad, was a vile and brutal-looking man who insisted on walking through the bazaars stark naked. He was regarded as a holy man, inspired of God, on account of his insanity or eccentricity, and the authorities did not venture to stop his exhibition of himself.

The oddest sight among the people is the Arab women. The lower classes are like those we had seen along the Euphrates Valley, with tattooed lips and disfiguring nose-rings; but the better class of the Arab women in Baghdad cover their faces carefully with heavy, black horse-hair visors, which project like enormous beaks a foot in front of them. Their nether extremities are incased in great, loose, yellow boots, reaching to their knees, and fully displayed by their method of draping the garments in front. The men, even in midwinter, generally have the breast exposed, and the women are not so particular about the covering of the breast as of the head. The children of the commoner classes, even in January, ordinarily wear but one garment, open almost to the waist, and not reaching below the knee.

Baghdad is a trying place in which to reside during midwinter. It was built for the six months of intense heat, and in the damp cold of December and January it is too much like a great gloomy vault. The streets where business is transacted are roofed over, so that no sun can penetrate.

One of the unpleasant features of life in Baghdad is the so-called Baghdad date mark, the same which is known elsewhere as the Aleppo button. This is a boil which attacks the face or the extremities. It appears in two forms, known to the natives as male and female respectively. The former is a dry, scaly sore; the latter, a running, open boil. It is not painful, but leaves ugly scars. The natives all carry somewhere on the face, neck, hands, arms, or feet the scars of these boils, which they have had as children. European children born in the country are apt to be dreadfully disfigured, as in their case the boils invariably appear on the face; and whereas native children have, as a rule, but one boil, those born of European parents are sure to have several. Adult foreigners visiting the country are also liable to be attacked ; and women rarely escape disfigurement, if they stay in the country for any length of time. The boil or boils last for about a year, after which there is no more likelihood of a recurrence of the trouble than in the case of small-pox. The disease exists along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and in the country adjacent, including some places as far from the rivers as Aleppo; but there are individual towns and regions which seem to be exempt. The cause of the disease has never been ascertained, nor a cure found. Only one of our party was ever afflicted with this trouble, Haynes, who stayed in Baghdad continuously for a much longer time than the rest of us. Noorian had had the boil in infancy.

We made but one trip of exploration while at Baghdad. Friday, the 1.9th. Haynes, Field, Noorian and I, with two servants, Hajji Kework and Artin, went to Ctesiphon. We rose at three o’clock, and started at five. When I came to put on my belt, I found that my revolver had been stolen. We never recovered it, although we were quite convinced that a young man who had attended us on several occasions, and had been very free in offers to help about the house, was the one who had appropriated it. American and European firearms are contraband in Turkey, and their rarity enhances their value enormously. The zaptieh detailed to accompany us did not arrive at the time agreed upon, and we started without him. He overtook us shortly after we had crossed the river Divala, two hours south of Baghdad. Just before crossing that river, we passed a ruin mound called Tel Blegha, consisting chiefly of tombs and fragments of pottery; and shortly afterwards we passed two more ruin mounds, Reshad and Hirsum. Just afterward we crossed an old canal, and passed a ruin mound known as Bed’a. We reached Ctesiphon at half-past nine.

The ruins of Ctesiphon are of considerable extent, but it was raining hard, and we could see but a few feet in front of us; so that we examined carefully only the ruins of Chosroes’ palace, and the mound to the south of it, a hundred paces or so away. The arch of the ancient reception hall of the palace is open toward the east. It is one hundred and six feet in height, according to Layard, and about the same by my count of the layers of brick. There are forty-seven paces, or almost one hundred and fifty feet, from the opening to the rear wall of this hall. The supporting walls of the arch are seven metres in thickness. There is a door in the middle of the west end of the hall, and the eastern side is entirely open, as already stated. Near the opening, on both the north and south sides, are doors. The one on the south leads through a vaulted passage behind the façade, which is still standing. This façade is six stories in height, and the walls at the bottom are six metres thick. The front of it was originally stuccoed, as was the interior of the great reception hall. The building back of. the façade originally ran as far westward as did the reception hall, as is shown by the remains of the foundation walls and some remains of superstructures on the south side. The facade itself is in the nature of a false front, not indicating truly the character of the building behind it. Most representations of this palace of Chosroes restore a building on the other side of the reception hall, representing the south side to be the same as the north; but, although I examined the mound carefully, I found no present evidence of the former existence of a building on the south side similar to the one on the north. In front of the great reception room, eastward, was a mass of rubble, which led me to suppose that the hall may once have extended eastward beyond its present point; but, as I found no foundation walls, it is quite possible that the rubble had fallen from parts of the building which are still standing. Noorian climbed to the top of the arch, and found a brick with a piece of green pottery baked in it. He also found a Babylonian brick with an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar: for as at the present day, so also in the past, it was the custom of all races in Babylonia to use older material along with the new in their constructions ; and Babylon especially was the great quarry from which, after Nebuchadnezzar’s time, new builders derived their material.

 

Ruins of the White Palace at Ctessiphon.

 

 

Ctesiphon became the capital of the Parthian Empire about the beginning of our era. After the fall of the Parthian power, it became the winter residence of the Sassanian-Persian monarchs. The present visible ruins are mainly those of the “white palace” of the famous Chosroes. The open-arched hall was his throne-room. It was presumably in this hall that Saad, the Arab general, found the. wonderful silk carpet, one hundred and twenty ells long and sixty broad, representing a paradise or garden; the flowers, fruits, and shrubs done in gold embroidery and precious stones. The city was so wealthv at that time, that, out of the spoil, Saad is said to have distributed $1500 to each of his 60,000 soldiers. Layard, in his Nineveh and Babylon, says that the plan of the palace is that of modern Persian houses, a great iwan or open chamber for summer residence, flanked by sleeping and other rooms, forming separate stories to the height of the centre hall. Architecturally, the building is a curious combination of Oriental and Occidental motives. The six-story façade, while clumsy and barbarous in execution, is unmistakably Greek by descent, while the great arched throne-room is equally unmistakably Asiatic. And this combination is generally characteristic of all the Parthian and Sassanian remains which one finds in Babylonia.

Ctesiphon, or Madain, as the Arab writers call it, was captured and plundered by the Arabs in 636 or 637 A.D. When el-Mansur built Baghdad in 762 A.D., he used Ctesiphon, and particularly the “ white palace” as a quarry for his new city, precisely as the builders of Ctesiphon had used Babylon and the great structures of Nebuchadrezzar; but so colossal was Chosroes’ iwan, and so strongly built, that, after all his attempts to demolish it, what still remains is to-day the most picturesque and effective ruin in all Babylonia. It is known either as Takht-i-Khesra (“throne of Chosroes”) or Tak-i-Khesra (“arch of Chosroe”).

Close to the arch on the northeast is a Persian ziaret dedicated to Imam Musa, and a khan built out of the fragments of the ruins. To the southeast a large piece of the city wall is still standing. Close to the palace to the south is a large, low mound, which doubtless covers some of the buildings of the ancient city. Owing to the rain, our photographs of Ctesiphon were almost entirely failures.

Across the Tigris from Ctesiphon stood the city of Seleucia, built by Seleucus Nicator at the close of the fourth century B.C., as the capital of the new Greek empire. The mounds which mark the site of this city stand out quite prominently, but did not seem to be as extensive as those of Ctesiphon. The city itself, even after the Parthian conquest, is said to have been larger and wealthier than its rival across the river. Pliny reports it as having a population of 600,000 in his time. The Parthian monarchs allowed it to exist side by side with their capital, Ctesiphon, and to retain its independence and its own republican form of government; and, though having a large Syrian and Jewish population (the latter until the Greeks and Syrians united in falling upon the unfortunate Jews and driving them out), it maintained its Greek character until taken and sacked in a Roman invasion in the time of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. On its ruins, Ardeshir, or Artaxerxes, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty, erected the town of Veh Ardeshir as a suburb of Ctesiphon across the river.

One afternoon Bedry and I undertook a ride about the walls of the city, but Bedry’s horse ran away just outside the gate and threw him. I found him sitting on a tomb badly shaken up. His horse was recaptured, and he mounted, only to be thrown again, this time on his head. That ended my explorations under his guidance. The next day he sold his horse.

The old walls, as I have already stated, are now almost entirely destroyed. They had been allowed to go to ruin, and were crumbling away long since. One pasha sold them as bricks, in a time of distress. Midhat Pasha caused a great part of the remainder to be torn down with the view of extending the town and turning the ancient wall into a park, as has been done in so many German cities. As is usual in Turkey, the work was begun and never finished. On the northern side of the city an old gate is still standing. Near this is the oldest minaret, dating from the time of the Caliphs. It is in the form of a cone.

Above and below Baghdad, on both sides of the Tigris, are gardens of palm-trees, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, and the like. Underneath the palm-trees they grow wheat. The gardens and cultivated land extend but a very short distance back of the river on both sides. A few miles up the river is el-Kathim, or Kathemain, where there is a sacred mosque of Imam Musa, an object of pilgrimage to pious Shiites. This mosque is very gorgeous. The two domes, four minarets, and a part of the façade of the mosque, are overlaid with gold. It is the most resplendent thing I ever saw; and from whatever direction the traveller approaches Baghdad, the glittering domes and minarets of Kathim are the first objects which meet the eye. The people of the place are very fanatical, and will not allow Christians even to approach closely the door of the outer court of the mosque. Not knowing this, I rode up to the gate in order to look in. Forthwith every one dropped his wares and his bartering, and rushed at me with cries and threats to drive me from the sacred precincts. To obtain a good view of the mosque, it is necessary to secure admittance through friends to some of the houses in the neighborhood, from the roof of which one can unmolested study the shrine of Imam Musa.

It was Monday, the 21st, two weeks after our arrival at Baghdad, that Mustafa Assim Pasha’s toothache vanished, and he was finally able to receive us and attend to our business. We were presented by Major Talbot, the British Resident. The hour of audience was between nine and ten A.M. By Major Talbot’s directions, I mounted five members of the expedition on horseback, with a servant at each man’s bridle-rein. Major Talbot came with quite an escort to take us to the palace, and our procession through the streets formed a pageant as interesting to the natives of Baghdad as Barnum’s circus is to the citizens of our towns. On the whole, it was more exciting, for the streets are extremely narrow, and the soldiers at the head of our column had actually to beat the people out of our way, while our wild stallions occasionally made frantic plunges, which endangered the goods of the merchants in the bazaars. Our advance guard consisted of two mounted cawasses on caracoling horses. Their duty was to clear a passage, driving foot-passengers to one side, and obliging mules and camels to dive down by-ways and alleys. Next followed Major Talbot on horseback with a Sepoy at his bridle-rein; then five of us, each mounted, and each with a servant at his bridle-rein. Last came the dragoman of the British Residency, mounted and attended in the same manner. As we entered the gate of the serai, a squadron of soldiers presented arms, and the same was done at every turn. Outside the door of the reception-room the Wali Pasha, Mustafa Assim (a fine-looking man in military uniform), met us, and ushered us into the divan. Major Talbot had told me beforehand to do without question whatever he indicated, whether it seemed to me proper or not, and I had agreed to do so. The Wali received Major Talbot as a person of high distinction, led him to the head of the divan, and offered him the seat of honor by his side. But Major Talbot drew back, and motioned to me to take that place. It was the most graceful act of diplomatic courtesy that could have been imagined. It was intended to make the Wali treat me as a person of great importance, and technically placed me above the British Resident himself, if that were possible. The effect of it was that from that time forward the Wali treated me with a respect that could have been obtained in no other way; I am glad to say that the valuable assistance rendered to the expedition by Major Talbot on this and other occasions, was later recognized by our Government, which addressed a communication to the British authorities, thanking them for the courtesies extended to us by their representative in Baghdad.

Our interview with the Wali lasted half an hour. We drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, and transacted our business in French. The Governor-General told us that we were going to the most dangerous part of his vilayet, but that he would use every possible means to protect us, and that a battalion of soldiers stationed at Diwanich should be at our disposal. I asked him to waive the question of a topographical plan, required by our permit, allowing us to commence excavations at Nippur without one, and make one at our earliest convenience afterward.

To this he declined to consent. He did not speak in favorable terms of our commissioner, Bedry Bey, whom he distrusted, as every one else seemed to do. Indeed, he told us frankly that Bedry drank too much. We had already been told the same by a German expedition which Bedry had accompanied as commissioner, and informed further that the only way to handle him was to keep him drunk, feed him well, and, having thus conciliated him, secure what was wanted by bribery. Otherwise, we were assured, he would make us trouble, and the objects discovered would not reach the Imperial Museum, after all. Poor Bedry was painted much blacker than he was, as I found out later by experience. The Wali gave us permission to start for Nippur on Wednesday morning, the 23d; then Bedry was sent for, and we were officially put in communication with him; being left, however, to settle between ourselves our financial relations—a very unfortunate and unbusinesslike arrangement.

On our return from this interview, our house became instantly a scene of bustle and confusion. Mule-loads were made up for fifty odd mules, muleteers were contracted with to take us to Nippur, and every one was busied getting things into working order. That same evening I called on Bedry to arrange money matters with him, but found him sick in bed. My own comrades were not in much better condition. After the hard month’s march from the coast to Baghdad, they were naturally worn out, and the life of relaxation and irregularity in Baghdad did not tend to improve their condition. Prince broke down altogether, and by the advice of Dr. Bowman, the military physician connected with the British Residency, resigned from the expedition. Major and Mrs. Talbot kindly took him into their own house, and nursed him there until he was able to return home.

We were to have started at a very early hour on Wednesdav morning, January 23d. At five o’clock our muleteers came to say that it was raining, and asked us whether we proposed to start in the rain. We told them that we did, and that the rain would make no difference with us. At half-past six they returned to give us the same information, and ask the same question, and it was nine o’clock before they were ready to start, and ten o’clock before we finally got in motion. Our caravan consisted of sixty-one horses and mules, with men and donkeys besides, and we were escorted by six zaptiehs on mules, and by Bedry Bey and his servant, so that altogether we made a very formidable party. It rained hard most of the day, and there was a bitter wind from the south. I have rarely suffered more from the cold; and, owing both to the cold and the rain, it was utterly impossible to write notes, or even to make careful observations of our course. We travelled almost due south, reaching Khan Mahmudieh at four o’clock. On the way we passed many low mounds and old canal beds, but little of interest. The khan in which we stayed at Mahmudieh was by far the largest and best appointed I had yet seen, lying on the line of travel of the Persian pilgrims to Kerbela. These khans are rectangular structures, with blank walls on the outside, pierced by a large gate on one side only. Over this gate there is frequently an upper room with window openings. In the interior of the khan is a large space open to the sky, in which there are sometimes one or two raised platforms. In the khans on the pilgrim routes, these platforms are provided with praying-places properly orientated toward Mecca. Around the great open court are booth-like places for guests, raised three or four feet above the ground; and if the khan is a large one, there is a second, and some times a third, row of these booths opening on a covered corridor within. Guests, as they arrive, take possession of any of the booths which they find empty, string rugs across the opening, and encamp for the night. Their animals stand below in the corridor or court. Below the booths are mangers and tethering-places. There is no rent, but one gives the khanjee at the door a backsheesh in the morning. Many of the khans are pious foundations.

The next morning all of us, excepting Haynes and Bedry, started to visit Abu Habba, guided by the chief man of the village, and escorted by two of our own zaptiehs, together with a zaptieh named Abbas, who had been about a month with the Wolfe Expedition on its trip south of Hillah. He had married a wife out of the proceeds of that journey, and now prayed for his benefactors each time he saw her, so he told us. The day was rainy, and the guide professed to lose his way ; but, as one of Daoud Thoma’s brothers was in charge of Abu Habba at that time, we suspected that by his instructions the man was trying to prevent us from reaching the place. We finally found our way by means of a map and compass. We examined the excavations at Abu Habba with some care, but saw no evidence of the private digging which we had suspected was being conducted there.

Abu Habba represents the ruins of ancient Sippara, supposed to be the Sepharvaim of the Bible (2 Kings, XVII, 31). Hormuzd Rassam’s excavations at this point produced most remarkable results, the inscriptions found exceeding in number and antiquity those found up to that time at any other site in Babylonia. His excavations, as we saw, were conducted in a very unscientific manner, without much regard to buildings or strata; but certainly he was successful in the one thing at which he aimed,—the discovery of inscriptions. At the time of our visit the mounds were the private property of the Sultan. Since our visit two campaigns of excavation have been conducted there by the Turks, but without the success which attended Rassam’s work for the British Museum. There are several mounds in the neighborhood of Abu Habba, the most important of which is Deir, and many large dry canals, including one triple one called Yusuffieh.

 

Abu Arab Khan on the Persian Pilgrim Route from Haghdail to Kerbela.

 

It was almost half-past eleven when we left Abu Habba, and, after watering our horses at the neighboring ziaret of Seid Abdullah, we directed our course toward the conspicuous mound of Hushm-edh-Dhib. This appeared to be at the intersection of a network of canals, and I presume that it represents the remains of the fortress and station for the control and protection of those canals. It was one o’clock when we reached the Hillah road, close to the ruined khan of Bir. Some distance away we could see the castle-like ruins of Sheyshubar. Three quarters of an hour later we crossed a large, dry, triple canal, which from that point on to the end of our day’s journey ran parallel to our road; and throughout the whole day we were constantly passing smaller canals and ruin mounds covered with pottery. Just beyond the triple canal the pilgrim road to Kerbela and Nejef branched off from ours. An hour later we passed Khan Haswa, by which there is a very small village of the same name, both located on the edge of pebble hills like those in the neighborhood of Kal’at Feluja. These pebble hills are a spur of the Mesopotamian plateau projecting into the alluvium, but I believe that they are not continuous from Kal’at Feluja to Haswa. Beyond Haswa, for a long distance, the ground was covered with fragments of pottery. Then came a sort of dry marsh. At about quarter-past three we came in sight of a fringe of palms, indicating the position of the river Euphrates a few miles away to our right. A little later we passed a low mound covered with pottery; and a few minutes afterwards we noticed on both sides of us fields of pottery and bricks, with small heaps of what looked like iron slag. Everything indicated the former existence of phenomenal wealth and prosperity where now there is an utterly barren and uninhabited desert. This region was once known as Gan Eden, or Garden of Delight; and it was its amazing fertility in ancient times which gave the local color to the Hebrew legend of Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden.

About four o’clock we passed another great canal centre, and the remains of something that looked like an ancient reservoir. At quarter-past four, at the deserted Khan Nasrieh, we passed another great canal ganglion. At about quarter-past five, on a rude bridge of modern construction, we crossed a canal full of water, hollowed out in one of the channels of a large ancient triple canal; and five minutes later we reached Khan Mahawil, where Haynes and the caravan had been awaiting us some hours.

The next morning we were up at six o’clock, and started ahead of the caravan with the intention of visiting Babylon. Our course was almost due south on the Hillah road. Shortly after starting, we crossed the largest triple canal I had yet seen, now called Nahr Mahawil. Five minutes later we passed a small mound covered with pottery, and five minutes after that another. Twenty minutes later we were passing over the low mounds of Tel Kreni, which are quite extensive. A few minutes after ten, after crossing the deep bed of the Shatt-en-Nil, which, in connection with the Euphrates, once formed a moat for Babylon, we crossed the line of the old wall about Babil. Like the mound itself, this wall has been used as a brick mine for all the surrounding country. An excavation of thirty feet in depth showed that it was built of bricks laid in bitumen. This particular excavation was made, I believe, with a view of obtaining- material for a dam on the Hindieh Canal. Bedry informed us that excavation in the mounds of Babylon for such purposes is now forbidden; but either Bedry was mistaken as to the fact, or else the prohibition is utterly disregarded.

The mound of Babil itself is thoroughly honeycombed with excavations. So far as those excavations reveal the character of the structure, it is one huge mass of burned brick. It was not, however, built entirely at one time. In one place I observed well-made columns of bricks, the spaces between which had been built up later, thus turning a construction resting upon piers into a solid mass. In another place I noticed a doorway which had been filled with rubble brick, after which a solid structure of brick had been erected in front of it. The removal of a part of the structure by brick-miners had revealed the walled-up door within. Bitumen was used as mortar in a portion, at least, of these brick structures; and the impressions in the bitumen showed that sometimes mats had been placed between the layers of brick. On top of the masses of baked brick was a mass of unbaked brick, about thirty feet of which I found in place. Between the layers of the unbaked bricks were thin mats, such as are now in use in that country, quite unlike the heavy mats I had observed at Akerkuf. There were also ropes or cords of reeds running through the bricks, as at ’Akerkuf, excepting only that those used at Babil were smaller. There were also occasionally palm beams thrust in among the unbaked bricks to strengthen the construction. Near the doorway, which I have described above, Hilprecht picked up a brick of Nabopolassar. All of the other bricks which we found here, and all that I have found elsewhere, brought from Babil, bear the name of Nebuchadrezzar. The mound is orientated approximately northeast and southwest, so that its corners point toward the cardinal points of the compass. It is much longer from the northeast to the southwest than from the southeast to the northwest. In the diggings on the mound, as well as on the surface, I found fragments of green glazed pottery, sometimes imbedded in bricks. Toward the northern end of the mound, on its Summit, was a wall of the same sort of gypsum composite rock which underlies the pebble hills at Haswa and Feluja, surrounded again by bricks. There were everywhere fragments of enamelled bricks, and these looked as though they had been exposed to the action of fire in a great conflagration. It is said that little or nothing in the way of antiquities has been found at Babil. While we were there, a lad brought us the trunk of a small alabaster statuette of late Greek work, which he claimed to have found on the spot. Bedry beat him, and confiscated the statuette, which he later presented to me.

South ten degrees east of Babil is the mound of Homeira, constituting a portion of the ancient ruins of Babylon. Near this, and around a bend in the river from Babil, lies a complex of mounds, known in its several parts as Kasra, Amram, and Jimjimeh. Between Babil and this complex of mounds lie the low but quite extensive mounds of Mujellibeh. All these are parts of Babylon. In the mound of Kasra, in a deep hole, lies a rude lion carved in black basalt. The lion is struggling with a serpent. This hole was dug and the lion un-earthed by Rich in 1811. The Arabs have since bored a hole partly through the lion in their search for treasure. Not very far away, growing on the mound itself, is a very large old sidra-tree, known by the name of Athele. Local tradition says that this is the tree under which Nebuchadrezzar took shelter when he ate grass like an ox; and the same tradition attached itself to the same tree, even then fabulously old, in Rich’s day.

It is the mound of Amram, or Jimjimeh, which is the most fruitful in antiquities; and it is here that almost all of the clay tablets and cylinders have been found which have reached Europe and America. We had heard in Baghdad that a library had been found in place at Jimjimeh by the Arabs, and afterwards broken up by them in their endeavor to escape arrest by the authorities. We were shown the place where this remarkable find was made. It was merely a hole in the mound, and nothing showed in what sort of a building, if any, it had been found. Afterwards Hilprecht was shown by the officials such of the “finds” seized by the Turks as still remained. On investigation, it turned out that the so-called library was a cache, or deposit of contract tablets; and that the breaking-up of the tablets was due to the Turkish authorities, who seized them, and threw them into bags to carry them to Hillah. What remained was absolutely valueless. In our presence the Arabs of Jimjimeh burrowed with their hands among the graves which now cover the mound, and brought out a few fragments of tablets, one or two of which contained written characters. The mounds near Jimjimeh are almost entirely’ covered with graves, but the natives make nothing of disturbing these in digging for tablets. The principal mound at this point is known as Amram, from the tomb and ziarct of Amram, son of Ali, which stand there. At the present moment these mounds look almost like a rabbit warren, they are so full of holes made by the Arabs in their diggings. North of Jimjimeh, some deep excavations had been made for the purpose of obtaining bricks for the Hindieh dam. These excavations revealed enormous walls or masses of very large bricks laid in bitumen. The village of Jimjimeh lies at the foot of the mounds toward the Euphrates, and I believe that almost every native of that place is an antiquity ferret. On a later visit to Babydon I was shown, by the man who discovered it, the place where the famous cylinder of Cyrus was found. This was on the mound of Amram, but not in the corner of a building. It was in a sort of niche in the face of a long wall. Bedry’ assured us that through his activity antiquity digging had been entirely stopped, both at Babylon and elsewhere. This was somewhat amusing, in view of the collections we had just been purchasing in Baghdad and London, which had come principally’ from Jimjimeh, but partly from Birs Nimrud.

Much has been written about the ruins of Babylon. They have been thoroughly mapped, and not a few scholars have tried their hands at a restoration of the ancient city on the basis of their understanding of the indications of the mounds. I do not think that any representation of the ancient city can be of much value until systematic and scientific excavations have been conducted there.

The mound of Babil is now generally supposed to represent the hanging gardens of Nebuchadnezzar. The description which I have given of the appearance of that ruin, as revealed by excavations conducted there, may suggest that it was originally a lofty structure resting on piers and columns, at least in part. This would accord with the ordinary idea regarding these hanging gardens. It was afterwards, for some reason, built into a solid mass. Some suppose, however, that Babil represents the ziggurat of the temple of Bel-Merodach. If so, that ziggurat must have been of a construction entirely unlike' any other ziggurat which has yet been unearthed.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when we reached Hillah. The caravan remained on the east side of the river to avoid the bridge tolls; but we crossed the bridge of boats, as our khan, a miserable place (said to be the best in Hillah, however) was on the western side of the river. There was no accommodation for our horses, which had to be sent elsewhere. Reshid Bey, colonel of the regiment which is stationed partly at Hillah and partly at Diwanieh, and a friend of Bedry, came to see us at once, and invited us to stay with him. This I declined to do, but accepted an invitation to dine on the following evening. I had left Noorian at Jimjimeh to see about engaging workmen to accompany us to Nippur. He reached the khan about seven in the evening, rather down in the mouth, and afraid that he could find no workmen who were not under the thumb of Daoud Thoma and Bedry Bey. He had, however, arranged with some men to come and see him the next day, and talk the question of employment over further.

The next morning, leaving Haynes, who was feeling very miserable, to rest, and Noorian to hunt up antiquities and information, the rest of us, with Elias, Bedry’s servant, an Arab guide, and two zaptiehs, started for Birs Nimrud at half-past eight, reaching there about ten. The country between Birs Nimrud on the one side, and Hillah and Mahmudieh, or rather Baghdad, on the other, is capable of almost boundless productivity, but is now a complete desert. In the neighborhood of Hillah, and down the course of the Euphrates, land which was cultivated a few years earlier was at the time of my visit lying waste; and the very palm-trees, which line the river for miles at this point, were dying on account of the failing of the waters. The Euphrates had been for some years flowing more and more into the Hindieh Canal, and thence into the Abu Nejm and other great swamps. They told me that five years before, the revenues of the Mutessariflik, or province of Hillah, were eighty-five thousand Turkish liras, but in 1889 they were only ten thousand. This difficulty with the Hindieh Canal is an almost periodical one. From the remotest antiquity the Euphrates has broken down all dams and dispersed itself through the Hindieh into the great swamps, at uncertain intervals, depending upon the strength of the dam and the watchfulness of the government. But in addition to the diminution of the revenues of the Mutessariflik of Hillah owing to the diversion of the Euphrates, there was also a diminution caused by the fact that each year more of the cultivable and cultivated land becomes the property of the Sultan, and is hence removed from taxation.

The appearance of the mound of Birs Nimrud is well known, for it has been often described and depicted. It is orientated so that the corners point approximately towards the cardinal points of the compass. The remains of the tower proper are toward the southwestern edge of the ruins, and not, as at Nippur, the northwestern. To the northeast of the ziggurat are the remains of rooms and chambers which formed, apparently, part of the great temple of Nebuchadnezzar, of which the tower was the ziggurat, or high place. A good many of these rooms were dug out by Rassam, but nothing of any importance was found in them. The walls of the rooms which were excavated, and which still remain as left by the explorers, were built entirely of sun-dried brick. Rawlinson and the French both excavated here at an earlier date. Both dug in the tower of the ziggurat itself, and in the corners of that building Rawlinson found inscribed cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar. On the east side of the tower we were shown the excavations said to have been made by the French, where they had laid bare vast masses of baked red bricks. The lowest stage of the tower, as shown by these excavations, consisted of a very high terrace of sundried bricks, on which were smaller terraces faced with baked brick. On the summit of the whole structure there is now a curious mass of baked bricks, looking like a tower split in two. This is somewhat more than forty feet in height, as measured by the layers of bricks, of which there are -one hundred and thirty still in place. It is pierced by holes in which there were originally cords or beams to strengthen the masonry. About this tower lie huge masses of bricks fused together. Apparently this fusion was the-result of a conflagration, the heat of which was sufficiently great to melt the enamel on the bricks. The bricks themselves were twisted, curled, and broken by the heat. Enamelled bricks ruined by fire were found all around the mound, a few of them of a dark-red color, but most of them yellow, and some of them almost black. Some of these, as well as some of the unenamelled bricks, bore the inscription of the great Nebuchadrezzar

 

Birs Nimrud,the Tower of Babel.

 

The view from the top of the mound was very beautiful. To the north was a great swamp full of water, from which ran a stream, looking like a silver thread, connecting it with the Hindieh Canal. Beyond were villages. To the east we saw the palm-trees of Hillah ; while to the northwest la)' a very small village shaded by palm-trees, where Rassam used to live while conducting his excavations. All else was flat and barren, or bearing nothing but camel-thorn and rushes.

A few minutes to the northeast of Birs Nimrud lies the mound of Ibrahim Khalil, or Ibrahim the Friend, with a ziaret in the centre. This mound represents ancient Borsippa, the sister-city of Babylon, while Birs Nimrud represents the temple of Nebo and the ziggurat. On the eastern and southern edges of the mound of Ibrahim Khalil are the trenches which yielded results to Rassam in the way of inscribed objects. He seems to have found no constructions of any importance, and to have made no efforts to trace buildings as such. I knew beforehand, from our London collections, that diggings were still conducted at Ibrahim Khalil, and obtained further information to that effect while at Hillah. I had the good fortune to meet the individual to whom had belonged the objects from Borsippa sold to me in London by Shemtob. I ascertained from him that they were all found in the mound of Ibrahim Khalil, but was told that there was little dug out there in comparison with the amount brought from the mounds of Babylon. A colophon on a tablet of Nabopolassar, in the London purchase, suggested the existence of a library at Borsippa. It was on that account that I had desired to obtain permission to excavate there. My intention was to try Nippur first, and, if that should prove impracticable, to remove to Borsippa, at which point we were comparatively close to civilization, and could be readily protected. I supposed, moreover, that it would be possible to conduct excavations at Borsippa for a longer time than at Nippur. The information derived from Layard’s account of his excavations at Nippur, as well as the information brought home by the Wolfe Expedition, had led me to suppose that that place would be practicable but for a brief part of the year. In laying out my plans, therefore, for this first year’s work, I had expected, when we should be obliged to leave Nippur, to come to Borsippa and work there.

In the eleventh chapter of Genesis there is a legend to the effect that when all the people of the earth were of one language, as they journeyed hither and thither from the east, or in the eastern country, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and took up their abode there; and having become settled residents of the soil, they undertook to make bricks and burn them very thoroughly; for bricks constituted the stone of the land, and bitumen the mortar. “And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose summit shall be in the sky; and let us' make us a name, lest we be scattered over all the earth. And Yahweh looked down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. And Yahweh said, Lo, these are one people, they have all one language, and this is the beginning of their doings, and now nothing is impossible with them of all which they have planned to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech. And Yahweh scattered them thence upon the face of the whole earth, and they ceased to build the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there Yahweh confounded the language of the whole earth.” The story, as we have if here, comes from the Yahwistic narrative, and was written down probably somewhere in the eighth century before Christ, two hundred years or so before Nebuchadnezzar. How much older the story itself may be, it is difficult to say. It suggests to us an unfinished building of great size, constructed of baked brick.

Now, in the clay cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar found by Sir Henry Rawlinson in the corners of the ziggurat of Birs Nimrud, we read: “Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the rightful ruler, the expression of the righteous heart of Marduk, the exalted high priest, the beloved of Nebo, the wise prince, who devotes his care to the affairs of the great gods, the unwearying ruler, the restorer of Esagila and Ezida, the son and heir of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, am I.

“Marduk the great god formed me aright and commissioned me to perform his restoration; Nebo, guiderof the universe of heaven and earth, placed in my hand the right sceptre; Esagila, the house of heaven and earth, the abode of Marduk, lord of the gods, Ekua, the sanctuary of his lordship, I adorned gloriously with shining gold. Ezida I built anew, and completed its construction with silver, gold, precious stones, bronze, mitsukkani wood, and cedar wood. Timinanki, the ziggurat of Babylon, I built-and completed; of bricks glazed with lapis-lazuli (blue) I erected its summit.

“At that time the house of the seven divisions of heaven and earth, the ziggurat of Borsippa, which a former king had built and carried up to the height of forty-two ells, but the summit of which he had not erected, was long since fallen into decay, and its water conduits had become useless; rain storms and tempests had penetrated its unbaked brick-work; the bricks which cased it were bulged out, the unbaked bricks of its terraces were converted into rubbish heaps. The great lord Marduk moved my heart to rebuild it. Its place I changed not and its foundation I altered not. I11 a lucky month, on an auspicious day I rebuilt the unbaked bricks of its terraces and its encasing bricks, which were broken away, and I raised up that which was fallen down. My inscriptions I put upon the kiliri of its buildings. To build it and to erect its summit I set my hand. I built it anew as in former times; as in days of yore I erected its summit.

“Nebo, rightful son, lordly messenger, majestic friend of Marduk, look kindly on my pious works; long life, enjoyment of health, a firm throne, a long reign, the overthrow of foes, and conquest of the land of the enemy give me as a gift. On thy righteous tablet which determines the course of heaven and earth, record for me length of days, write for me wealth. Before Marduk, lord of heaven and earth, the father who bore thee, make pleasant my days, speak favorably for me. Let this be in thy mouth, ‘Nebuchadnezzar, the restorer king’. ”

Nebuchadnezzar describes the condition in which the ziggurat was when he found it. It was built long before his day, and built with very ambitious ideas. It was forty-two ells in height, but the summit had never been completed. The consequence of this failure to erect the summit was that the water struck into the unprotected mud bricks forming the mass of the interior of the ziggurat, dissolved them, and broke and bulged out the casing walls of baked bricks by which the different terraces were held in, reducing the whole to a huge mass of ruins. The water conduits referred to are such as Haynes found on the sides of the ziggurat at Nippur, designed to carry off the water from the surfaces of the upper terraces, and save the whole structure from decay. These conduits are useful only in case proper arrangements are made to carry into them the water falling on the surfaces of the upper terraces. The failure in this case to “erect the summit,” and the consequent soaking of the water into the clay bricks of the interior, soon rendered these conduits useless.

The striking similarities of this story to that of the Tower of Babel are, outside of the site, the extremely ambitious nature of this ziggurat of Borsippa which Nebuchadnezzar found in ruins, and the fact that after it had been raised to a great height the work was abandoned, leaving the building in such an incomplete condition that its ruin was inevitable.

As Nebuchadnezzar found it, the tower was little more than an enormous mass of ruins. lie built it over entirely, and made it a seven-staged ziggurat. It is the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s ziggurat which constitute the present Birs Nimrud, and the explorations which have been conducted there revealed the seven stages still existing.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar gives no similar description of the ruined and incomplete condition of any other ziggurat which he rebuilt. He rebuilt, among other places, the ziggurat of Esagil in Babylon, but he says nothing of its ruined condition. Evidently the ruined condition of the ziggurat at Borsippa, in connection with its great size and ambitious design, made a strong impression upon his mind, or the mind of the writer of his inscription. This is not a positive proof that it made a similar impression on the world at large, yet the natural induction is that the ruined condition of this ziggurat was notorious, and impressed all beholders. How long before the time of Nebuchadnezzar it had fallen into such a condition, it is impossible from our present information to say. Nebuchadnezzar says “long since”, and does not mention the name of the original builder, calling him merely a former king”, as though its original construction were a thing of the remote past, the details of which were long since forgotten. But whatever the date, Nebuchadnezzar’s account of the ruins of this ziggurat corresponds so well with the story of the eleventh chapter of Genesis, that one is inclined to attach that story, at least tentatively, to this ruin. The proximity of the site to Babylon led to its connection with that well-known name, Babel, in the Hebrew story.

 

X.—Nippur at Last