Hephaistion's pyre question

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delos13
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Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by delos13 »

Hello, everyone:
Since it's my first post and till now I was just browsing here, never commenting on anything, I think it will be polite to start with a short introduction. I am interested in Alexander as a historical figure and in people who surrounded him, the times he lived and the different opinions that people of the past and present have of him. Though I don't have an inspiration to be a published author, I enjoy writing fanfiction. My usual problem is not a lack of historical information, my imagination works quite well on covering all white spots, but the knowledge of everyday life in those times. True, there are enough books that contain that sort of information but there is always something that missing and drives my crazy because I like to present a historically correct information or at least to come up with most logical way of describing it and not blatantly contradict well known facts. So, here comes my question, maybe you simply know the answer, maybe you can suggest the most logical solution based on what is known.

Diodorus describes the height of Hephaistion's pyre as 130 cubits high. Based on the different versions of cubit (short is 46 cm and long is 52 cm), the height of the pyre must be somewhere between 60 m and 68 m. My presumption (please correct me if I am wrong) Hephaistion's body was placed on top. My question is, how did it get there? Obviously, if one can construct such a high pyre, one knows how to get things on top, but there is a difference between getting materials on top and getting Hephaistion's body there. I presume that Alexander would want it to be a very glorious and dignified affair. So, my next presumption (again, feel free to correct this one and all others that follow) is that the body was taken atop during a ceremony, not placed there secretly the night before. Also, it wasn't brought to the top using some shaft hidden inside, Alexander would want it to be placed in the final resting place with all due ceremony which will be a very official and pompous one.

That leaves us with the only possibility that Alexander chose honor guards (6? 8?) to carry the body to the top. I doubt it could be a catafalque driven by horses - the pyre would be too steep for them. But can you imagine people carrying this catafalque with a body even 60 m high (either ascending stairs or going on some sort of ramp)? True, we should not doubt the fitness levels of honour guards chosen by Alexander and maybe he wanted to head the procession himself but still....

Obviously, one way or another it was done. So, what in your opinion was the way?
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by Alexias »

Hi Delos, that's a very interesting question and I'm afraid I don't know the answer except to guess that there was either a ramp or stairs leading from level to level, or a large central staircase. After all, this is the city of the ziggurat and I would guess the pyre used the same sort of architecture.

A question that has always puzzled me about the size of Hephaestion's pyre though is, would it have been hot enough to disintegrate bone? Surely Alexander would have wanted to collect the bones to inter (as Philip's were), so how would you find any bones in that huge pile of ash that would probably still been smoking 2 or 3 days after the funeral? The amount of decoration would suggest that it wasn't a flimsy structure and it had to at least been sturdy enough to support the weight of the singers. And what would they have done with the gold ornamentation that wouldn't have melted?
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by marcus »

delos13 wrote:Hello, everyone:
Since it's my first post and till now I was just browsing here, never commenting on anything, I think it will be polite to start with a short introduction.
Hi Delos.

I'm not at home at the moment, and I'm about to disappear on holiday for a couple of weeks, so I'm not in a position really to answer your question.

But WELCOME to Pothos! Hope you'll join in lots of discussions and that you'll enjoy being part of this community.

All the best
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by agesilaos »

It is by no means certain that the pyre was ever built, Hephaistion was probably burned at Ecbatana and his ashes brought to Babylon; the Greeks tended not to leave corpses to rot over five or six months before dealing with them, and he does not seem to have been buried.
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

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agesilaos wrote:It is by no means certain that the pyre was ever built, Hephaistion was probably burned at Ecbatana and his ashes brought to Babylon; the Greeks tended not to leave corpses to rot over five or six months before dealing with them, and he does not seem to have been buried.
I never knew that there was any doubt that Hephaistion's body was burned at Ecbatana.

I agree, of course, Hephaistion's body (or anybody's else for that matter) wouldn't be left for that long period of time; the solution to the problem was mummification. I am interested to learn what makes you think that Hephaistion was burned at Ecbatana? I mean, I understand the logic - they couldn't keep the body long enough to bring it to Babylon, so they burned him in Ecbatana and brought ashes to Babylon. But why do you think he couldn't have been mummified in Ecbatana in order to preserve the body for the magnificent ceremony in Babylon? I always thought that the reason why Alexander left Ecbatana first and assigned to Perdiccas to bring Hephaistion's body separately was exactly that - Perdiccas to supervise Hephaistion's mummification (they needed about three months for the process to be complete) and when it's done, Perdiccas was to bring the body to Babylon.

As I said before, what I write here is just my presumptions and how I came to those conclusions and I am very interested what opinions others have on the matter and why.
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

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Alexias wrote: A question that has always puzzled me about the size of Hephaestion's pyre though is, would it have been hot enough to disintegrate bone? Surely Alexander would have wanted to collect the bones to inter (as Philip's were), so how would you find any bones in that huge pile of ash that would probably still been smoking 2 or 3 days after the funeral? The amount of decoration would suggest that it wasn't a flimsy structure and it had to at least been sturdy enough to support the weight of the singers. And what would they have done with the gold ornamentation that wouldn't have melted?
Yes, that is a very interesting question too. I wish some of CSI (as in a show) consultants were members of this forum or someone of equal qualifications to answer those questions. I am very grateful to Diodorus for his detailed description of the pyre but couldn't he take one step further and tell us what happened to the ashes?

My only guess will be that Hephaistion's body was placed in separate structure (stone enclosure supported by stone shaft that won't collapse during the conflagration?) with it's own fire supply so that when pyre was ignited, the body was burned separately from the whole structure. Thus, Hephaistion's ashes could have been collected after the funeral. As for the gold ornamentations, if the fire was hot enough (melting point of gold is 1064 C) they melted, otherwise, maybe they was collected and buried together with ashes. Maybe the decorations were put aside (and ashes as well) in waiting for the permanent monument to be constructed (that, sadly, never happened). What happened to the ashes in the end? Of course we can only guess. If I would write a (very) romantic story on the matter, I would say that Perdiccas had enough heart and put the larnax with Hephaistion's ashes inside Alexander's sarcophagus when he sent the body of the king back to Pella....
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

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agesilaos wrote:It is by no means certain that the pyre was ever built, Hephaistion was probably burned at Ecbatana and his ashes brought to Babylon… and he does not seem to have been buried.
Arrian, Anabasis 7.14.8 wrote:All the authorities, however, agree as to the following facts: that until the third day after Hephaistion’s death, Alexander neither tasted food nor paid any attention to his personal appearance, but lay on the ground either bewailing or silently mourning; that he also ordered a funeral pyre to be prepared for him in Babylon at an expense of 10,000 talents (some say more) and that a decree was published throughout all the barbarian territory for the observance of public mourning.
Diodorus 17.110.8, 17.114-17.115 wrote:The King was intensely grieved at [Hephaistion’s death] and entrusted his body to Perdiccas to conduct to Babylon, where he proposed to celebrate a magnificent funeral for him… The total height of the pyre was more than one hundred and thirty cubits.
So the body (Diodorus calls it a soma, which would not be used of ashes) was taken to Babylon and the funeral pyre was at Babylon, not Ecbatana. No source evidence contradicts Arrian and Diodorus on this.
agesilaos wrote:...the Greeks tended not to leave corpses to rot over five or six months before dealing with them…
Plutarch, Agesilaus 40 wrote: It was Spartan custom… to carry the bodies of their kings home. So the Spartans who were with Agesilaus enclosed his dead body in melted wax, since they had no honey, and carried it back to Lacedaemon.
Curtius 20.10.13 wrote: Therefore, on being commanded to care for the corpse [of Alexander] according to their customs, the Egyptians and Chaldeans, as if he still respired, did not at first dare to set their hands upon him. Then, praying that it were proper and pious for mortals to manhandle an immortal, they eviscerated the cadaver, gorged the golden coffin with spices and set the symbol of his status upon his head.
Armenian Pseudo-Callisthenes 283 wrote:And then Ptolemy took [Alexander’s body] to Egypt and made a leaden slab for him and poured upon him island honey and hepatic aloe; and the body was embalmed with incense and oil and put on a mule cart and taken to Egypt.
Metz Epitome 113 wrote:Meanwhile Perdiccas and those in the palace set the dead king in a coffin, dressed him in a tunic and purple cloak and put a crown on his head. They added many perfumes mixed with honey…
Diodorus 18.26-27 wrote: They prepared a coffin fitted to the body made of hammered gold and the space about the body they filled with spices such as could make the body sweet smelling and incorruptible.
So indeed the bodies were not left to rot, but were eviscerated and preserved in honey and spices or wax, rather than being incinerated.

Best wishes,
Andrew
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by agesilaos »

Two preserved corpses hardly constitute a culture of preserving the dead. Agesilaos is only preserved because he is a King, Alexander goes one better by being a God; Hephaistion was neither.

Arrian only says that the expensive pyre was 'ordered', there is no funeral in Babylon in Arrian and precious little time for one nor has this monstrous monument left any archaeological traces, Koldewey notwithstanding.

Plutarch Alx 72 v says

Upon a tomb and obsequies for his friend, and upon their embellishments, he purposed to spend ten thousand talents, and wished that the ingenuity and novelty of the construction should surpass the expense.

And Diodoros XVIII 4 ii

For when Perdiccas found in the memoranda of the king orders for the completion of the pyre of Hephaestion.

Since this probably goes back to Hieronymos of Kardia, who was most likely in Babylon with his uncle Eumenes, there are only two conclusions to draw either the pyre was never built and therefore the funeral did not happen and Hephaistion was not burned at all or, and I would favour this, that the tomb of Plutarch was called 'The Pyre' and reports of the costly 'pyre' actually refer to the unbuilt tomb.

Diodoros, of course describes this 'pyre' in great detail but his source in Book XVII is Kleitarchos, who was not an eyewitness but compiling his History from literary sources leavened a good quantity of fantasy. We know that there was a pamphlet devoted to the deaths of both Hephaistion and Alexander by Ephippos of Olynthos, this was a propaganda piece dwelling on divine pretension and extravagance, it would seem he took the planned details of the tomb and built and burned it in his mind's eye, a testimony to the criminal waste of Alexander's rule.

If the description of the pyre is fiction I don't think the use of one word need trouble us, the 'soma' is as much a part of the fantasy as the pyre.

There was still a body, however and if it was not treated to a lavish funeral in Babylon it was either burned at Ecbatana with the funeral games continuing from those that were being held when he died. Were these the Macedonian Games held normally at Dion then we might place Hephaistion's death in Dios eight months before Alexander's in Daisios. Curtius' Egyptians, also in the Liber de Morte seem to be a fiction subsequent to the body being housed in Egypt, there were certainly Chaldeans in Babylon but there was no culture of mummification (the only evidence for something similar is one corpse that had been smoked like a kipper).

Clearly, therewasme sort of preservation and that will be the immersion in dry spices a la Diod.`XVIII the other details are authorial embellishments.
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

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Taphoi wrote:
Diodorus 17.110.8, 17.114-17.115 wrote:The King was intensely grieved at [Hephaistion’s death] and entrusted his body to Perdiccas to conduct to Babylon, where he proposed to celebrate a magnificent funeral for him… The total height of the pyre was more than one hundred and thirty cubits.
I was hoping, taking into account the extensive research you needed to do for your books, you might have some ideas or educated guesses as to my question - how Hephaistion's body was taken to the very top of the zikkurat. Though Hephaistion's pyre was most probably the highest pyre ever built for burning the body, did others vary in height based on the status of the diseased? Do any sources mention the mode of placing the body or bodies a top?
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

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agesilaos wrote:Two preserved corpses hardly constitute a culture of preserving the dead. Agesilaos is only preserved because he is a King, Alexander goes one better by being a God; Hephaistion was neither.
I think because Hephaistion was declared a Hero by Siwa Oracle (the same Oracle that declared Alexander a god) his status was actually higher than that of a King (i.e. Agesilaos). :D
agesilaos wrote:Diodoros, of course describes this 'pyre' in great detail but his source in Book XVII is Kleitarchos, who was not an eyewitness but compiling his History from literary sources leavened a good quantity of fantasy. We know that there was a pamphlet devoted to the deaths of both Hephaistion and Alexander by Ephippos of Olynthos, this was a propaganda piece dwelling on divine pretension and extravagance, it would seem he took the planned details of the tomb and built and burned it in his mind's eye, a testimony to the criminal waste of Alexander's rule.

If the description of the pyre is fiction I don't think the use of one word need trouble us, the 'soma' is as much a part of the fantasy as the pyre.
There was still a body, however and if it was not treated to a lavish funeral in Babylon it was either burned at Ecbatana with the funeral games continuing from those that were being held when he died. Were these the Macedonian Games held normally at Dion then we might place Hephaistion's death in Dios eight months before Alexander's in Daisios. Curtius' Egyptians, also in the Liber de Morte seem to be a fiction subsequent to the body being housed in Egypt, there were certainly Chaldeans in Babylon but there was no culture of mummification (the only evidence for something similar is one corpse that had been smoked like a kipper).
I don't think we know for sure what events of Alexander's life came to us based on eyewitnesses' accounts (let alone their biases) and what events were fruits of imagination, so just because Diodorus based his story on Kleitarchos who wasn't an eyewitness doesn't mean it didn't happen in reality. True, none of us can say they have undisputable proofs and we are just exchanging opinions here. That being said, what do you think about the various descriptions of Alexander's grief at Hephaistion's death? How much of it you consider true and how much - a fruit of imagination of the contributing authors? And one more question - what is your opinion on Alexander's desire to emulate Achilles? If you say that it was also a fiction of imagination then would you argue that Alexander's visit to Troy never happened or he and Hephaistion never made obsequies at the tombs of Achilles and Partocles?

But if you don't dispute it (Alexander's desire or at least a show of desire), then wouldn't the King want to follow the example of his alleged ancestor Achilles and follow not only his example of profound grief but also the honours, i.e. the magnificent funeral pyre?

sorry, not sure what went wrong with "quote" use in this post....if you know how to correct it, I'd appreciate your help.
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

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delos13 wrote: I don't think we know for sure what events of Alexander's life came to us based on eyewitnesses' accounts (let alone their biases) and what events were fruits of imagination, so just because Diodorus based his story on Kleitarchos who wasn't an eyewitness doesn't mean it didn't happen in reality. True, none of us can say they have undisputable proofs and we are just exchanging opinions here. That being said, what do you think about the various descriptions of Alexander's grief at Hephaistion's death? How much of it you consider true and how much - a fruit of imagination of the contributing authors? And one more question - what is your opinion on Alexander's desire to emulate Achilles? If you say that it was also a fiction of imagination then would you argue that Alexander's visit to Troy never happened or he and Hephaistion never made obsequies at the tombs of Achilles and Partocles?

But if you don't dispute it (Alexander's desire or at least a show of desire), then wouldn't the King want to follow the example of his alleged ancestor Achilles and follow not only his example of profound grief but also the honours, i.e. the magnificent funeral pyre?
The problem that arises with the Diodorus/Kleitarchos account of the tomb/pyre is that is contradicted by all the other sources, and even Diordorus contradicts himself by first describing the funeral of Hephaistion with a pyre that was seemingly fully constructed (Book 17.115) and then in Book 18 he says:
[4] (323 B.C.) It happened that Craterus, who was one of the most prominent men, had previously been sent away by Alexander to Cilicia with those men who had been discharged from the army, ten thousand in number. At the same time he had received written instructions which the king had given him for execution ; nevertheless, after the death of Alexander, it seemed best to the successors not to carry out these plans. 2 For when Perdiccas found in the memoranda of the king orders for the completion of the pyre of Hephaestion, which required a great deal of money, and also for the other designs of Alexander, which were many and great and called for an unprecedented outlay, he decided that it was inexpedient to carry them out. 3 But that he might not appear to be arbitrarily detracting anything from the glory of Alexander, he laid these matters before the common assembly of the Macedonians for consideration.
When something like this happens in the sources there is bound to be disagreement and a search for an explanation, hence the reasoning in Agesilaos' post which, IMO, neither negates Alexander's grief nor does it disprove that Alexander "intended" to give Hephaistion due honors with the funeral pyre. The argument is simply that the pyre was not built (or completed) before Alexander's death and the Successors failed to give approval for it.

sorry, not sure what went wrong with "quote" use in this post....if you know how to correct it, I'd appreciate your help.
I think that all you need to do is add /quote (in square brackets) at the end of your quotes and all should be okay. If you have further problems please feel free to send me a PM and we can work it out together in the PMs.

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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by Taphoi »

amyntoros wrote:The problem that arises with the Diodorus/Kleitarchos account of the tomb/pyre is that is contradicted by all the other sources, and even Diordorus contradicts himself by first describing the funeral of Hephaistion with a pyre that was seemingly fully constructed (Book 17.115) and then in Book 18...
The problem you describe is illusory. The Greeks typically erected a funerary monument/tomb over the site of the funeral pyre and they also called this a pyra. It was regarded as the completion of the funeral pyre process. The tomb of Philip II is an example. There is another well-known excavated example in Cyprus. That is why Diodorus speakes of the completion of the pyra in Book 18. That is why the pyre/monument was so expensive. That is why Plutarch speaks of a funeral and a tomb collectively. Therefore I know of no sources that contradict Diodorus's account of Hephaistion's pyre. Please cite the ones you mean. The pyre was burnt in Babylon, but the funerary monument was never completed. A simple story that is consistently told in all the sources. A cremation in Ecbatana is a fantasy for which there is no evidence whatsoever and which contradicts the explicit evidence of the sources.

Since people stood in the sirens at the top of the pyre, there must have been a route up the structure, which may well also have been used for the body. I don't really see why the elevation of the body should be considered an enigma, however, since the wood on which it rested was just as heavy and must also have been elevated. Pyramids were constructed using a ramp, so this is a possibility for the pyre, but the Greeks were also expert in the use of pulleys and cranes.

Koldeway found a brick platform in Babylon that might have re-used bricks from the walls, as said by Diodorus. He found extensive signs of incineration over its top surface including what he thought were burnt imprints of the palm trunks stated to have been used in the construction. Koldewey's excavations removed all the burnt remains, so how would any subsequent excavations find them again?

Best wishes,

Andrew
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by agesilaos »

A quick look at LSJ shows that 'pyra' is used for the mound over the site of the pyre not a monument such as is implied by the monstrous cost of Hephaistion's which would be a 'taphos' which is what Plutarch calls it at 72.iii.

Koldewey published his findings, which are just those that one would expect from a pupil of Schliemann, the more modern and scientific eyes of Israel Finkelman ('Babylon') there is nothing to indicate this was anything other than a site where the later hellenic population immolated their dead. Ancient historians are not alone in founding their works on fantasy, early modern archaeologists were particularly prone to finding what they expected to find based on whatever myth was geographically appropriate.

No source mentions a cremation in Ecbatana, but our best source does not mention one in Babylon either only the intent to build an expensive monument. It is entirely possible that Alexander wanted to await the response from Ammon before entombing Hephaistion, or his remains and therefore carried them with him; it was pure chance that he was at Babylon when the reply arrived and he died shortly afterwards; there is no real evidence that Babylon was particularly important to Alexander so where he really intended to build the tomb is yet another unknown.

Krateros and Demetrios Poliorketes were both cremated and their ashes carried about before being laid to rest, it just seems likely that the same would be the case for Hephaistion and given Arrian's hint that he did have games that would almost certainly place his funeral just after the Ecbatana games during which he died. As to the ultimate fate of his ashes, I rather think someone tipped them down a privy and sole their, no doubt, costly container during the week or so of disturbance following Alexander's death; he was not popular and only one man mourned his passing it would seem.
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by Xenophon »

We can certainly put to bed any idea that the funeral pyre described by Diodorus at XVII.115 is anything other than fiction.

The dimensions he gives are simply impossible. He says the 'pyre' was ( avoiding digressions on ancient cubits) built on a square base roughly 200 x 200 yards, to a height of roughly 65 yards. The structure he has in mind is likely a pyramid, or even more likely still a mud-brick ziggurat, since a rectangular structure of such dimensions made of mud-brick salvaged from the walls of Babylon would likely collapse. Each story, some seven in all, with each apparently resting on trunks of palm trees roofing the story beneath, is also structurally impossible.

To get an idea of just how enormous a structure Diodorus is describing, compare these dimensions to those of the Great Pyramid of Geza. Base 250 x 250 yards, height 158 yds. We are talking about a 'pyre' with a similar base, but slightly less than half as high. The Great Pyramid took 20-30 years to build ( modern estimates broadly agree with Herodotus).

Or compare it to Babylon's largest ziggurat, the Etemenanki, Base 98 yards x 98 yards, height 98 yards, with a volume less than half that of the 'pyre'. It may have taken 88 years to build (it was also 'hollow' with chambers, like the proposed 'pyre'), and may even have never been finished, like some cathedrals.*

Whilst the 'pyre' was 'hollow', apparently consisting of chambers (like a ziggurat), and about a third of the volume of the Great Pyramid, and hence quicker to build, it is obvious that such a structure would nevertheless have taken many years to build, and many tens of thousands of labourers working full-time for those years.

As to the walls of Babylon, every ancient source grossly exaggerated their size - one has only to look at modern archaeological reconstructions of the wall and Ishtar gate to see that the walls were in fact less than 10 m high roughly.....

On probable dimensions , the 2,000 yards of wall Alexander supposedly ordered demolished, even if solid brick rather than brick case filled with rubble, would have provided nowhere near enough material for such a structure.

No wonder Perdiccas baulked at building it !!

Such a structure, albeit temporary, would have had to have had substantial foundations too, which would have left a huge imprint in the archaeological record. Koldeway found nothing such, and thanks to the Americans, who built a huge base on the site of Babylon after the Iraq war, using heavy earth-moving machinery and in the process destroying or damaging much of the remains, nothing further is likely to come to light.

Nevertheless, I think it safe to conclude that the enormous 'pyre' structure described, nearly the size of the Great Pyramid in area, but slightly under half the height, was never built at Babylon or anywhere else......


* One of Alexander's last acts was to order the remains of the ziggurat to be cleared, with a view to rebuilding it. It took the army over 2 months just to clear the site, and assemble some of the building materials needed - less than one quarter the area of the proposed 'pyre'. Work ceased on Alexander's death, never to be resumed.
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Re: Hephaistion's pyre question

Post by Paralus »

Xenophon wrote:Such a structure, albeit temporary, would have had to have had substantial foundations too, which would have left a huge imprint in the archaeological record. Koldeway found nothing such, and thanks to the Americans, who built a huge base on the site of Babylon after the Iraq war, using heavy earth-moving machinery and in the process destroying or damaging much of the remains, nothing further is likely to come to light.

Nevertheless, I think it safe to conclude that the enormous 'pyre' structure described, nearly the size of the Great Pyramid in area, but slightly under half the height, was never built at Babylon or anywhere else......
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