Borsippa

Daniel's not avoiding this.

He's in Borsippa on the king's business.

If the Most High wanted him here for this moment, he'd be here, which means the task is ours.

Hananiah leaned back, staring up at the lattice of sunlight and shade above them.

On the right bank rose a suburb which was promptly fortified and enlarged, so as to become a second Babylon, almost equaling the first in extent and population.

Beyond this on the outskirts extended gardens and fields, finding at length their limit at the territorial boundaries of two other towns, Kutha and Borsippa, whose black outlines are visible to the east and southwest, respectively, standing isolated above the plain.

Sippara on the north, Nippur on the south, and the mysterious Agade completed the circle of sovereign states which so closely hemmed in the city of Bel.

We may surmise with all probability that the history of Babylon in early times resembled in the main that of the Egyptian Thebes.

He enlarged in their honor the mysterious Habara, the sacred seat of their worship, and that which no king from the earliest times had known how to build for his divine master.

That did he generously for Shamash, his master.

He restored Ezida, the eternal dwelling of Merodach, at Borsippa, at Terkalama, the temple of Anu, Ninni, and Nana, the suzerains of Kish, and also Ezikhalama, the house of the goddess Ninna, in the village of Zaralab.

In the southern provinces, but recently added to the crown at Larsa, Uruk, and Uru, he displayed similar activity.

But his scribe wrote it in the manner customary for the scribes of those days to write of their royal masters.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the exalted prince, the favorite of Marduk, the lofty Petesi, the beloved of Nabu, the arbiter, the possessor of wisdom, who seeks out the path of their divinity, who reverences their lordship, the untiring governor, who ponders daily concerning the maintenance of Esagil and Ezida, and is continually anxious for the shrines of Babylon and Borsippa, the wise, the pious, the maintainer of Esagil and Ezida, the firstborn son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, am I.

However cruel and religiously intolerant Nebuchadnezzar may have been, he was undoubtedly the greatest builder the world has ever seen.

There is scarcely one of the thousands of ruined mounds in Babylonia which does not contain bricks bearing his name.