Herodofus says of the temple of Belus :—` It had gates of brass, and was two stadia every way, being quadrangular ; in the middle of the temple a solid tower was built, a stadium in height and breadth ; and on this tower was placed another, and another still on this, to the number of eight towers in all ; the ascent was on the outside, and was made by a winding passage round all the towers ; and about half way up the ascent there is a landing, and seats for rest, where those ascending may repose ; and in the highest tower there is a large temple, and in the temple a large bed well furnished, and beside it a golden table, but there is no statue erected in it and by night no one lodges in it, except a single woman of the country, whom the god has selected from the rest, as say the Chaldxans, who are the priests of this God' (bk. i. ch. 181).
The Birs Nemroud (palace of Nimrod) is a huge mass of ruins, composed of brick, slag, and broken pottery. It rises to the height of 19S feet, and has on its summit a compact mass of brickwork, 37 feet in height by 28 in breadth ; so that the whole is 235 feet in height.
When entire, it is supposed to have consisted of a series of seven platforms, rising one above the other, but extending farther from the centre in front than behind, so as to present the appearance of a much more perpendicular ascent in back than in front. These steps are supposed to have been orna mented with different colours, and to have been surmounted by a temple, such as that described by llerodotus as crowning the temple of Belus, or a dwelling for the priests. The grand entrance was by the back, approached by a vestibule, the ruins of which constitute the mound on the right of the larger mass in the cut. The front faced the north east ; the back looked to the south-west. This restoration is to a considerable extent conjectural, but as it Is made after careful study of similar mounds in other places, it is probably not far from the truth (Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 497 ; Rich, Memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon ; Fer gusson, Hana'book of Architecture, i. 183; Rawlin son, Translation of Hemdotus, ii. p. 582-3 ; and in Smith's Diet. of the L. A.