The entire mass seems to have been carefully drained, and the collected waters were conveyed through subterranean channels to the level of the plain at the mound's base.

The summit of the platform was no doubt paved, either with stone or burnt brick--mainly, it is probable, with the latter; since the former material was scarce, and though a certain number of stone pavement slabs have been found, they are too rare and scattered to imply anything like the general use of stone paving.

Upon the platform, most likely towards the centre, rose the actual palace, not built (like the Assyrian palaces) of crude brick faced with a better material, but constructed wholly of the finest and hardest burnt brick laid in a mortar of extreme tenacity, with walls of enormous thickness, parallel to the sides of the mound, and meeting each other at right angles.

Neither the ground-plan nor the elevation of a Babylonian palace can be given; nor can even a conjectural restoration of such a building be made, since the small fragment of Nebuchadnezzar's palace which remains has defied all attempts to reduce it to system.

We can only say that the lines of the building were straight; that the walls rose, at any rate to a considerable height, without windows; and that the flatness of the straight line was broken by numerous buttressses and pilasters.