) or oblong (9x6x3 ins.). The burnt brick of Nebuchadnezzar's
time is extraordinarily fine and hard, and the bitumen-mortar so
finely spread as to be almost invisible (Babylon). Walls of this
reign have a rock-like solidity and tenacity that should make them
easily recognizable. Those of immediately preceding reigns show the
bitumen far more clearly, and the bricks are usually not as finely
made as Nebuchadnezzar's; at Babylon the latter's work is thus at
once distinguishable from that of Nabopolassar. A typical brick-
inscription of Nebuchadnezzar is illustrated above, XV, Fig. 11. It
is in the revived archaic script, always used for this purpose by the
late Babylonian kings. Use of coloured glazed brick is characteristic
of period; often relief figures of animals are made up of glazed
bricks each specially moulded for its proper position and numbered
(Ishtar Gate, Babylon). Royal palaces were often decorated with
reliefs depicting conquests, &c., carved on slabs of alabastrine
marble placed along the brick walls, with great statues of human-
headed bulls (_Cherubim_), &c. (Nimrud [CALAH], Kuyunjik [NINEVEH],
Khorsabad. _Brit. Mus._ and _Louvre_.) Burials usually in drab clay
pot-coffins (larnakes) with covers; bodies still contracted; funerary
furniture scanty, consisting chiefly of pins, beads, an occasional
cylinder-seal, and a few pots (XIV, Figs.
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