A Sumerian Palace and the "A" cemetery at Kish, Mesopotamia

94 A SUMERIAN PALACE AND "A" CEMETERY, KISH
same time as the doorway was bricked up. A little farther to the east there is a
thin wall across the passage with an entrance through it on the north. The foun-
dation of this wall is 1 m wide, and it must be part of the original design of the
annex. The passage then continues until a very narrow entrance is reached,
whose constriction is the result of the projection of a tower of the eastern wing of
the building. Close to this entrance was found a large block of limestone of irregu-
lar shape measuring roughly 74 cm in length by 45 cm in its widest part and 10
cm in thickness. Its upper and lower surfaces are fairly flat and show natural
cleavage. This block closely resembles the similar blocks on the other side of the
wall in chamber 31. They possibly all formed part of a stone paving outside the
building, which was taken up and removed when the palace fell into decay.
The annex, as has been pointed out, is a later structure than the building to
the north of it, and shows features not present in the older building. Taking its
western portion first, it will be noticed in the plan that, though its walls were not
so thick as those of the earlier building, yet it seems to have been more strongly
fortified both as to inner and outer defences. The presence of numerous towers
along both walls suggests that in later times more reliance was placed on archers
and slingers than on walls of super-thickness. If this be correct, it shows that
the warfare at that period was becoming more scientific and less a matter of
brute force.
The thickness of the outer curtain wall was 2 m and it was provided on the
outside with towers averaging 2.50 m in width and projecting 30 cm from the
face of the wall. Narrower towers on the inside, with rather more projection,
alternate with those outside (Plate XXXIII, Fig. 1). The inner ward averages
just under 2 m in thickness, but is re-inforced on the outside by towers, of which
the first two from the north are opposite the inner towers of the outer ward.
Toward the south, there is a considerable thickening of the inner wall which can
only mean that an unusually large tower was placed there. The space between
the two wards (43) communicated by two entrances on the east with a fine
columned hall.
Both the inner and the outer wards show signs of much burning, and a thick
layer of ash covered the ground between. The walls were also in a very damaged
state, and show positive signs of having been breached in many places. Hence
it is clear that one of the main attacks on the palace took place from this quarter.
The facts that the walls were so badly burnt and that there was a layer of ashes
on the floor prove, in my opinion, that this corridor between the two wards was at
one time roofed over unlike the space between the two wards of the building to the
north. To the south of the entrances to the columned hall, a room (44) was
divided off from the corridor by a comparatively narrow wall whose footing shows
it to be part of the original design. The southern wall of 44 was only just discern-
ible, and measured 1,60 m in thickness. A portion of it had been repaired
with burnt brick—an unusual feature, which is, however, also found in chamber
31 to the north. Beyond this to the south all traces of walling have disappeared
through denudation, and a large portion of the building has been lost forever.