IV - The Interior Wall
1. A portion of the Interior Defensive Walls is located between the reconstructed Southern
Palace and the remains of the Northern Palace.
The Interior Defensive Walls consists of two separate walls. The first wall located
closer to the reconstruction of the Southern Palace (the southern wall) and the second wall
located closer to the Northern Palace (the northern wall).
Fig. The southern wall of the Defensive Walls, the eastern part.
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The southern wall consists of three parts. The first one, which is about 70 meters long,
is located closest to the Ishtar Gate (eastern), has been partly reconstructed with the
contemporary baked brick and mortar. The contemporary baked bricks were put on top of the
original sun-dried bricks. The height of the silt brick wall reaches up to 7 meters and the
contemporary brick layer reaches from several centimeters up to about 1.5 meters.
Fig. The southern wall of the Defensive Walls, the eastern part.
In this part of the Interior Walls the layer of the silt bricks has been damaged by
natural processes. Vulnerable to the weather, the wall was partially washed away by rain over
the years.
Fig. The southern wall of the Defensive Walls, the eastern part.
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Fig. The southern wall of the Defensive Walls, the eastern part.
The damages to the silt brick layers are considerable in certain places. The pictures
above shows where a majority of the original bricks have crumbled leaving only
contemporary bricks in place. Eventually the contemporary bricks will fall from the lack of a
supporting structure.
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The middle part of the southern wall is built entirely from the non-baked silt brick. It
is about 100 meters long. This part the wall reaches up to 7 meters in height. On each side of
the middle part of the wall is a 25 meter break in the wall. After the break in the wall there is
the respective Western and Eastern parts of the defensive walls.
Fig.the southern wall, the mid part
The western part of the southern wall consists of a small fragment of a wall around 5
meters long.
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Fig. The southern wall, the western part.
This part of the Interior Defensive Walls is vulnerable to weather conditions, which is
a reason for the erosion of the bricks. When the rain comes in the winter season the erosion
intensifies. This condition has created numerous ditches where fragments of the wall are
carried away by the runoff of rain water.
Fig. The southern wall, middle part
The Interior Walls are also being damaged by ground water, causing the lower bricks
to crumble.
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Fig.The southern wall, middle part
The wall height when standing in between the Interior Defensive walls is only 1 to 3 meters.
When outside of the southern side of the Interior Defensive walls the height rises up to 7
meters.
Fig. Picture of the Northern (left side) and Southern (right side) walls
The Northern wall was built using sun-dried silt bricks. The Northern walls have the
same issues described for the Southern walls. As with the Southern walls the Northern walls
are being damaged by the rain and ground water.
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Fig. Silt bricks in the Northern wall
A large amount of the contemporary debris is scattered between the walls.
Fig. Erosion of the Northern wall
Description elaborated and photograph taken between 5th and 30th November 2004 by
Agnieszka Dolatowska
Translated into English Piotr Trybuła, 1st edition by Christopher Miller, 2nd edition by Steven
Bein.
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