"سرد لرحلة إلى موقع مدينة بابل في ١٨١١، طُبعت الآن لأول مرة: مذكرات على الأطلال؛ مع نقوش من الخرائط المدبئية للمؤلف: ملاحظات على طبوغرافية بابل القديمة،بقلم الرائد رينيل؛ في إشارة إلى المذكرات: مذكرات ثانية على الأطلال؛ في إشارة إلى ملاحظات الرائد رينيل: مع سرد لرحلة إلى برسبوليس: طُبعت الآن لأول مرة، مع كتابات مسمارية نسخت في برسبوليس ولم تُنشر من قبل: كتبها الراحل كلوديوس جيمس ريتش، المحترم، المقيم البريطاني السابق لشركة الهند الشرقية في بغداد. حررته أرملته." [‎٣‎٢] (٤٧٤/١٠٧)

32
JOURNEY TO BABYLON.
is an excavation which they call the Serdaub. It is
not remarkable. I searched here for the inscriptions
mentioned by Niebuhr, but found no traces of them.
Saheb Zeman appears to have been that kind of
pine-apple spire I have before alluded to; but only a
piece or two of it now remains.
As we had very little time to spare, we divided
our work. Mr. Lockett, with my Englishmen, fell
to measuring, and I to take sketches.
The Birs is an enormous mound. At the north
end it rises; and there is an immense brick wall,
thirty-seven feet in height and twenty-eight in
breadth, upon it. This wall is not on the centre of
the north summit of the mound, but appears to have
formed the southern face of it. The other parts of
the summit are covered by huge fragments of brick
work, tumbled confusedly together; and what is
most extraordinary, they are partly converted into a
solid, vitrified mass. The layers are in many places
perfectly distinguishable ; but the whole of these
lumps seem to have undergone the action of fire.
Several lumps of the same matter have rolled down,
and remain partly on the side of the mound, and
partly in the plain. The large wall on the southern
face of the summit is built of burnt bricks, with
writing on them, and so close together, that no ce
ment is discoverable between the layers. Small
square apertures are left, which go quite through the
building, and are arranged in a kind of
form. Down the face of the wall the bricks have