Note 73 — Chapter II · CHALDEAN TEMPLES.

Rich gives its dimensions: On the north, 600 feet; south, 657; east, 546; and west, 408. But it is so ruinous that only an average guess can be made at its original dimensions. [Mr. George Smith, in the ‘Athenæum’ of February 1876, wrote a letter giving an account of a tablet of the Temple of Belus at Babylon he had deciphered, which constitutes the only description found giving the dimensions thereof. The bottom stage was 300 feet square and 110 feet high, the second, with raking sides, 260 feet square and 60 feet high, the third 200 feet square and 20 feet high, the fourth, fifth, and sixth each 20 feet high and 170, 140, and 110 feet respectively. The top stage, which was the sanctuary, was 80 × 70 feet and 50 feet high, the whole height being thus 300 feet, the same as the width of the base. Mr. W. R. Lethaby, in his work on ‘Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth,’ gives as a frontispiece a restoration according to these dimensions, the appearance of which is more impressive and probably approaches more closely to the actual proportions of a ziggurat than any previously published, excepting that at Khorsabad, with which in general proportion it coincides.—Ed.]