also contain far older buildings as well). One of the most useful
criteria of age is: Bricks. The form of the brick is a very good
guide to date. The Babylonians used both kiln-baked and crude bricks.
The oldest type, whether baked or crude, is plano-convex in form, and
uninscribed. The mortar is bitumen. Later on rectangular bricks,
often square, made in moulds, were introduced. These usually bore the
name of the royal builder. Later on bricks became generally oblong
and much like our own. In the sixth century the square shape was
revived. Both shapes were in use at the Nebuchadnezzar period. Glazed
bricks were then common. Under the Persians mortar took the place of
bitumen. Under the Parthians and Sassanians, bricks were yellow,
oblong, small, and very hard. Details will be found below, The names
of various excavated sites are given in brackets as the 'classical'
sources of information on certain points, and as the places from
which type-antiquities have come to our Museums. Ancient names are in
capitals; museums in italics.


I. PREHISTORIC (?) AGE: Chalcolithic (aeneolithic) period, before
3500 B.C.

Until quite recently no traces of the Stone Age had been discovered
in Babylonia other than a few possible palaeoliths lying on the
surface of the desert: all traces of a Neolithic Age were supposed to
have been buried beneath the alluvium of the valley. In Assyria,
however, neolithic traces in the shape of obsidian flakes had been
discovered by the late Prof. L. W. King in the course of his
excavation of the mound of Kuyunjik (NINEVEH), besides fragments of
painted pottery resembling those from the earliest deposits in Asia
Minor and those found by the American geologist Pumpelly in his