Babylonia was the seat of a civilization perhaps more hoary than
that of Egypt. The known remains of Babylonian art, however, are
at present far fewer than those of Egypt and will probably always
be so. There being practically no stone in the country and wood
being very scarce, buildings were constructed entirely of bricks,
some of them merely sun-dried, others kiln-baked. The natural
wells of bitumen supplied a tenacious mortar. [Footnote: Compare
Genesis XI 3: "And they had brick for stone and slime had they for
mortar."] The ruins that have been explored at Tello, Nippur, and
elsewhere, belong to city walls, houses, and temples. The most
peculiar and conspicuous feature of the temple was a lofty
rectangular tower of several stages, each stage smaller than the
one below it. The arch was known and used in Babylonia from time
immemorial. As for the ornamental details of buildings, we know
very little about them except that large use was made of enameled
bricks.
The only early Babylonian sculptures of any consequence that we
possess are a collection of broken reliefs and a dozen sculptures
in the round, found in a group of mounds called Tello and now in
the Louvre.
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