Page 173 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
better dressed stone than the truly giant slabs from Nineveh, with
beautiful reed-ship flotillas carved in relief. Nearby was the biblical
site ot Nimrud, with a colossal man-made hillock, representing the
!
eroded remains of a former pyramid now covered by rubble from
Assyrian bricks. No one would have suspected that quarried stone
had been used in this structure. Nevertheless the recent removal of
part of the Assyrian rubble has exposed a large section of the
original wall, built from big quarried stones. Archaeologists esti­
mate that this sun-oriented pyramid, now about 140 feet high, was
probably 60 feet higher originally. Inside was found a vaulted
chamber 100 feet long, 6 feet wide and 12 feet high, empty. The
river Tigris had originally run along the western base of the
pyramid, which rose from a twenty feet high quay of carefully
dressed and fitted limestone blocks.12
The Nimrud pyramid had indeed originally been built from
stone blocks, like those in Egypt. But there was a difference. The
pyramids of Egypt were built from blocks all quarried to the same
size to simplify work. Not so the Nimrud pyramid. And in
addition, while checking the blocks, I found the jointing to be once
more the one I was in search of, the one that now struck my eyes as
soon as we descended between the excavated Dilmun walls with
Bibby.
When Bibby noted my unexpected interest in stone masonry, he
took us back again to one of the colossal Ali mounds, perhaps the
largest of them all, not inferior in size, it seemed, to the Nimrud
pyramid. Really a lofty hillock to ascend. He took us around to the
back where a portion of the limestone rubble cover had been
carefully removed, as on the pyramid of Nimrud. Inside emerged
the section of a solid wall of quarried stones. The stones seemed to
be of equal size, as in Egypt. These big mounds, said Bibby, had
been a sort of round, stepped pyramid.
Nobody had ever doubted that the Ali mounds must have been
built as some sort of mausoleum for defunct kings. These giant
tombs were of such preponderant size that they had required
organised mass labour and thus undoubtedly represented the rest­
ing place of extremely powerful monarchs. Their numbers were
sufficiently restricted to represent successive generations of
sovereigns, while the vast adjacent cemetery could have been
reserved for lesser chiefs and anyone worthy of entombment in the
vicinity of such important personages.
Gazing over the Arab roofs down below and across the scorched
landscape, with tombs everywhere except in the direction of the

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