History of Ancient Art Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: Egyptian Profile. Fig. 28. Greek Profile.]

The description of single Egyptian works is consequently almost the same as the consideration of the entire sculpture and painting of the land--the more so as the artist not only employed generally one and the same conventional figure, but in position and movement mainly alternated between two types. The statues are, with a few exceptions, either sitting or in an act between standing and stepping, which does not appear to be an advance, because the feet are too near together; both soles being flat upon the ground, the centre of gravity falls between the two legs, almost more upon the one behind than upon the one before.

A figure seems to move only when the body, advanced before the centre of its two supports, throws the greatest part of its weight upon the forward leg, and thus relieves the hinder foot, which, with uplifted heel, touches the ground with the toes, in readiness to be removed. Both sitting and standing statues have the arms pressed closely to the body--the former with bent elbows and hands resting flat upon the knees, the latter with arms hanging straightly and stiffly, the hands holding the so-called Nile key; or folded upon the breast, the hands grasping attributes, crook and plough or whip. Individual action is in every case excluded. If the formation of the body be more closely examined, the following peculiarities are remarkable: The head, as the comparison of it with a Greek type at _Fig._ 28. shows, deviates so greatly from the normal oval that it could almost be drawn within a square, the princ.i.p.al line of the face being about parallel to the back of the head, as is the flat outline of the top of the skull to the line from the chin to the neck. The general directions of the eye, the mouth, and the ear are not perpendicular to the sides of the parallelogram, inclining too markedly upward; the comparatively large ear is placed half as high again from the throat as it should be. These deviations are in some measure explained by the peculiarities of race characteristic of the Orientals, and especially of the Egyptians--by the different formation of the skull and position of the eye. The forehead is almost straight, being on a line with the upper lip; and, as it recedes from the nose, does not project at all. It is rendered still more unimportant by the curved ridge of the brows lacking decision, and the eye itself wanting in depth. The eye has remained in the rough condition of a primitive imitation of nature--thick strips surround it in place of lids, and continue, the upper overlapping the under, beyond its exterior angle towards the ear. The gently curved, round, broad nose projects but little over the upper lip, which, instead of preparing the close of the oval towards the chin, is pushed forward like the lower lip, upward and outward. The closed, sensually broad lips are sharply outlined. The corners of the mouth, slightly drawn upward, give, with the similar inclination of the angles of the eyes, a certain expression of smiling sarcasm not intended by the designer, and consequently cold and stiff.

The chin is flat and pointed in profile, the line from it to the short and thin neck almost straight.

Such is the type that was retained through thousands of years, so unchangeably that even the s.e.xes are scarcely to be distinguished by the heads. Male figures often have a kind of chin beard, cut at right angles, and bound on with ribbons which can sometimes be distinctly traced. The heads, and through them the whole figures, are characterized by head-dresses, referable to one fundamental form--the pshent, a high cap like a tiara; but they have been so modified from their prototype that the _Description de l'egypte_, pl. 115, shows thirty distinct varieties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 29.--Husband and Wife. (Munich Glyptothek.)]

The deities are frequently recognizable by the heads of animals--of a lion, ram, cow, ape, jackal, crocodile, hawk, or ibis, as the case may be. The wors.h.i.+p of nature, peculiar to Egypt, found a better expression in these symbols than in the monotonous representations of man, in marked contrast to the incorporation of h.e.l.lenic myths, where, in the monstrous conjunction of human and animal forms, the human head was rarely given up, it being more generally placed upon the body of an animal.

The figure, as accepted by the Egyptian designer, was, to the smallest details, drawn according to a network of lines. Diodorus states it to have had 21 units in height, the unit being probably the length of the nose. The shoulders are drawn upward, and, like the flat breast, are broad; the hips, on the contrary, are narrow and weakly modelled: they are girded with a cloth which appears carefully folded and adjusted, but, with all its tightness, does not fit the forms of the body. When upon sitting figures, this cloth often stands out as stiffly and straightly as if carved of wood, giving no indication of the true nature of its material. The lean arms are muscular, dry, and hard; the hands are rendered clumsy by the equally thick and almost equally long fingers. The legs are not powerful, and rather slim, indicating great elasticity, and, like all other parts of the body, the ability to endure great exertion. The knees are sharp and drawn with anatomical understanding; the feet are narrow and long, as are also the toes, which, lying in their entire length upon the ground, do not greatly differ in dimensions and form. In female figures the b.r.e.a.s.t.s are fully developed, the nipples being formed like a rosette; a closely fitting gown reaches from the broad neck-ornament, common with both s.e.xes, to the ankles, but, being represented without reference to the material and without the most necessary folds, appears so elastic that its existence is only surely to be perceived at the borders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 30.--The Schoolmaster of Boulac.]

The most ancient sculptures and the later works of Nubia are somewhat heavy and full, those of the best period (the time of Ramses) more slim and elastic. After the fifth century B.C. the figures become better modelled, and a certain influence of Greek sculpture is betrayed. But the ancient type remained in the chief characteristics unchanged until the end of the Ptolemaic dynasties, and even to the later ages of the Roman Empire. Those works of Greek and Roman sculptors, so popular during the age of Hadrian, which borrowed the costume and position of Egyptian statues while having nothing else in common with Egyptian art (such, for instance, as the numerous figures of Antinous to be found in almost all the larger museums), must not be cla.s.sed with the truly national works executed in Egypt and for that country.

The monotony of Egyptian sculpture was not without some exceptions. Less pretentious works, where the necessity of canonic idealization seems not to have been so imperative--as in the well-fed form of the so-called schoolmaster in the museum of Boulac (_Fig._ 30.), which shows not only in the head, but in the entire body, an undeniable portrait--make it questionable whether the conventionalized representations may not be more owing to the restraint of religious authority and tradition, to the hieratic laws which exercised so complete a sway over the life of the country in every respect, than to any absolute incapability of the Egyptian artist for individual characterization.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 31.--Lion of Reddish Granite. (British Museum.)]

Egyptian sculpture, thus under the ban of religious conservatism, always dealt more successfully with the forms of animals than with human beings and deities. In hunting scenes there is wonderful spirit and character in the drawing of the dogs, and of the animals which they attack. The artist attained an elastic and life-like force in the representation of all animal forms, even when these were compelled into monstrous combinations with human members. The most common of the latter are the androsphinxes, which differ from the Greek sphinx in being male--having the head and breast of a man and the body of a crouching lion. At times the human head is supplanted by that of a ram or hawk. Rams were also treated as sphinxes, especially before the temples of Ammon and Kneph.

The most important androsphinx is the well-known colossus of Gizeh with the head of Thothmes IV. The heads of the sphinxes seem usually to have been portraits of kings. This gigantic guardian of the necropolis of Memphis, the most enormous monumental figure of the world, with s.p.a.ce between the outstretched front legs for a chapel there built, is now again buried to the neck by the s.h.i.+fting sand of the pyramid plateau after having been excavated with great labor. Its face alone is 12.2 m.

long. But it is in cases where the entire lion is represented without deformation that Egyptian sculpture attains its greatest perfection.

(_Fig._ 31.)

A great majority of the Egyptian works of sculpture were cut with marvellous patience in the hardest materials, in variously colored granite, diorite, syenite, and basalt. Limestone and alabaster were rarely employed for colossal or life-size statues, but were used more frequently for works of smaller dimensions; these were also burned in clay with a surface of blue or green glazing, or were cut in more valuable stones, such as agate, jasper, carnelian, and lapis-lazuli.

Enamelled clay idols were manufactured in great numbers; modern museums contain hundreds of these little figures of perfectly similar form. The so-called scarabaeus is also very common--beetle-shaped bodies of clay, or of the above-named stones--with incised figures or hieroglyphics upon their lower surface. Such amulets were perforated and worn as beads, and were placed loosely in the coffins with the mummies.

The artistic manufacture of colored gla.s.s was extensive. Fine metal-work was less common, although ornaments of enamelled gold, silver, and copper of high artistic value have occasionally been found. Wood-carving was practised upon the mummy-coffins. Although the valley of the Nile did not produce large pieces of a satisfactory material, this lack was supplied by gluing together layers of palm or sycamore wood, and hiding the defects of this process by a painted priming of stucco. The coffins themselves are in so far works of sculpture as they represent upon the cover the form of the swathed body placed within them, and even show the face as exposed.

The sculpture of reliefs was less developed and less correct than of the round. As the relief was always very low, and could not express the greater projections, the artist's desire to represent the human body clearly and completely led to an unfortunate conflict between the profile and front view of the figure. While mostly drawn in profile, and showing particularly the head and legs in side view, which is the more favorable for representation in low-relief, the shoulders and breast are developed in the other direction, and are seen as from in front. It is only in this position that both arms are visible--an important consideration to the artist, whose object was solely to represent some action or attributes. It was also felt as a difficulty that in a relief of the side view the visible shoulder should project farther than any other part of the body, the breadth of the breast and arms being more than double that of the head. The primitive designer, to avoid these objections, resorted to a forced and clumsy torsion of the body, which may be noticed in the childhood of almost every art--in the a.s.syrian as well as in the most ancient Greek. The head, with exception of the eye, which was represented as in front, was taken in profile; shoulders and breast from in front, but arms and hands, as well as hips, legs, and feet, in profile again. The lower the relief, the less could the surface be modelled, and this led to a sharp demarcation of the outline, which exaggerated the peculiar leanness of the Egyptian race to a hard angularity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 32.--Sculptural Work. Egyptian Wall-painting.]

The relief is a transitional stage between sculpture and painting; it works upon a more or less flat surface, seeks its chief effect in outline, and lends itself readily to the heightening of color. The most common Egyptian relief, which has been termed coilanaglyphic, being hollowed out, stands even nearer to painting than to sculpture. In real reliefs the surface is so cut away as to leave the figures embossed; but here the forms do not rise above the background, and the original plane remains untouched: the sculptor contented himself with firmly incising the outlines, and slightly rounding the forms of the body within them.

This incised outline is clearly seen only by sharp side light, but it has the advantage of protecting the borders of the figures and thus securing the indestructibility of the representation. In other respects the coilanaglyphics are nothing else than paintings, the s.p.a.ce within the carved outlines being colored in the same manner as are all Egyptian wall decorations. The limits of the latter art were thus greatly extended, for all temples were covered with such colored coilanaglyphics, while the stuccoed sides of rock-cut tombs and of brick masonry were richly ornamented by paintings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 33.--Lance-maker. Egyptian Wall-painting.]

The number of ancient painted decorations which have been preserved is very great, notwithstanding their age and the perishable nature of all pigments exposed to air and light. The subjects represented and often repeated are, for the greater part, religious scenes, which share the monotony of the strict Egyptian ritual, though often allowing an interesting insight into the customs of interment, the transport of mummies by the processional boat, the sacred dances and sacrifices.

Representations of profane scenes are more varied and are exceedingly interesting; the technicalities of Egyptian art are shown by the cutting of a monolithic palm-column, the polis.h.i.+ng of a granite chapel, the painting of walls, the writing of hieroglyphics upon tablets and papyrus, the carving and painting of sphinxes and statues (_Fig._ 32.), the transport of a colossal figure upon a sledge (_Fig._ 7.), the making of bricks and walling of brick masonry, the interior of houses (_Fig._ 26.), even the plans of dwellings and gardens. Besides numerous tools and the products of manufacturing trades, there may be recognized upon these paintings weavers, rope-makers, the preparers of paper and of linen cloth, s.h.i.+p-builders, carpenters with hand-saw and auger, and the cutters of bows and lances (_Fig._ 33.), who employ adzes quite similar to those still in use. Commerce on land and sea is represented by wares, unpacked or in bales, by scales, various kinds of wagons and trading vessels, etc., all shown in the clearest manner possible. Ploughs, sowing and harvesting, the gathering of figs and grapes, the pressing of oil and wine, ill.u.s.trate the condition of agriculture; while the especial ability of the Egyptians for animal representations is exercised in the hunting scenes of lions, tigers, buffaloes, jackals, and gazelles; by the snaring of birds and fishes in nets, as well as by the admirably characterized figures of apes, porcupines, etc. There are also historical paintings, great battle scenes, the storming of cities, and the triumph of the returning victors, who bring with them booty and prisoners, the nationality of whom is often readily distinguishable by peculiarities of physiognomy and costume. (_Fig._ 34.) The Egyptian kings appear of superhuman size, either fighting from splendid war-chariots, or striding forward to sacrifice their kneeling enemies, a dozen of whom, seized at once by the hair, are decapitated at a blow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 34.--Prisoners of Different Nationalities. Egyptian Wall-painting.]

Extended and varied as these Egyptian representations were, and instructive as that which through their agency has been preserved now is, it yet must be confessed that the painting was more a conventional picture-writing than an art. The seven colors used--red, blue, brown, yellow, green, black, and white--are, as a rule, applied simply, without mixture or variation, and without much reference to the appearance of nature. At least, it is very rarely that any striving after natural effect is to be noticed; that, for instance, the skin of a negress appears bluish-gray through a partially transparent white drapery, or that the typical red-brown complexion of an Egyptian, under similar conditions, is of a broken yellow. Within the sharply drawn outlines the colors are flat and without any modification by light and shade, upon the changing effects of which all pictorial illusion is based. This illusion is the fundamental principle of painting, the aim of which is to render the appearance of objects. It being here entirely lacking, we cannot properly speak of an art of painting in Egypt, or, indeed, in antiquity at all, before the time of Polygnotos. Egyptian paintings are entirely of the nature of ornament; the representation of human beings is conventionalized in the same manner as are floral ornaments,--while imitated to a certain degree from nature, it is simplified according to the requirements of decorative laws. The actions shown are all without truth and life. The beauty of decoration demands a certain harmony in the choice of colors, which is there unfettered; in Egyptian paintings this is sought and attained at the cost of truth to nature. It was not distasteful to the Egyptian to see the same figure repeated a dozen times in absolute similarity, for an ornament can always bear repet.i.tion.

To these considerations must be added a marked peculiarity of Egyptian painting. Although the art had been restricted to the portrayal of merely exterior actions, even this end could hardly have been attained without the complement of a written explanation, which was here so adjoined as to harmonize with the figures in composition and even in color. This conjunction is far more intimate than is that of picture and text in an ill.u.s.trated chronicle: the hieroglyphic writing and the painting are closely allied in character. It was only a step from the one to the other, and their limits are sometimes hardly distinguishable, especially in the stucco paintings of the mummy-coffins and the pen and brush drawings upon papyrus ma.n.u.scripts, where the carelessness of the execution increases the similarity. The hieroglyphic inscriptions might even be considered as the extreme consequence of the hieratically conventionalized pictures.

The painting of Egypt existed unchanged for a period of more than two thousand years, with a stability unequalled in the other civilizations of the world. It was perhaps not quite so extensively employed in the ancient kingdom as in later times: paintings can be dated as far back as the third dynasty (3338 to 3124 B.C., according to Lepsius), but they were restricted to interior decoration. The walls of the pyramids were unadorned by color. After the practice of art had been greatly limited by the invasion of the Hycsos (from the thirteenth to the seventeenth dynasty, 2136 to 1591 B.C.), it arose with new vigor at the advent of the modern kingdom, especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, when the architecture which flourished at Thebes offered a wide field for painted decorations. From that time the walls lost their bareness, and richly colored ornaments were employed even upon the exterior, enlivening the dead and heavy character of Egyptian building and somewhat supplying the deficiency of its exterior development.

The art of Egypt attained its greatest elaboration--not, indeed, without some loss of national character--in the time of Alexander and the Ptolemies (332 to 30 B.C.), when h.e.l.lenic influence broke through the sombre ma.s.siveness of the unmembered walls and applied the brilliant decoration of colored columns to the exterior.

But, delightful as the island of Philae appears because of these changes, it yet marks the commencing decline of Egyptian art, with the negation of the serious and mystical peculiarities of the land. The excellence of Egyptian technical processes could only delay the utter exhaustion and extinction of their art until the time of the later Roman empire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 35.--a.s.syrian Shrines. Relief from Corsabad.]

CHALDaeA, BABYLONIA, AND a.s.sYRIA.

The traditional culture of the land of the Euphrates and Tigris is not younger than that of the Nile. Though the third dynasty (commencing, according to Berosos, with the twenty-third century B.C.) is the first of which we have monumental remains, it cannot be denied that long before that time an important people had inhabited the country, a nation very different from the nomadic hordes which then, as to-day, roved through the neighboring deserts. Several races of antiquity were conscious that the most primitive people of civilization had lived in the land of the two streams. The Jews considered that to have been their original home. The Patriarch Abraham had emigrated from Chaldaean Ur to Canaan. The Greek legend of Deucalion points to the history of Mesopotamia in the same manner as does the Jewish myth of the Deluge; the oldest Greek knowledge of astronomy, astrology, and the calculation of time seems to have been derived from the same source. The tale of the division of the nations in Babel, and their spreading over the face of the earth from that point, is certainly based upon the existence of a most ancient centre of civilization upon the banks of the Euphrates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 36.--Temple of Mugheir (Ur).]

The land offered no materials for monuments which, like those of Egypt, could stand uninjured through thousands of years. The narrow valley of the Nile is enclosed by the cliffs of the desert border, which seemed directly to encourage, by the excellence of the building-stone there procured, the erection of immense and indestructible works. The plain of Mesopotamia, on the other hand, spread far beyond the courses of the two streams, losing itself in deserts without any line of eminences as a demarcation. The remote mountains offered no quarries at all comparable to those of Egypt. The soil was of good clay for the manufacture of bricks, but fuel was lacking with which to burn and harden them. The inhabitants of the land were generally obliged to content themselves with drying the clay in the sun, making up by the great thickness of the masonry for the firmness lacking to the material. They further strengthened the ma.s.sive walls with a facing, or with b.u.t.tress-like piers of burnt brick, or solidified the interior with alternate courses of this harder substance. The bitumen which still flows at Hit, on the Euphrates, north of Bagdad at the southern border of the higher alluvial terrace of a.s.syria, was an excellent substance for cementing the bricks; in more important works it was used alternately with lime-mortar: in common buildings, or in the interior of the thickest walls, clay kneaded with straw answered the purpose of a cement.

It is natural that little should now remain of such structures. They could only survive the thousands of years that have elapsed since their building, when an immense thickness secured at least the kernel of the wall, or when the ruins of other buildings early covered and protected them. The remains of ancient Chaldaea are generally nothing more than formless heaps of rubbish, many of which have not yet been opened.

Taylor, Loftus, and their predecessors, Ainsworth, Chesney, and Layard, discovered the ruins of over thirty cities in the lower half of the Mesopotamian plain. Of these, Mugheir (the ancient Ur), Warka (Erech), Niffer (Nipur), and Abou-Sharein offered the most important remains of great age; while the ruins of Sura, Tel Sifr, Calvadha, and Ackercuf are mainly of the later Chaldaean period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 37.--Ruins of Warka.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 38.--Patterned Wall. Warka.]

Recognizable among the rubbish-hills of Mugheir are the remains of a terrace which consisted of two oblong steps, the lowest measuring 60.35 by 40.54 m. in length and breadth, and about 12 m. in height, standing upon a platform raised 6 m. above the surrounding country. The greater part of this is overthrown and buried beneath its own material. The kernel of the solid structure is of sun-dried bricks; the facing, which is divided by b.u.t.tresses, being of burnt brick cemented with bitumen.

The whole is perforated by numerous small air-channels. The second step is only about half preserved, and that which it must once have supported has entirely disappeared. A remarkable inscription, repeated upon the four corners of the upper terrace, explained the purpose of the structure and the time of its erection. According to Sir H. Rawlinson's interpretation of the cuneiform legend, this was dedicated to the deity Sin (Hurki) as a temple, and was first founded by King Urukh (about 2230 B.C.). The name of the spot is given as Ur, a city known from Biblical tradition. The inscriptions were not, however, contemporaneous with the foundation of the building, for, after giving a long line of kings, they at last name Nabonetos, the last King of Babylon, as the restorer of the temple--a fact which is further attested by the bricks themselves, those of the lower terrace having the name of Urukh, those of the upper of Nabonetos. The temple remains of Warka and of Abou-Sharein unite with these ruins of Mugheir to show that the Chaldaean temple consisted of a simple and ma.s.sive terrace of few steps, crowned, without doubt, by a chapel, which must be supposed richly decorated with colors and gold ornaments from the fragments of agate, alabaster, and fine marbles, of gold-plating and gilded nails, found in Abou-Sharein, and from the blue enamelled clay tiles of Mugheir. The sides of the great steps were either plainly b.u.t.tressed or treated with projections, as is the case with the terrace wall of a palace at Warka, shown by _Fig._ 37. There was here a complicated system of reeded projections and stepped incisions--cylinders and prisms which cannot be called pilasters, as they were without capitals, and probably also without base-mouldings.

Another ruin of Warka (_Fig._ 38) has a colored wall-facing, made by driving conical pegs of terra-cotta about 0.1 m. long into the clay, so that the red, black, and whitish base surfaces form different patterns.

This ruin is further interesting as giving some insight into the private architecture of the Chaldaeans. Rooms were there found separated from one another by walls fully as thick as the enclosed s.p.a.ces themselves were broad--a clumsy heaviness which shows what ma.s.sive masonry the poor crumbling material necessitated. The existing remains suggest so strongly the arrangement of the later a.s.syrian palaces that there can be but little doubt that they, in some degree, served as a model for these latter; although the palace wall, with its revetment of alabaster, might be erected with less thickness. No trace of window-like openings can be observed in the ruins of Warka or in those of Abou-Sharein.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 39.--Tomb of Mugheir.]

The principle of the arch, though not extensively employed, was well understood and occasionally introduced in a.s.syria. From a small grave-chamber discovered at Mugheir, we may conclude that it was not known in the ancient Chaldaean period. The roofing was then effected by a gradual projection of the horizontal courses of bricks until the opposite sides nearly touched each other at the top of the gable thus formed. (_Fig._ 39.) It may perhaps be a.s.sumed that this manner of covering by the so-called false arch and vault was only employed for very narrow s.p.a.ces, while larger rooms were more naturally ceiled by wooden beams. The ruins of Warka, though they do not give a very clear understanding of the fortifications of ancient Chaldaea, at least show that the city walls were not necessarily square, as had been concluded from the testimony of ancient writers, but, as in this case, followed the irregular outline of the city.

The political history of Chaldaea was from the earliest times greatly disturbed by internal divisions. At first the city Nipur, celebrated for its wors.h.i.+p of Bel, appears to have been the most important place, at least of Southern Chaldaea. To this followed Ur or Hur, the city wors.h.i.+pping Hurki or Sin, then Nisin or Carrac, and, finally, Larsa, the present Senkereh. Upper Chaldaean Babylon, originally Ca-dimirra, does not seem to have become the only capital until the age of King Cammurabi, about 1500 B.C. A hundred years later Northern Mesopotamia, a.s.syria, began to gain predominance, and in the thirteenth century B.C.

Babylon was conquered (for the first time?) by Tiglathi-Nin, a son of King Salmaneser of a.s.syria. Chaldaea soon regained its independence, but only to fall again into the power of the conqueror Tiglath-Pileser, and to remain for five centuries subjugated to Nineveh. The attempts to throw off this yoke of a.s.syrian authority were in vain; even the uprising under the bold Merodach-Baladan, 731 B.C., was not of long duration, and finally led to the depopulation and total destruction of the prominent Chaldaean cities by Sennacherib. The a.s.syrian Esar-haddon rebuilt Babylon; but it did not recover its ancient importance until the Satrap Nabopola.s.sar revolted from his allegiance, and, with the help of the Medes, made an end of the kingdom of Nineveh; and until his son Nebuchadnezzar, after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., reduced even distant Egypt to va.s.salage, thus taking into possession the full heritage of the a.s.syrian empire in both south and west.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 40.--Bors-Nimrud. Temple-terrace of Borsippa.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 41.--Plan and Elevation of the Temple at Borsippa.

(From Oppert's Measurements.)]

Though the subjugation of the land by a.s.syria had not been without effect upon the civilization of Chaldaea, the general character of Babylonian art remained much the same through all these political changes. The last king, Nabonetos, could complete the temple of Ur, which Urukh had founded seventeen centuries before, as though there had been no interruption in the work. The terraced ruins show that there was no great difference in the architectural treatment of ages so removed.

Other city ruins show such an intermixture of ancient Chaldaean and Babylonian walls that their date can be determined only by inscriptions or by stamps upon the bricks. The earlier remains are predominant in Mugheir, Warka, and Abou-Sharein; but the later capital of the country, Babylon, the city of Nebuchadnezzar, is known almost exclusively by the imposing structures of the modern kingdom. Greek antiquity, up to the time of Alexander, was acquainted with this city of wonders only by fables. Even the explicit description of Herodotos is in great degree mythical, especially his astonis.h.i.+ng account of the city walls: 480 stadia (96.557 m.) in length, 200 ells (100 m.) high, and 50 ells (25 m.) broad. The ruins have also proved the account of the famed hundred gates of the city walls, and the square network of straight streets which ran from these, to be hyperbolical. Such immense ma.s.ses of masonry would, as Layard has maintained, certainly have left heaps of rubbish; and, in fact, the ruins of a much smaller city enclosure have been traced. The irregular orientation of the palace plan is also incompatible with the conception that the city was divided up into squares with the regularity of a chess-board. The traditional account that the enormous terraced temple of Bel was built on the borders of the stream opposite the palace structures is certainly incorrect; for, while these latter are still represented by extensive brick ruins, there is not a trace upon the other bank, the supposed site, of ma.s.sive terraces which could not possibly have so entirely disappeared. Nor could the stream have swept away so colossal a building; for a little north of Hillah, in the immediate vicinity of the spot where Herodotos describes the temple of Bel, there have been found the remains of a small Mylitta temple, which would have offered almost no resistance to an inundation.

Yet Herodotos undoubtedly related, besides his fables, much that was correct about Babylon. His account of the temple of Bel seems only questionable in so far as the site is concerned; the rest of his description agrees perfectly with ruins which have been found about eleven kilometers westward, and are known by the name Bors-Nimrud.

(_Fig._ 40.) The temple thus could not have belonged to the city proper of Babylon; and inscriptions mention the place as Borsippa, spoken of by Greek writers as a separate town, which could at best be regarded as a distant suburb of the extended Babylon. The immense hill of rubbish standing entirely isolated in the desert has a lower circ.u.mference of 685 m. This dimension agrees tolerably well with the six stadia given by Herodotos as the measure of the first step of the terraced pyramid. The regularly diminished seven steps, the "towers" of Herodotos, 7.5 m.

high, reaching altogether a total alt.i.tude of 75 m., rose from a square substructure with a side of two stadia (180 m.) and a height of 22.5 m.

The diagonals of these different terraces were not directly above one another, the steps being 9 m. broad in front and only 3.9 m. broad behind, while the sides were equal--6.3 m. This peculiarity of the ruin agrees with the flights of stairs described by Herodotos, which, notwithstanding the a.n.a.logy of the palace temple of Kisr-Sargon, may here naturally be supposed to have been upon the front, where the terraces were sufficiently broad for this purpose. _Fig._ 41 is an attempt to restore the chief lines of the structure by means of the dimensions given by Oppert. Upon the summit of this terraced pyramid stood the necessarily small temple, which, according to Herodotos, contained a s.p.a.cious couch and a golden table, but no statue of the deity. The sides of the terraces are directed to the cardinal points of the compa.s.s, as was the case also with the ancient Chaldaean temple of Ur; and, as at Ur, inscribed cylinders were here walled in at the angles. These relate that Nebuchadnezzar had magnificently completed the structure--"the temple-pyramid of the seven spheres, the wonder of Borsippa," begun by a former king. Rawlinson and Oppert have concluded, from the remains of glazed bricks of different colors, that each of the seven terraces was dedicated to one of the seven planets of the ancients, and was characterized by its color--the upper, gold; the second, silver; the next, red, blue, yellow, white; and the lowest, black--according to the hues a.s.signed to the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The lowest terrace has a panelled architectural treatment similar to that noticed in the ruins at Warka and the palace temple at Kisr-Sargon. It is probable that these high terraces in the flat plains of Mesopotamia were elevations which served the Chaldaean astronomers for their celebrated observatories, as the pylons of temples upon the banks of the Nile were similarly used by the Egyptian priests. As Strabo speaks especially of an astronomical school at Borsippa, there can be little doubt that it was in some way connected with the terraced pyramid of the seven spheres.