BABYLON. This world-renowned city is still, in its ruin and desolation, a place of interest to the artist and the artificer, on ac count of the huge fragments which it contains. These ruins consist of mounds of earth formed by the decomposition of buildings, channelled and furrowed by the weather ; the surface of them is strewed with pieces of brick, bitumen, and pottery.
In the eastern quarter of the city there is one remarkable group of ruins. It forms a mass which is 1100 yards in length and 800 in its greatest breadth ; its figure nearly re sembles that of a quadrant; its height is irregular ; but the most elevated part may be about 50 or 60 feet above the level of the plain, and it has been dug into for the purpose of procuring bricks. Just below 'the part of it is a small dome, in an oblong en closure, distinguished by the name of Amram Ibn Ali. On the north is a valley of 550 yards in length, the area of which is covered with tussocks of rank grass, and crossed by a line of ruins of very little elevation. To this suc ceeds another grand heap of ruins, the shape of which is nearly a square of 700 yards' length and breadth, and its south-west angle is connected with the north-west angle of the mound of Amran by a ridge of considerable height and nearly 100 yards in breadth. About 200 yards from this mound is a ravine, hol lowed out by those who dig for bricks, in length 100 yards, and 10 feet wide by 10 or 50 deep. On one side of it a few yards of wall remain standing, the face of which is very clean and perfect, and appears to have been the front of some building. A little to the west of the ravine is the Kasr, or palace, a huge mass of brickwork in a surprising state of preservation. A mile to the north of the Kasr is a ruin called the Mujelibe, meaning the overturned: its shape is oblong, and its height, as well as the measurements of its sides, irregular. The sides face the cardinal points; the northern is 200, the southern 219, the eastern 182, and the western 186 yards in length ; and the elevation of the south-east, or highest angle, is 141 feet. The western face, which is the least elevated, is the most interesting, on account of the appearance of building it presents. Near the summit of it appears a low wall, with interruptions, built of tmburnt bricks mixed up with chopped straw or reeds, and cemented with clay-mortar of great thickness, having between every layer a layer of reeds ; and on the north side are also some vestiges of a similar construction. The summit is covered with heaps of rubbish, in digging into some of which layers of broken burnt brick cemented with mortar were dis covered, and whole bricks with inscriptions are sometimes found. The whole is covered with innumerable fragments of pottery, brick, bitumen, pebbles, vitrified brick or scoria, and even shells, bits of glass and mother-of-pearl.
It appears that the walls were lined with a fine burnt brick to conceal the unburnt bricks, Of which the body of the building was princi pally composed. About 70 yards to the north and west of the Mujelibe are traces of a very low mound of earth, which may have formed an inclosure round the whole.
But the most vast ruins are those of the Tower of Belus, or Birs Nimroud. These form a mound of an oblong form, the total circumference of which is 762 yards. At the eastern side it is cloven by a deep furrow, and is net more than 50 or 60 feet high ; but at the western side it rises in a conical figure to the elevation of 198 feet, and on its summit is a solid pile of brick, 37 feet high by 28 in breadth. The fine burnt bricks of which it is built have inscriptions on them ; and so ex cellent is the cement, which appears to be lime-mortar, that it is nearly impossible to extract one whole. The other parts of the summit of this hill are occupied by immense fragments of brickwork of no determinate figure, tumbled together and converted into solid vitrified masses, the layers of brick being perfectly discernible. These ruins stand on a prodigious mound, the whole of which is itself a ruin, channelled by the weather, and strewed with fragments of black stone, sand stone, and marble.
Buttresses and pilastres were component parts of Babylonian buildings, which were sometimes decorated with niches ; the edifices generally were of bricks, either dried in the sun or burnt in a kiln or furnace. Tiles were also painted and glazed for the purpose of decorating buildings, and a very fine sort of brick was employed to case thick walls built of common bricks or rubbish. These bricks were impressed with characters. The clay of which they were formed appears to have been mixed up with chopped straw or reeds. When baked or dry they were laid in hot bitumen, sometimes in clay-mortar, and sometimes also in a fine lime-mortar. Thick piers were used for columns. Timber was scarce ; and the wood-work of the houses, which were sometimes of three and four stories, was made of the date-tree. Round the posts reeds were twisted, on which a goat of paint was laid. The bitumen used in the building of Babylon is not by any means so tenacious as the mortar. Mr. Rich thinks that lime cement was most generally employed.
In the British Museum there are many specimens of Babylonian bricks. Stones, elegantly engraved, and seal-rings were in general use among the Babylonians. Heeren is of opinion that these stones and the en graved cylinders served for signatures. These cylinders were made not only of clay, but of the hardest stones, and the Babylonians had brought the art of cutting these stones to a very high state of perfection. Heeren men tions a cylinder of jasper, and Sir R. K. Porter another of white agate.