Lecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple. 417
This is an age to which I shall have to refer again in my next
and concluding lecture. It was the time when thezigguratbegan
to consist of seven storeys, dedicated to the seven planets, when
thezigguratof Erech was called“the house of the seven black
stones,”and that of Borsippa,“of the seven zones of heaven and
earth.”^346 [454]
Thezigguratoccupied but a small part of the temple area.
What the temple was like we know to a certain extent, not only
from the American excavations at Nippur, but more especially
from the accounts given us by Herodotos and by a cuneiform
tablet which describes the great temple of Bel-Merodach at
Babylon. The latter was called Ê-Saggila,“the house of the
exalted head”; and though the account of Herodotos is probably
quoted from an earlier author, while the cuneiform tablet, which
was seen and translated by Mr. George Smith at Constantinople,
has unfortunately been lost, there is nevertheless no ground in
either case for mistrust. The description given by Herodotos fully
agrees with that of the tablet.
The visitor to the temple first entered the“Great”or Outer
Court. It was 900 feet in breadth, and more than 1150 in length.
If we may judge from the analogy of Nippur and Lagas, an
arcade ran round its interior, supported on columns, and two
larger, but detached, columns of brick or stone stood on either
side of the entrance. At Babylon a second court opened out of the
first, devoted to the worship of the goddesses Istar and Zamâmâ.
Six gates pierced the walls—the Grand Gate, the Gate of the
Rising Sun, the Great Gate, the Gate of the Colossi, the Gate of
the Canal, and the Gate of the Tower-view.^347 Then came the
(^346) Uris the Sumerian word for“zone.”It is translated byarâru,“to bind”;
etsêdu,“to bind the sheaves”for harvest; andkhamâmu,“to bind”or“fix”
laws.
(^347) From Mr. Smith's words it is difficult to determine whether the gates were
in the first or second court, or whether (as seems the more probable) the tablet
intended us to understand that the gates belonged to both courts.