A mathematical tablet giving the dimensions of the courts of Esagila, Marduk’s temple in Babylon, and of the seven levels of its ziggurat Etemenanki, in the Babylonian units nindan and cubit. It is the only ancient text to give the measurements of a ziggurat.
The tablet (now in the Louvre) was copied in the Seleucid period, long after Nebuchadnezzar, from an older original; its colophon warns that its contents are for the initiated only. George Smith first reported it in 1876. It is written as a series of exercises in area and volume, but its numbers describe real buildings.
For Etemenanki it gives a first stage 15 nindan square (about 90 m) and 5½ nindan high, a second 13 nindan square and 3 high, four more stages each 1 nindan (about 6 m) high and narrowing upward, and a temple on the top 4 nindan by 3½ and 2½ high: in all as high as the base is wide. The excavated base, about 91 m square, fits the first figure; the upper stages are restorations from the text, and scholars still argue over some readings.
The book, part by part
I Etemenanki
Seven levels: two great stages, four lesser ones and the temple, their widths and heights in nindan and cubits.
II The courts of Esagila
The areas of the great and lesser courts of Marduk’s temple, south of the tower.