3.] The loftiness of the houses, which were of three or four stories, is certainly surprising, since Oriental houses have very rarely more than two stories.

Their construction, however, seems to have been rude; and the pillars especially--posts of palm, surrounded with wisps of rushes, and then plastered and painted--indicate a low condition of taste and a poor and coarse style of domestic architecture.
The material used by the Babylonians in their constructions seems to have been almost entirely brick.

Like the early Chaldaeans, they employed bricks of two kinds, both the ruder sun-dried sort, and the very superior kiln-baked article.

The former, however, was only applied to platforms, and to the interior of palace mounds and of very thick walls, and was never made by the later people the sole material of a building.

In every case there was at least a revetement of kiln-dried brick, while the grander buildings were wholly constructed of it.