It seems, therefore, that previous scholars either did not realise the very great extent
to which these reconstructions were conjectural, or, in the case of Babylon, they accepted
the line of reasoning which assumes that streets associated with the city gates led in
a straight line, without any deviation, right to the centre of the city. Once this
assumption is questioned – as it surely must be – then the grounds for considering
Babylon and Borsippa to have been cities planned on a regular grid layout are
completely undermined.
Canals and watercoursesIt goes without saying that all city dwellers needed access to water. Babylon itself
was bisected by the Euphrates running approximately north–south, and there were
also canals within the city. Uruk was not located directly on the river, but there is
abundant textual evidence from our period for properties within the city bordering
onto canals, or onto streets leading down to canals.
The city walls and gatesBabylon was enclosed by a double inner wall of roughly rectangular configuration.
There is evidence that, at least as early as the eleventh century BC, the inner-most
wall of the pair, Imgur-Enlil, followed the same course as its successor from the time
of Nebukadrezzar II (George 1992 : 344 ). A substantial additional area was enclosed
at this later period by an outer wall which ran from the east bank of the Euphrates
north of the city on a roughly triangle-shaped course with its apex east of the city,
rejoining the river on the south side. Like the temples and streets, the walls of the
major cities were given ceremonial names by the kings who built or rebuilt them.
The explicit concern of the kings when they refurbished the city walls, according to
their own rhetoric, was to protect the major shrines within the city.
PalacesPalaces are known from a number of cities: certainly Agade, Babylon, Larsa, Sippar,
Ur and Uruk, and possibly also Borsippa, Kutha and Nippur (see Jursa 2004 for
details). According to documentary evidence there was also a palace in a place called
Abanu in the vicinity of Uruk. Palaces outside of the capital would have served as
administrative centres for the local government. In Babylon three palaces, all built
by Nebuchadrezzar II, have been investigated (Miglus 2004 ). The most impressive
of these, the ‘South Palace’, consisted of an arrangement of five courtyard complexes
side by side. In addition to the throne room and residential suites it provided ample
facilities for storage and administration.
The temples and zigguratsEach city contained shrines not only of its principal deity (or deities) but also of lesser
gods and goddesses. We may make a distinction between the temples which were
themselves contained within an extensive precinct dominating the heart of the city,
such as the Eanna in Uruk, and those which stood alone, often being rather more
— Urban form in the first millennium BC—