Babylon’s River Works

West of the river, a rampart, twenty feet high, runs for nearly a mile parallel, at the distance of about 1000 yards from the old course of the stream.

Continuing The Ancient City of Babylon,
our selection from The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World, Vol. 4 Babylon by George Rawlinson published in 1867. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages. The selection is presented in eight easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in The Ancient City of Babylon.

Time: c 2200’s – 275 BC (when inhabitants transported to Seleucia)

South of the Kasr mound, at the distance of about 800 yards, is the remaining great mass of ruins, the mound of Jumjuma, or of Amran. The general shape of this mound is triangular,107 but it is very irregular and ill-defined, so as scarcely to admit of accurate description. Its three sides face respectively a little east of north, a little south of east, and a little south of west. The south-western side, which runs nearly parallel with the Euphrates, and seems to have been once washed by the river, is longer than either of the others, extending a distance of above a thousand yards, while the south-eastern may be 800 yards, and the north-eastern 700. Innumerable ravines traverse the mound on every side, penetrating it nearly to its center. The surface is a series of undulations. Neither masonry nor sculpture is anywhere apparent.

All that meets the eye is a mass of debris; and the researches hitherto made have failed to bring to light any distinct traces of building. Occasionally bricks are found, generally of poor material, and bearing the names and titles of some of the earlier Babylonian monarchs; but the trenches opened in the pile have in no case laid bare even the smallest fragment of a wall.

Besides the remains which have been already described, the most remarkable are certain long lines of rampart on both sides of the river, which lie outside of the other ruins, enclosing them all, except the mound of Babil. On the left bank of the stream there is to be traced, in the first place, a double line of wall or rampart, having a direction nearly due north and south, which lies east of the Kasr and Amran mounds, at the distance from them of about 1000 yards. Beyond this is a single line of rampart to the north-east, traceable for about two miles, the direction of which is nearly from north-west to south-east, and a double line of rampart to the south-east, traceable for a mile and a half, with a direction from northeast to south-west. The two lines in this last case are from 600 to 700 yards apart, and diverge from one another as they run out to the north-east. The inner of the two meets the north-eastern rampart nearly at a right angle, and is clearly a part of the same work. It is questioned, however, whether this line of fortification is ancient, and not rather a construction belonging to Parthian times.

A low line of mounds is traceable between the western face of the Amran and Kasr hills, and the present eastern bank of the river, bounding a sort of narrow valley, in which either the main stream of the Euphrates, or at any rate a branch from it, seems anciently to have flowed.

On the right bank of the stream the chief remains are of the same kind. West of the river, a rampart, twenty feet high, runs for nearly a mile parallel with the general line of the Amran mound, at the distance of about 1000 yards from the old course of the stream. At either extremity the line of the rampart turns at a right angle, running down towards the river, and being traceable towards the north for 400 yards and towards the south for fifty or sixty. It is evident that there was once, before the stream flowed in its present channel, a rectangular enclosure, a mile long and 1000 yards broad, opposite to the Amran mound; and there are indications that within this enceinte was at least one important building, which was situated near the south-east angle of the enclosure, on the banks of the old course of the river. The bricks found at this point bear the name of Neriglissar.

There are also, besides the ramparts and the great masses of ruin above described, a vast number of scattered and irregular heaps of hillocks on both sides of the river, chiefly, however, upon the eastern bank. Of these one only seems to deserve distinct mention. This is the mound called El Homeira, “the Red,” which lies due east of the Kasr, distant from it about 800 yards — a mound said to be 300 yards long by 100 wide, and to attain an elevation of 60 or 70 feet. It is composed of baked brick of a bright red color, and must have been a building of a very considerable height resting upon a somewhat confined base. Its bricks are inscribed along their edges, not (as is the usual practice) on their lower face.

The only other ancient work of any importance of which some remains are still to be traced is a brick embankment on the left bank of the stream between the Kasr and the Babil mounds, extending for a distance of a thousand yards in a line which has a slight curve and a general direction of S.S.W. The bricks of this embankment are of a bright red color, and of great hardness. They are laid wholly in bitumen. The legend which they bear shows that the quay was constructed by Nabonidus.

Such then are the ruins of Babylon — the whole that can now with certainty be assigned to the “beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency” — the “great Babylon” of Nebuchadnezzar. Within a space little more than three miles long and a mile and three quarters broad are contained all the undoubted remains of the greatest city of the old world. These remains, however, do not serve in any way to define the ancient limits of the place. They are surrounded on every side by nitrous soil, and by low heaps which it has not been thought worthwhile to excavate, but which the best judges assign to the same era as the great mounds, and believe to mark the sites of the lesser temples and the other public buildings of the ancient city.

More information here and here, and below.

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