Identifier: mediababylonpers00ragouoft (find matches)
Title: Media, Babylon and Persia : including a study of the Zend-Avesta or religion of Zoroaster, from the fall of Nineveh to the Persian war
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Ragozin, Zénaïde A. (Zénaïde Alexeïevna), 1835-1924
Subjects: Zoroastrianism Iran -- History Babylon (Extinct city) -- History
Publisher: London : T. Fisher Unwin New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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swhich brought the water within easy reach, and sothat the contrivance should not be noticed from theoutside. Mr. Rassam found some of the pipes, cutthrough limestone, and having cleared one of therubbish that choked it, actually came upon waterwhich still partly filled it. It is said that the earthwas carted up in loads and spread out on a layer ofplates of lead, for the protection of the masonryfrom the destructive action of the moisture whichhad to be kept up around the roots of the trees.The terraces were four in number, the pillars sixtyfeet apart, and twenty-two feet in circumferenccj ascould be verified from the remains. On the whole,this Paradcisos, as the Greeks called it, disposedsomewhat on the principle of the Ziggurat, was notan innovation, and we have seen in a preceding vol-ume that similar constructions—terraces upon arches,bearing groves or gardens and forming artificiallywatered slopes—have been portrayed long beforeNebuchadrezzar on Assyrian wall-sculptures, the
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a z .a -a >. S U ^ 1/3 uT o ^ bo 9 a CO isi\2 to 238 MEDIA, BAPYLON, AND PERSIA, type of both Ziggurat and hanging gardens havingbeen carried north in remote antiquity from ChaKleawhere, beyond doubt, it originated, and was closelyconnected with the religious traditions of the HolyMountain and Sacred Tree.* II. If the mound of P)abil has been correctlyidentified as the site of the hanging gardens, thatof the great temple of Bel-Marduk will have, untilfurtlicr discoveries, to remain doubtful. Both tem-ple and Ziggurat, the latter with a chapel on thetop stage, are thus described by Herodotus : The sacred precinct was a square enclosure two stadia (1200feet) each way, with gates of solid brass, which was also remainingin my time. In the middle of the precinct there was a tower ofsolid masonry, a stadion (600 feet) in length and breadth, uponwhich was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on upto eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path whichwinds round a

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