een placed, was not at an equal distance from the north-western and
south-eastern sides, so that the building had its gentlest slope--taking it
as a whole--towards the south-east.[475] On that side the cubical blocks of
which it was composed were so placed as to leave much wider steps than on
the north-west. The temple therefore had a true facade, in front of which
propylaea, like the one introduced in our restoration from the ruins at
Mugheir, were placed. The difference consists in the fact that here the
stages are square on plan. The lowest stage was 273 feet each way; it
rested upon a platform of sun-dried brick which rose but a few feet above
the level of the plain.

Supposing these measurements to be exact they suggest a building which was
nothing extraordinary either in height or mass. The dimensions furnished by
Rich and Ker-Porter are much greater. Both of these speak of a base a
stade, or about 606 feet, square, which would give a circumference of no
less than 2,424 feet--not much less than half a mile. In any case the
temple now represented by Babil must have been the larger of the two. M.
Oppert mentions 180 metres, or about 600 feet, as one diameter of the
present rather irregular mass. That would still be inferior to the Pyramid
of Cheops, which is 764 feet square at the base, and yet the diameter of
600 feet for Babil is, no doubt, in excess of its original dimensions. The
accumulation of rubbish must have enlarged its base in every direction.

It seems clear, therefore, that the great structures of Chaldaea were
inferior to the largest of the royal tombs of Egypt, both in height and
lateral extent. We do not know how far the subsidiary buildings by which
the staged towers are surrounded and supplemented in our plates may have
extended, but it is difficult to believe that their number or importance
could have made the ensemble to which they belonged a rival to Karnak, or
even to Luxor.

If we may judge from the texts and the existing ruins, the religious
buildings of Assyria were smaller than those of Chaldaea. When the Ten
Thousand traversed the valley of the Tigris in their famous retreat, they
passed close to a large abandoned city, which Xenophon calls Larissa. As to
whether his Larissa was Calah (Nimroud), or Nineveh (Kouyundjik), we need
not now inquire, but his short description of a staged tower is of great
interest: "Near this town," he says, "there was a stone pyramid two plethra
(about 203 fee