ine quality. The fingers of
a man's hand wrote the words of condemnation of the Babylonian empire
"upon the plaster of the king's palace." Upon those walls were painted
historical and religious subjects, and various ornaments, and,
according to Diodorus Siculus, the bricks were enameled with the
figures of men and animals. Images of stone were no doubt introduced
into the buildings. We learn from the Bible that figures of the gods
in this material, as well as in metal, were kept in the Babylonian
temples. But such sculptures were not common, otherwise more remains
of them must have been discovered in the ruins. The great inscription
of Nebuchadnezzar, engraved on a black stone, and divided into ten
columns, in the museum formed by the East India Company, appears to
contain some interesting details as to the mode of construction and
architecture of the Babylonian palaces and temples.

It may be conjectured that, in their general plan, the Babylonian
palaces and temples resembled those of Assyria. We know that the arts,
the religion, the customs, and the laws of the two kindred people were
nearly identical. They spoke, also, the same language, and used, very
nearly, the same written characters. One appears to have borrowed from
the other; and, without attempting to decide the question of the
priority of the independent existence as a nation and of the
civilization of either people, it can be admitted that they had a
certain extent of common origin, and that they maintained for many
centuries an intimate connection. We find no remains of columns at
Babylon, as none have been found at Nineveh. If such architectural
ornaments were used, they must have been either of wood or of brick.

Although the building materials used in the great edifices of Babylon
may seem extremely mean when compared with those employed in the
stupendous palace-temples of Egypt, and even in the less massive
edifices of Assyria, yet the Babylonians appear to have raised, with
them alone, structures which excited the wonder and admiration of the
most famous travelers of antiquity. The profuse use of color, and the
taste displayed in its combination, and in the ornamental designs,
together with the solidity and vastness of the immense structure upon
which the buildings proudly stood, may have chiefly contributed to
produce this effect upon the minds of strangers. The palaces and
temples, like those of Nineveh, were erected upon lofty platforms of
brick