re founded at a time when its city
was nothing more than a provincial capital owing allegiance to Babylon,
were either, it would appear, falling to ruins from age, or presented a
sorry exterior, utterly out of keeping with the magnitude of its recent
wealth. The king set to work to enlarge or restore the temples of
Ishtar, Martu, and the ancient Bel;* he then proceeded to rebuild,
from the foundations to the summit, that of Anu and Bamman, which the
vicegerent Samsiramman, son of Ismidagan, had constructed seven hundred
and one years previously. This temple was the principal sanctuary of
the city, because it was the residence of the chief of the gods, Assur,
under his appellation of Anu.**

* "Bel the ancient," or possibly "the ancient master,"
appears to have been one of the names of Anu, who is
naturally in this connexion the same as Assur.

** This was the great temple of which the ruins still exist.

The soil was cleared away down to the bed-rock, upon which an enormous
substructure, consisting of fifty courses of bricks, was laid, and above
this were erected two lofty ziggurats, whose tile-covered surfaces shone
like the rising sun in their brightness; the completion of the whole was
commemorated by a magnificent festival. The special chapel of Bamman
and his treasury, dating from the time of the same Samsiramman who had
raised the temple of Anu, were also rebuilt on a more important scale.*

* The British Museum possesses bricks bearing the name of
Tiglath-pileser I., brought from this temple, as is shown by
the inscription on their sides.

These works were actively carried on notwithstanding the fact that war
was raging on the frontier; however preoccupied he might be with warlike
projects, Tiglath-pileser never neglected the temples, and set to work
to collect from every side materials for their completion and adornment.

[Illustration: 235.jpg TRANSPORT OF BUILDING MATERIALS BY WATER]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief on the bronze
doors at Balawat.

He brought, for example, from Nairi such marble and hard stone as might
be needed for sculptural purposes, together with the beams of cedar and
cypress required by his carpenters. The mountains of Singar and of the
Zab furnished the royal architects with building stone for ordinary
uses, and for those facing slabs of bluish gypsum on which the
bas-reliefs of the king's exploits were carved; the blocks re