e towns of Lower Chaldaea, the remains of a building
with several stories or stages are to be recognized.

[Illustration: FIG. 183.--Map of the ruins of Babylon; from Oppert.]

The ruins on the site of Babylon may be divided into four principal groups,
each forming small hills that are visible for many miles round; they are
designated on the annexed map by the names under which they are commonly
known. These are, in their order from north to south, _Babil_, _El-Kasr_
(or _Mudjelibeh_) and _Tell-Amran_, on the left bank; on the right bank the
most conspicuous of them all, the _Birs-Nimroud_.[472] Most of those who
have studied the topography of Babylon are disposed to see in the Kasr and
in Tell-Amran the remains of a vast palace, or rather of several palaces,
built by different kings, and those of the famous hanging gardens; while in
Babil (Plate I. and Fig. 37) and the Birs Nimroud (Fig. 168) they agree to
recognize all that is left of the two chief religious buildings of Babylon.
Babil would be the oldest of them all--the _Bit-Saggatu_ or "temple of the
foundations of the earth" which stood in the very centre of the royal city
and was admired and described by Herodotus. The Birs-Nimroud would
correspond to the no less celebrated temple of Borsippa, the _Bit-Zida_,
the "temple of the planets and of the seven spheres."

At Babil no explorations have thrown the least light upon the disposition
of the building. In the whole of its huge mass, which rises to a height of
some 130 feet above the plain, no trace of the separate cubes or of their
dimensions is to be found. All the restorations that have been made are
purely imaginary. At Birs-Nimroud the excavations of Sir Henry Rawlinson in
1854 were by no means fruitless but, unhappily, we are without any detailed
account of their results. So far as we have been told, it would appear that
the existence of at least six of the seven stages had been ascertained and
the monument, which, according to Sir Henry Rawlinson's measurements, is
now 153 feet high; can have lost but little of its original height. We can
hardly believe however, that the violence of man and the storms of so many
centuries have done so little damage.[473] It seems to be more clearly
proved that, in shape, the temple belonged to the class we have described
under the head of THE RECTANGULAR CHALDAEAN TEMPLE.[474] The axis of the
temple, the vertical line upon which the centre of the terminal chapel must
have b