Up to a certain height--fifty feet, according to Xenophon--they were composed of neatly-hewn blocks of a fossiliferous limestone, smoothed and polished on the outside.

Above this, the material used was sun-dried brick.

The stone masonry was certainly ornamented along its top by a continuous series of battlements or gradines in the same material [PLATE XXXVII., Fig.

2] and it is not unlikely that a similar ornamentation crowned the upper brick structure.
The wall was pierced at irregular intervals by gates, above which rose lofty towers; while towers, probably of lesser elevation, occurred also in the portions of the wall intervening between one gate and another.

A gate in the north-western rampart has been cleared by means of excavation, the form and construction of which will best appear from the annexed ground-plan.