work. The bricks, as in Assyria, were either simply baked in the
sun, or were burned in the kiln. The latter are of more than one shape
and quality. Some are square, others are oblong. Those from the Birs
Nimroud are generally of a dark red color, while those from the
Mujelibe are mostly of a light yellow. A large number of them have
inscriptions in a complex cuneiform character peculiar to Babylon.
These superscriptions have been impressed upon them by a stamp, on
which the whole inscription was cut in relief. Each character was not
made singly, as on the Assyrian bricks, and this is the distinction
between them. Almost all the bricks brought from the ruins of Babylon
bear the same inscription, with the exception of one or two
unimportant words, and record the building of the city by
Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabubaluchun. We owe the interpretation of
these names to the late Dr. Hincks.

It may not be out of place to add a few remarks upon the history of
Babylon. The time of the foundation of this celebrated city is still a
question which does not admit of a satisfactory determination, and
into which we will not enter. Some believe it to have taken place at a
comparatively recent date; but if, as the Egyptian scholars assert,
the name of Babylon is found on monuments of the eighteenth Egyptian
dynasty, we have positive evidence of its existence at least in the
fifteenth century Before Christ. After the rise of the Assyrian
empire, it appears to have been sometimes under the direct rule of the
kings of Nineveh, and at other times to have been governed by its own
independent chiefs. Expeditions against Babylon are recorded in the
earliest inscriptions yet discovered in Assyria; and as it has been
seen, even in the time of Sennacherib and his immediate predecessors,
large armies were still frequently sent against its rebellious
inhabitants. The Babylonian kingdom was, however, almost absorbed in
that of Assyria, the dominant power of the East. When this great
empire began to decline Babylon rose for the last time. Media and
Persia were equally ready to throw off the Assyrian yoke, and at
length the allied armies of Cyaxares and the father of Nebuchadnezzar
captured and destroyed the capital of the Eastern world.

Babylon now rapidly succeeded to that proud position so long held by
Nineveh. Under Nebuchadnezzar she acquired the power forfeited by her
rival. The bounds of the city were extended; buildings of
extraordinar