INTERESTING EXPLORATIONS.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12718, 14 February 1910, Page 4

INTERESTING EXPLORATIONS.

NEHUCHAD.N wZZAIt'S PALACE. Nowhere is the glamour of the mys- , terious East so poteJit as in those ; arid wastes among which Professor Koldeway and liis colleagues have lor . the last' eleven years laboured to lay hare tho ruins of Babylon die G'iv.u. Tlieir work has been carried out with characteristically German thoroughness. ! On the original surface, as found by Professor ' Koldeway, stood Arab dwellings, which had to be cleared away before the work of excavation could be begun. Below these lay the ruins of Parthian habitations, each of ' which was carefully examined before ( being removed to allow of further ex- ' cavation. The opening of the next stratum revealed remains of Greek ' settlements, which in turn were examined and. removed. At last the labour of the excavators was rewarded; When, beneath a huge mound, they " discovered remains of a vast building, constructed of largo square tiles, cemented together with ■' asphalt, they knew that their work was crowned with success, for eacli tile was stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar. The difficulty of determining the plan of this huge edifice was complicated by the fact that the ruins of the ancient city have supplied countless generations of vandal Greeks, Parthians and Arabs with building materials and many of tho walls must be traced not by mounds, but by the hollow space in which the successors of tho Babylonians have quarried. Nevertheless, the excavators have been able to trace a labyrinth of small courts, rooms and passages. Opening from one of these courts is a huge ' chamber, at ono end of which is a niche, in which a throne may have stood. Until further information is available it is permissible to regard this as the site of the banqueting hall in which Belshazzar "made a great feast to a- thousand of his lords," while a Persian army was pouring into the city. Out of the hall is a narrowpassage, which leads to the outskirts of the palace. It is conjectured that this passage was constructed to serve as an emergency exit in case of danger. "In that night was Belshazzar, tho King of the Chaldeans, slain." Did he flee for his life down this passage, stripped of all his pomp, powerloss as the meanest of his subjects, while the palace resounded with the clash of swords and the wail of women ? Was he overtaken. ? Did wild skin-clad mountain men hew him down and strip the jewels from his body? Fancy may be allowed to play over the tumbled heaps of sun-dried bricks, the crumbling towers, the gates, over which inscriptions may still be deciphered, the ' sculptured lions, bulls and dragons that mark the site of Nebuchadnezzar's ancient capital- —^"Travel and Exploration."