desolate pictures which I have ever beheld, that of Warka incomparably surpasses all. There are, it is true, lofty and imposing structures towering from the surrounding piles of earth, sand, and broken pottery, but all form or plan is lost in masses of fallen brickwork and rubbish. These only serve to impress the mind more fully with the complete ruin and desertion which have overtaken the city. Its ancient name even is lost to the modern tribes, and little is known with certainty of its past history. Nineveh, Babylon, and Susa have their peculiar traditions, but ancient Warka and its sanctity are forgotten as though they had possessed no previous existence.

"Standing upon the summit of the principal edifice called the Buwáriyya, in the centre of the ruins, the beholder is struck with astonishment at the enormous accumulation of mounds and ancient relics at his feet. An irregular circle, nearly six miles in circumference, is defined by the traces of an earthen rampart, in some places forty feet high. An extensive platform of undulating mounds, brown and scorched by the burning sun, and cut up by innumerable channels and ravines, extends, in a general direction north and south, almost up to the wall, and occupies the greatest part of the enclosed area. As at Niffar, a wide channel divides the platform into two unequal parts, which vary in height from twenty to fifty feet; upon it are situated the principal edifices of Warka. On the western edge of the northern portion rise, in solemn grandeur, masses of bricks which have accumulated around the lower stories of two rectangular buildings and their various offices, supposed to be temples, or perhaps royal tombs. The bleached and lichen-covered aspect of the surface attests the long lapse of ages which has passed since the enterprising hand of man reared them from above the surrounding level desert. Detached from the principal mass of platform are several irregularly-shaped low mounds between it and the walls, some of which are thickly strewed with lumps of black scoria, as though buildings on their summits had been destroyed by fire. At the extreme north of the platform, close to the wall, a conical mound rears its head from the surrounding waste of ruins—the barrow, probably, of some ancient Scyth. Warka, in the days of her greatness, was not, however, confined within the limit of her walls; her suburbs may be traced by ruined buildings, mounds, and pottery, fully three miles beyond the ramparts into the eastern desert. Due north, at the distance of two miles from the Buwáriyya, is the dome-shaped pile of Nuffayji, which rivals the central ruin itself in height, and stands the advanced guard of the city. Near it several smaller barrows are strewed around, without apparent order or design. On the north-east is another large mound, resembling, but smaller than, Nuffayji.

"Forlorn splendour and unbroken solitude reign undisturbed on the ruins. With the exception of the Tuweyba tribe, the Arabs shun a site which is held to be the abode of evil spirits, and none will dare to pass a night upon the doleful spot.

"The view of the surrounding horizon is not more cheering than that of the desolate scene within the walls. During seasons of drought (for I have visited Warka at no other time), seldom is an Arab tent or herd of cattle discernible on any side. In the clear sky of morning or evening it is only possible to make out a few spots which mark the winding course of the Euphrates at the junction of the Hillah and Semáva streams, El-Khithr trees and Kála'a Dúrájí-old settlements casually inhabited.

"Tel Ede on the north-north-east, Sinkara on the east-south-east, and a few date-trees on the marshes of the Káhr, are all that the eye finds to dwell upon in the opposite direction. The intervening space is a dry, barren, and dismal desert, void of water, vegetation, and inhabitants. The prophecy of the coming desolation of Babylon is equally applicable to Warka:-'It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.' For probably eighteen centuries, Warka has stood deserted and in ruins, as she now appears. No wonder, therefore, that her history is lost in the oblivion of the past."-(pp. 162-166.)

The external walls (enclosing the main portion of the ruins) assume the form of an irregular circle five and a-half miles in circumference. They are of sun-dried brick. At their highest elevation they are between forty and fifty feet above the plain, but they have been considerably more; the width may have been twenty feet: many breaks occur, some of which were, doubtless, entrances. The most central, lofty, and ancient of the three great edifices which rise conspicuously from the surface of the ruins is Buwáríyya. It appears at first to be a cone, but it is a tower 200 feet square, built entirely of sun-dried bricks. On excavating at its basement

there was discovered, on the centre of each side, a massive buttress of peculiar construction, erected for the purpose of supporting the main edifice. This, with other peculiar features, tends to the supposition that it is a very early structure. Sir Henry Rawlinson confirms this conclusion, by reading the name of King Urukh upon the brick legends of the buttresses, which record the dedication of the edifice to Sin, or the "moon," by that monarch, who is supposed to have lived about 2230 B.C. The name Buwáríyya, in Arabic, signifies "reed-mats," reed-matting being used in this and in other mounds of Mesopotamia as a new foundation for each successive layer of bricks.

The most interesting structure at Warka is that called Wuswas. It is contained in a spacious walled quadrangle, the eastern corner of which is 840 feet from the Buwáríyya. The enclosure is oblong, and includes an area of 7 acres. The most important and conspicuous portion of this great enclosure is a structure on the south-west side, which gives its present name to the ruin. It is 276 feet long by 174 feet wide, and stands 80 feet above the plain, elevated, as all Babylonian and Assyrian ruins are, on a lofty artificial platform 50 feet high. The façade measures 174 feet in length, and in some places is 23 feet in height. It must have been extremely imposing:

"It has long been a question whether the column was employed by the Babylonians as an architectural embellishment. The Wuswas façade settles this point beyond dispute. Upon the lower portion of the building are groups of seven half-columns repeated seven times, the rudest, perhaps, which were ever reared, but built of moulded semicircular bricks, and securely bonded to the wall. The entire absence of cornice, capital, base, or diminution of shaft, so characteristic of other columnar architecture, and the peculiar and original disposition of each group in rows like palm-logs, suggest the type from which they sprang. It is only to be compared with the style adopted by aboriginal inhabitants of other countries, and was evidently derived from the construction of wooden edifices. . . . . Previous researches have furnished us with no idea as to the exteriors of Assyrian palaces. . . . For the first time, then, Wuswas advances some positive data by which to reconstruct the exterior of a Ninevite palace."

There is evidence to shew that the superstructure of Wuswas was vaulted; the recent researches at Khorsábád-where magnificent arches of sun-dried brick still rest on the massive backs of the colossal bulls which guard the great gateways leading into the city-shew that the Assyrians not only understood the construction of an arch, but also its use as a decorative feature the old notion, that the arch was the invention of the Romans, is now completely exploded. The bricks used in the construction of the Wuswas edifice measure 12 inches square by 3 inches thick. Each is marked on its under-side with a deeply-impressed triangular stamp or wedge, which may be regarded as a sacred emblem. This stamp doubtless indicates the character of the edifice in which it so frequently occurs. A few bricks are likewise impressed with an oblong die, bearing thirteen lines of minute cuneiform characters, resembling those which occur on clay cylinders, but so extremely indistinct as to be nearly illegible.

Mr. Loftus will not admit that the Wuswas temple is either a Parthian or a Sassanian structure. Although it has hitherto yielded no records to decide the point satisfactorily, he would fain believe that such will ultimately be recovered to prove its undoubted Babylonian origin. At present, it is impossible to assign to it other than an approximate date; perhaps it was erected about the seventh or eighth century B.C.

The are no data by which we may decide as to the object for which this ase edifice was built. The fact, however, that Warka was a

great Necropolis, and that the Greek historian Arrian says that the Assyrian kings were buried somewhere in the Chaldæan marshes, rather tends to the supposition that two, at least, of the monster edifices at Warka were among the tombs of the kings to which Arrian alludes. With the excep

tion of several fragments of coloured enamelled bricks, similar to those found on the ruins of the Kasr at Babylon, there was nothing in or around the edifice which indicated the mode of decoration employed; and as Wuswas failed to yield sculptured bas-reliefs, we must, it is to be feared, give up all hope of discovering works of this nature in Babylonia.

It is remarked, that not a single instance has been found of undoubted Assyrian sepulture; the natural inference is, that the Assyrians either made away with their dead by some other method than by burial, or else that they conveyed them to some distant locality. If, however, Assyria be without its cemeteries, Chaldæa is full of them. Every mound between Niffar and Múgeyer is an ancient burial-place. In our present state of knowledge, it would be too much to say that Chaldea was the necropolis of Assyria; but it is by no means improbable that such was the case. Arrian, in describing Alexander's sail into the marshes south of Babylon, distinctly states that most of the sepulchres of the Assyrian kings were there constructed; and the same locality is assigned to them in the Peutingerian tables. In the old geographers, however, the term Assyria is frequently applied to Babylonia; and the tombs alluded to may therefore be those only of the ancient kings of Babylonia. Still, it is likely that the Assyrians regarded with peculiar reverence that land out of which Asshur went forth and builded Nineveh, and that they interred their dead around the original seats of their forefathers. Whether this were so or not, the whole region of Lower Chaldæa abounds in sepulchral cities of immense extent :—

"By far the most important of these is Warka, where the enormous accumulation of human remains proves that it was a peculiarly sacred spot, and that it was so esteemed for centuries. It is difficult to convey anything like a correct notion of the piles upon piles of human relics which there utterly astound the beholder. There is probably no other site in the world which can compare with Warka in this respect; even the tombs of ancient Thebes do not contain such an aggregate amount of mortality. From its foundation by Urukh until finally abandoned by the Parthians-a period probably of 2,500 years-Warka appears to have been a sacred burial-place !”

The forms of the funeral jars and sarcophagi are curious: the earliest and most common throughout Babylonia, and which prevailed down to the time of the Parthians, is the large top-shaped vase, well known as the "Babylonian urn." Sometimes two of these vessels are placed mouth to mouth, and then cemented together, one mouth fitting into the other with great exactness. Another early form is very curious and original It resembles an oval dish-cover, the sides sloping outwards towards the base, which rests on a projecting rim. Various other forms of pottery of minor importance were applied to the purposes of burial:—

"But they all sink into insignificance when compared with the glazed earthen coffins, whose fragments occur in such amazing abundance on the surface of the mounds at Warka as to mark them as one of the chief peculiarities of those remarkable ruins. These coffins are slipper-shaped, but more elegant and symmetrical than that homely article. The oval aperture by which the body was introduced is flattened and furnished with a depressed ledge for the reception of a lid, which was cemented with lime-mortar. The upper surface of each coffin generally, and the lid sometimes, is covered with elevated ridges, plain or ornamental; forming square panels, each of which contains a similar small embossed figure, representing a warrior in close, short-fitting tunic, and long, loose nether-garments. He stands with arms akimbo, and his legs astride; in his belt is a short sword, and on his head an enormous coiffure, of very curious appearance.

The whole visible surface of the coffin is covered with a thick glazing of rich green enamel on the exterior, and of blue within the aperture. The material of which the coffins are composed is yellow clay, mixed with straw and half-baked."

Mr. Loftus made a second journey to Warka in order to obtain a specimen of these extraordinary coffins for the British Museum. From the very friable nature of these vessels, this was a task of extreme difficulty, but ingeniously overcome.

In one of the terraces of Buwáriyya three vaults were discovered; one measuring 13 inches by 10 inches square, and 21 inches in depth, was filled with earth and the fragments of two large sepulchral vases, without any traces of their original contents. From subsequent discoveries at Sinkara, Mr. Loftus concludes that the bones of the dead were in the above cases deposited in vases and placed in the vaults; after which the private records and property of the deceased were arranged over them, and the whole submitted to the flames :

"The locality at Warka, which furnished the most valuable and interesting fruits of my researches, was a small detached mound, forty feet high, situated about half-a-mile south-east of the Buwáriyya. One of my overseers picked up from its summit a few fragments of ornamental plaster, which induced me to make excavations. I was soon rewarded by the discovery of a chamber, measuring forty feet long and twenty-eight feet wide, the mud walls of which stood only four feet high, and had been covered with coloured plaster. It was a perfect museum of architectural scraps, of a highly instructive and curious character. The unbaked brick floor was literally piled with broken columns, capitals, cornices, and innumerable relics of rich internal decoration, which exhibited undoubted symptoms of Greek and Roman influence on Oriental taste. The smaller objects were wholly plaster; but the larger consisted of moulded bricks, thinly coated with white plaster; many of them were fantastically coloured. One large fragment of cornice bore, among other devices, a spirited crouching griffin, which, at first sight, reminded me of the similar figures sculptured on a frieze in an inner chamber at the remarkable ruins of Al Hádr, near Mosul. This emblem was accompanied by the well-known Greek echinus moulding; but the cornice was purposely destroyed by some strange Arabs, who visited the mounds between the intervals of excavation.

"Three of the capitals are Ionic; but the proportions of the volutes and other members are peculiar. A fourth description of small capital has peculiarities of its own, suggestive of the later Byzantine style. A large and elegant leaf rises from the necking, and bends under each corner of the abacus. Springing from behind a smaller curled leaf in the centre, is the bust of a human figure wearing the same preposterous head-dress which is characteristic of the slipper coffins and Parthian coins.

"No columns were discovered to correspond with the larger capitals; but the walls were liberally adorned with small Ionic half-columns, with half-smooth, half-fluted shafts, which were highly coloured. The lower and smooth surfaces were diagonally striped with red, green, yellow and black; the flutes being painted black, red, and yellow alternately, while the level ridges between them are left white. In some cases the flutes were quartered with the same colours.

"Among the débris of smaller articles were bases of columns,-friezes, with bunches of grapes alternating with leaves,—gradines, resembling those on the castles of the Nineveh bas-reliefs, but ornamented at the base with a conspicuous six-rayed star in a circle, fragments of open screen-work, with complicated geometric designs of different patterns on the opposite sides (these are very peculiar, and differ materially from the arabesque,)—and flakes of painted plaster from the walls, with fragments of small statuettes, coloured, and sometimes gilded."-(pp. 225, 226.)

It is to be hoped that at some period not very distant, excavations may be resumed among the mounds of Chaldæa. If those of Warka have failed in yielding bas-reliefs and objects of a higher class of interest, like those obtained from the palaces of Assyria, they have at least afforded abundance of important information on two subjects of which we were in