BABYLONIAN TEMPLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1022, 12 July 1930, Page 27

BABYLONIAN TEMPLE

REMARKABLE RUIN FOUND AT UR Excavations at Ur closed down on March 18 after a season of unusually varied results, writes C. Leonard Woolley, in "The Times.” At the beginning of the month about half of our men were employed on a very complicated site where temple had been built above the ruins of temple. The unravelling of superimposed walls and the working out of the ground plans of different periods was a difficult task needing more time than was at our disposal. If we could trust inscriptions found loose in the debris one of the buildings was a temple erected by KimSin between 1990 and 1980 B.C. to a little-know r n god, Ningish-zida. This temple was, the second in the series, and below it were the remains of at least two more buildings which may have been similarly dedicated. But if Ningish-zida was only a minor deity, the temples were disproportionaily lqrge, and we were obliged to leave their complete excavation to next year. Meanwhile the rest of the men were clearing up doubtful points on the line of the town walls. The outstanding problem was the canal, which we supposed to run through the city, dividing it into two parts, and starting from the back of the northern harbour. A cut in the low ground outside the Temenos wall duly produced its west bank, and a low and inconspicuous mound seemed likely to conceal a building on its east side just where the canal entered the harbour. The mound was pitted with holes probably dug by Arab seekers after treasure, so that its excavation by us was not expected to yield more than topogra ?h----ical results. There was no reason to suppose that the clearing of the building would take more than the ten days which remained to us. There came to light at once heavy walls of mud bricks and numerous burnt bricks torn up and flung aside by the Arab plunderers which bore the name of Nabonidus (550 8.C.). The rest of the inscription did not .greatly help us„ but the building was certainly a temple. We followed the waJls farther and farther afield until the area" under excavation was far larger than surface indications bad led us to expect, and we dug deeper and deeper down without coming to floor level. Finailj' a shaft sunk by the entrance showed that the walls were standing to a uniform height of nearly 20ft.

The temple lay directly in the path of the sand drifts of summer, feo that if our work were left unfinished it would all have to be done again next year. The workmen were therefore spurred on to special efforts, and in an incredibly short time the whole interior of the building was cleared. In the last two days a temporary roof was laid over the wall tops, and a wooden door set up in the entry; it is thus protected ajgainst the weather during our absence. Well-preserved Interior

The temple was built by Nebuchadnezzar, whose bricks occur freely iu the lower levels, apparently on ground reclaimed from the old harbour; on the waterside the foundations have sunk, and tile walls are all at a slant. It is likely that the site was also too damp, for when Nabonidus restored the building- less than fifty years later he raised its floor level by over 6 ft.

The ground plan is peculiai-. Along one side a passage runs for the whole length of the building, forming a sort of thoroughfare with doors at each end, and access to the temple proper was through side doors from this passage. There was a forecourt and pronaos, with flanking chambers, and a sanctuary with a long room behind it. In the later days of the temple a staircase led from the passage up over the entrance to the sanctuary to what, for -want of a better name, one might call a rood loft. The outer walls were faced with burnt brick, the inner walls were of mud-brick, with here and there pilasters of burnt brick, which seem to have been encased by wooden panelling. In the middle of the pronaos a stout pillar of burnt brick supported the roof. In the forecourt a burnt brick wall erected by Nabonidus screens the approach to the sanctuary, and is a puzzling addition to the original plan.

But the surprising feature of the building is its preservation. It stands, as I have said, nearly 20ft high, and the mud-brick walls still retain their plaster and coat of whitewash. We have not attempted to clear the outside, so that one goes down into it as into a dug-out, but once inside the door one obtains an astonishing effect of completeness. Originally the building must have been very lofty, but the loss of height is scarcely noticeable now that the interior has been darkened by the laying of the roof. What decoration there was has vanished, and the heavy blank walls have no beauty to recommend them. But this is the only place in Iraq where one can stand in a Babylonian temple and forget for a moment that it is a ruin.