t rulers, centuries before the Ashur cult comes into
prominence.

In the large court in front of the zikkurats there stood the jars used
in connection with the cult, and the presence of these jars furthermore
suggests that there was an altar in the great court, precisely as in the
case of the Solomonic temple.[1369] In the larger of the temples found
by Layard, there was a smaller hall in front of the large one. We may
assume that the same was the case with the larger temples of Babylonia,
and this three-fold division of the interior,--the vestibule, or
_pronaos_, the main hall, or _naos_, and the papakhu,--further warrants
the comparison of a Babylonian sacred edifice with the Solomonic
temple,[1370] where likewise we have the vestibule, the hall known as
the 'holy' part, and the 'holy of holies,' the one leading into the
other. As to the further disposition of the rooms in the main temple, we
must be content to wait for further excavations. What we know is
sufficient to warrant the supposition that there was practical
uniformity in the interior arrangement of the Babylonian and Assyrian
temples. What variation there existed was probably confined to the
decoration of the walls, doorways, and to the facades. Meanwhile, it is
something to have reached general results. The zikkurat was surrounded
by a varying number of shrines that were used as places of assembly for
worshippers. The latter gathered also in the large court in front of the
zikkurat, where the chief altar probably stood.[1371] In the large halls
of the shrines, there were in all probabilities likewise altars. It
seems natural to suppose that the hall of judgment, mentioned already in
Gudea's inscription,[1372] was attached to some shrine. Besides the
zikkurats and shrines, there were smaller structures used as dwellings
for the priests and temple officials, for storehouses, for the archives,
and as stalls for the animals to be used in the sacrifices. At Nippur a
smithy was found near the temple precinct. There were workshops near the
temple where the furnishings for the temple, such as the curtains and
the utensils, were made, and there were magazines where votive tablets
and offerings were manufactured and sold. The number of these structures
varied, naturally, in each religious center, and increased in proportion
to the growth of the center. The zikkurat, the great court, the shrines,
and the smaller structures formed a sacred precinct, and it was this
pr