Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
COLOURED ENAMELLED VASE.—Page 236
Frontispiece.
THE EXCAVATIONS AT BABYLON
PREFACE
It is most desirable, if not absolutely necessary, that theexcavation of Babylon should be completed. Up to thepresent time only about half the work has been accomplished,although since it began we have worked daily, bothsummer and winter, with from 200 to 250 workmen. Thisis easily comprehensible when we consider the magnitudeof the undertaking. The city walls, for instance, which inother ancient towns measure 3 metres, or at the most 6 or7 metres, in Babylon are fully 17 to 22 metres thick. Onmany ancient sites the mounds piled above the remainsare not more than 2 or 3 to 6 metres high, while here wehave to deal with 12 to 24 metres, and the vast extent ofthe area that was once inhabited is reflected in the grandscale of the ruins.
The gradual progress of the excavations, importantand stimulating as it is for the explorers, appears of lessinterest to those who take little share in it or who lookback on it after a lapse of years. As such an excavationnever affords any guarantee of further continuance, thosepoints must first be settled which appear to be of thehighest interest in view of the results already attained.Accordingly the site of the excavations varies at differenttimes in a manner which is rarely voluntary, and mustgenerally be regarded as a logical development dictatedby considerations of inherent necessity. Here we shallonly deal with the external sequence of the principalevents.
viThe excavations were commenced on March 26, 1899,on the east side of the Kasr to the north of the