corner there rose, before the excavations, a conical mound, known by
the Arabs as _Bint el-Emîr_ or "The Princess". This prominent landmark
represents the temple-tower of Enlil's famous sanctuary, and even after
excavation it is still the first object that the approaching traveller
sees on the horizon. When he has climbed its summit he enjoys an
uninterrupted view over desert and swamp.

The cause of Nippur's present desolation is to be traced to the change
in the bed of the Euphrates, which now lies far to the west. But in
antiquity the stream flowed through the centre of the city, along the
dry bed of the Shatt en-Nîl, which divides the mounds into an eastern
and a western group. The latter covers the remains of the city proper
and was occupied in part by the great business-houses and bazaars. Here
more than thirty thousand contracts and accounts, dating from the fourth
millennium to the fifth century B.C., were found in houses along the
former river-bank. In the eastern half of the city was Enlil's great
temple Ekur, with its temple-tower Imkharsag rising in successive stages
beside it. The huge temple-enclosure contained not only the sacrificial
shrines, but also the priests' apartments, store-chambers, and
temple-magazines. Outside its enclosing wall, to the south-west, a large
triangular mound, christened "Tablet Hill" by the excavators, yielded
a further supply of records. In addition to business-documents of the
First Dynasty of Babylon and of the later Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian,
and Persian periods, between two and three thousand literary texts and
fragments were discovered here, many of them dating from the Sumerian
period. And it is possible that some of the early literary texts that
have been published were obtained in other parts of the city.

No less than twenty-one different strata, representing separate periods
of occupation, have been noted by the American excavators at various