'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎400r] (802/862)

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TEN HISTORICAL SITES 631
sections, 21 feet and 12 feet wide with an interspan of 23 feet, called
Imgur-bel and Nimitti-bel; on the north-east this wall is parallel to the
railway which now cuts across the outer enclosure. Along the river front
there were great quays, later built up into fortification walls, and the river
was crossed by a brick bridge, the most ancient bridge of which traces
survive in the world. Within the main town was the citadel area, the
modern Qasr mound, containing palaces and temples protected by a third
set of walls and reaching to an old course of the Euphrates on the west.
South of the citadel, in Amran mound, there was the main temple area,
originally distinct from the settlements of the citadel area. A third area is
that of the lower Merkes mounds, east of Amran mound, containing the
quarter of private dwellings with minor temples. At the northern extremity
of the Outer Wall is the Babil mound, which alone preserves the original
name; it contains a royal palace.
The most impressive excavations are in the citadel area; they are easily
explored by a system of signposts and tracks, maintained by the Depart
ment of Antiquities, starting from the small museum, which is approached
from the Baghdad-Hilla road. The citadel was entered by the Ishtar
Gate, still standing to a great height with its reliefs of bulls, lions, and
mythical Sirrush figures. Through the gate passes the paved Procession
Street, marked by palace walls, along which the statues of the gods were
taken on festal days. On the east side of the street by the Ishtar Gate
there is the small Nin-Mach temple consisting of a vestibule and court
yard, inner shrine and priests’ rooms. West of the street is the great series
of palace buildings known as the Southern Citadel and entered from the
street by the Beltis door. Three great courtyards have been cleared, with
complexes of apartments and offices opening off them. On the south side
of the third or Principal Courtyard is the throne room, the largest chamber
in the citadel, 56 feet by 170, usually taken to be the scene of Belshazzar’s
banquet and the ‘writing on the wall’. The walls of the Principal Court
yard were decorated with fine enamelled and patterned bricks in yellow
and blue, black and white.
In the north-east corner of the Southern Citadel, close to the Ishtar
Gate, there is a remarkable crypt of fourteen vaulted rooms or cells, all
below the level of the palace floors. The presence of an unusual triple
well has suggested that this is the substructure of the ‘Hanging Gardens’
which were thus ‘hung up’ as a roof-garden and watered from the wells.
The northern half of the Qasr mound contains the incompletely
excavated Principal Citadel, the vast new walled palace built by Nebu
chadnezzar II when he found the palace of the Southern Citadel too small
for his court. In the north-east corner of it there is the stone Lion of
Babylon, close to Procession Street. North again of the Principal Citadel
is an extension known as the Northern Citadel, remarkable for its stone
wall on the northern side, made of great blocks of limestone, the only
stone building in Babylon. These palaces drew their water-supply from
.1