With respect to the view that the Birs is the sanctury of Belus, it may be observed in the first place that the size of the building is very much smaller than that ascribed to the Belus temple; secondly, that it was dedicated to Kebo, who cannot be identified with Bel; and thirdly, that it is not really any part of the remains of the ancient capital, but belongs to an entirely distinct town.

The cylinders found in the ruin by Sir Henry Eawlinson declare the building to have been "the wonder of Borsippa;" and Borsippa, according to all the ancient authorities, was a town by itself--an entirely distinct place from Babylon.

To include Borsippa within the outer wall of Babylon is to run counter to all the authorities on the subject, the inscriptions, the native writer, Berosus, and the classical geographers generally.

Nor is the position thus assigned to the Belus temple in harmony with the statement of Herodotus, which alone causes explorers to seek for the temple on the west side of the river.

For, though the expression which this writer uses does not necessarily mean that the temple was in the exact centre of one of the two divisions of the town, it certainly implies that it lay towards the middle of one division--well within it--and not upon its outskirts.