Sometimes they are almost continuous for miles; and if we take the Kasr mound as a centre, and mark about it an area extending five miles in each direction (which would give a city of the size described by Ctesias and the historians of Alexander), we shall scarcely find a single square mile of the hundred without some indications of ancient buildings upon its surface.  The case is not like that of Nineveh, where outside the walls the country is for a considerable distance singularly bare of ruins.  The mass of Babylonian remains extending from Babil to Amran does not correspond to the whole enceinte of Nineveh, but to the mound of Koyunjik.  It has every appearance of being, not the city, but “the heart of the city”—­the “Royal quarter” outside of which were the streets and squares, and still further off, the vanished walls.  It may seem strange that the southern capital should have so greatly exceeded the dimensions of the northern one.  But, if we follow the indications presented by the respective sites, we are obliged to conclude that there was really this remarkable difference.

It has to be considered in conclusion how far we can identify the various ruins above described with the known buildings of the ancient capital, and to what extent it is possible to reconstruct upon the existing remains the true plan of the city.  Fancy, if it discards the guidance of fact, may of course with the greatest ease compose plans of a charming completeness.  A rigid adherence to existing data will produce, it is to be feared, a somewhat meagre and fragmentary result; but most persons will feel that this is one of the cases where the maxim of Hesiod applies—­“the half is preferable to the whole.”

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The one identification which may be made upon certain and indeed indisputable evidence is that of the Kasr mound with the palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.  The tradition which has attached the name of Kasr or “Palace” to this heap is confirmed by inscriptions upon slabs found on the spot, wherein Nebuchadnezzar declares the building to be his “Grand Palace.”  The bricks of that part of the ruin which remains uncovered bear, one and all, the name of this king; and it is thus clear that here stood in ancient times the great work of which Berosus speaks as remarkable for its height and splendor.  If a confirmation of the fact were needed after evidence of so decisive a character, it would be found in the correspondence between the remains found on the mound and the description left us of the “greater palace” by Diodorus.  Diodorus relates that the walls of this edifice were adorned with colored representations of hunting scenes; and modern explorers find that the whole soil of the mound, and especially the part on which the fragment of ruin stands, is full of broken pieces of enamelled brick, varied in hue, and evidently containing portions of human and animal forms.