III. — Assyrian Architecture. Babylon and Nineveh. The inhabitants of the great region watered by the Euphrates and Tigris, extending from the Armenian moun- tains to the Persian Gulf, attained at a very remote age to a high degree of civilisation. The temple of Baal, or Belus, of eight stories, or terraces, each less than the one below it, must have rivalled the pyramids of Egypt. Not less famous are the hanging gardens of Semiramis, which were con- nected with the palaces of the Assyrian rulers. Of all these works nothing now remains but the mounds near the town of Hillah, built on the ruins of the ancient Babylon, and beneath which the old temple of Belus,* and the palace of Nebuchadnezzar (600 B.C.), are by some supposed to have been recognised. Many of these buildings were evidently destroyed by fire, the ruins consisting in a great measure of vitrified masses ; but in some cases their rapid decay was the result of their having been built of sun-burnt bricks, which gradually crumbled away by exposure to the atmosphere. Important discoveries of ruins, extending over some ten miles, have been made in recent excavations at Mosul, on
- The distinction of being the ruins of the Tower of Babel is
claimed for no less than three different masses : Nimrud's Tower at Akkerkuf ; the Miijellibe, east of the Euphrates and five miles from Plillah ; and the Birs Nimrud, west of the Euphrates and six miles north-west of Hillah ; but there is no sufficient evidence for identification. EHA C
