This portion of the town would appear to have been entirely residential, as it contains no open space such as would have served as a market. Even the temples were without a space in front of them, and in this respect resemble the churches in many modern cities. It will be noted that the temple of Ishtar of Akkad in the north of the Merkes Mound, though not actually built in, is approached on every side by private houses, though on its southern face the road is rather broader than elsewhere. Still more shut in were the temple of Ninib and the unidentified temple known as "Z," both of which lie in the mound Ishin-aswad.[185] Here trenches cut across the mound have uncovered the ruins of Babylonian houses in crude brick, the remains of different periods lying one above the other as in Merkes, and they surround the temples on all sides. The only other spot in Babylon where the same strata of streets and private houses have been found is in a low range of mounds between the Ḳaṣr and Tell 'Amrân, where the dwellings appear to be of an inferior character such as we might expect in a poorer quarter of the town. It is only in the rather higher ground that satisfactory results have yet been obtained, as in the plain the earlier strata descend below water-level. It is possible that further digging may lay bare the business-quarters of ancient Babylon, and that we may identify the markets and bazaars which formed one of the great centres of distribution in the ancient world.
Meanwhile, the Merkes Mound has yielded sufficient evidence to form a general conclusion as to the lines on which the city was built. The street net-work shown in the plan is mainly that of the Neo-Babylonian period, but, wherever the earlier levels were preserved, it was noted that the old streets followed the same lines with but slight variations. The main arteries run roughly north and south, parallel to the course of the Sacred Way, while others cross them at right angles.[186] It would appear that, in spite of the absence of open spaces, we here have a deliberate attempt at town-planning on a scientific basis, the original idea of which may be traced back to the First Dynasty. It is true that the streets are not entirely regular, but the main thoroughfares all run through, and the island-plots are all approximately rectangular. We may probably place this achievement to the credit of the Semitic element in the population, as in the two Sumerian towns, in which private house-property has been uncovered, there is no trace of town-planning. Both at Fâra and at Abû Hatab, the sites of the early Sumerian cities of Shuruppak and Kisurra, the streets that have been followed out are crooked and far more irregular than those of Babylon. It has long been known that Hammurabi did much to codify the laws of his country and render their administration effective. It would now appear that similar system and method were introduced at the same period into the more material side of the national life.