The history of the actual excavations properly commences with the first
expedition sent out to dig, but there is one scholar who, although he
did not excavate on any large scale, was the first to bring cuneiform
inscriptions to Europe and on this account deserves special mention.
C. J. Rich, born in 1787 at Dijon, was from the early age of nine
attracted to the study of Oriental languages, and in course of time made
himself master of Hebrew, Persian, Aramaic and Arabic, while he is said
to have attempted to read Chinese Hieroglyphics at the phenomenal age of
fourteen. In 1803 he became a Cadet in the East India Company’s service,
his military post being subsequently exchanged for a civil appointment.
After visiting Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor and other countries, he
returned to Bombay, but was, before the age of twenty-four, appointed
the East India Company’s resident at Baghdad. In 1811 he visited the
ruins of Babylon, an account of which is to be found in his “Memoir on
the ruins of Babylon,” while his visit to Nineveh is recorded in his
“_Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the site of ancient
Nineveh, with Journal of a voyage down the Tigris to Baghdad, and an
account of a visit to Shiraz and Persepolis_.” It is moreover to Rich
that we owe our first accurate plans of both Nineveh and Babylon. In the
course of his travels, he made large collections consisting chiefly of
Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Aramaic and Syriac manuscripts, a number of
Greek and oriental coins, and also many antiquities from Babylon and
Nineveh, including the first cuneiform tablets seen in Europe: his
collections were acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum, after
his death from cholera in 1820.
But as the pioneer in the actual field of excavation, M. Botta, the
French Consul at Mosul, occupied the first place in point of time. In
the year 1842, on the advice of Mohl, he began the exploration of the
Mound of Kouyunjik, one of the two mounds which mark the site of the
city of Nineveh, but meeting with scant success, he transferred his
attention in 1843 to the Mound of Khorsabad (the town of Chosroes) some
miles north of Mosul, where he laid bare the ruins of a palace which
proved to be that of Sargon, king of Assyria (722-705 B.C.) and the
father of Sennacherib. In the year 1851 the French Assembly voted the
money for an expedition to Babylonia, and also for another expedition to
Assyria, the object of which was to complete the excavations which
had been commenced with so much promise at Khorsabad: this expedition
was directed by Victor Place who at the same time succeeded Botta as
French Consular agent at Mosul. During the years 1851-1855 Place
completed the excavation of Sargon’s palace, and also laid bare the
surrounding buildings and rooms, carrying his work right up to the wall
of the town; Khorsabad was found to contain the ruins of a whole
fortified town, which had remained entombed for some 2500 years: the
town was named Dûr-Sharru-ukîn after its founder Sargon. The four corners
of the city walls were oriented towards the four cardinal points, the
walls themselves being pierced by eight enormous gates, each of which
was named after an Assyrian deity. The palace had been built on a
terraced mound 45 feet high, which was made of crude or unbaked bricks,
and was protected by a casing-wall of large square stones. The palace
contained wide halls, adorned with sculptures, winged bulls and the
like. The floors of the various chambers consisted generally of stamped
clay, and were no doubt hidden from view by elaborate rugs, sometimes,
however, tiles or blocks of marble concealed the unsightly clay.
The walls were of great thickness, i.e. from 9-1/2 to 16 feet, while in
one place they measured as much as 25-1/2 feet. The inner walls of the
less important chambers were only covered with a white plaster
surrounded by black lines, the so-called women’s apartments, on the
other hand, being decorated with frescoes and white or black arabesques.
Marble statues were unearthed in the harem court, and the remains of a
ziggurat or stage-tower—a characteristic feature in Mesopotamian
temples—were brought to light. Place’s excavations were not so
productive of large sculptures and monuments as those of Botta had been,
but they were particularly fruitful as regards smaller objects of glass,
stone, clay, and metal.
The first Englishman to enter the field was Layard who in 1845, only two
years after Botta’s first expedition, commenced excavating the ruined
mounds of Nimrûd. Nimrûd, which proved to be the ancient Calah, was
built on a rectangular plateau just as Khorsabad had been, and the
exploration of its site yielded a rich harvest of new materials for the
reconstruction of the history of the past. Ashur-naṣir-pal, king of
Assyria (885-860), following the example of Shalmaneser I (about 1300),
removed the seat of government from Ashur forty miles northwards, to
Calah, where he built a palace for himself, the excavation of which was
one of Layard’s greatest triumphs. This palace occupied the
north-western portion of the mound and was in part restored by Sargon;
to the north of this palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal lay the site of the
temple of Ninib or Adar, the god of war. Shalmaneser II (860-825) the
successor of Ashur-naṣir-pal, also built a palace at Calah, on the
south-east of that of his predecessor; this palace, known as the central
palace, was almost entirely rebuilt by Tiglath-Pileser III, the Biblical
Pul (745-727 B.C.).
_PLATE II_
[Illustration: 1. KOUYUNJIK AND NEBI YÛNUS FROM THE NORTH
2. KOUYUNJIK AND NEBI YÛNUS FROM MOSUL
3. NIMRÛD (CALAH)
4. KHORSABAD]
At the south-west corner, the palace of Esarhaddon (681-668) was
excavated, in the construction of which, that king utilized the
materials of the older palaces in the most unscrupulous fashion, but the
building was found to have been much damaged by fire. North of
Esarhaddon’s palace and south of that of Ashur-naṣir-pal, lay the
comparatively small palace of Adad-nirari III (812-783 B.C.), and in the
south-east corner of the parallelogram the insignificant remains of the
palace of Ashur-etil-ilâni (about 625) one of the last of Assyria’s
monarchs were brought to light.
Thus Layard discovered and excavated the remains of some seven royal
palaces at Nimrûd; of these seven that of Ashur-naṣir-pal was by far the
most important from the archæological and historical standpoint.
Wall bas-reliefs, human-headed winged lions and bulls (cf. Pl. XXV),
obelisks, bronze bowls, iron reaping-hooks and spear-heads, carved ivory
panels and mirrors, a “silver-plated” sceptre-head, and a variety of
bells are a few among the many valuable finds at Nimrûd, each of which
makes its contribution, be it small or be it great, to the restoration
of a page of human history and cultural evolution.
But undoubtedly the most impressive monuments yielded by Assyrian
excavations are the gigantic winged bulls and lions which were stationed
at the royal palace gates. The removal of these monsters of oriental
antiquity was an even more difficult task than their excavation, and
taxed the inventive powers of both French and English explorers to the
utmost.
Those excavated by the French at Khorsabad were embarked piecemeal for
Paris, the parts into which they had been sawn, with a view to
facilitating their transit, being fitted together again in the Louvre,
the museum which they now adorn. Layard however adopted a different
method in effecting the transport of the winged bulls from Nimrûd to
London, by means of which he successfully brought them over intact
without breaking them up in any way; the extraordinary difficulties
involved in this feat give us a vivid conception of the similar
difficulties which the Assyrians must have had to overcome in the
removal of these solid stone masses from the quarry to the entrances of
the palaces, and in the exact adjustment of them in their specific
places. Layard gives us a detailed description[20] of the plan he
devised for the removal of some of these unwieldy monsters, of which
thirteen pairs had already been discovered. His first efforts were
directed towards two of the smaller colossi. The first and greatest
problem to be solved was how to lower them without risk of their falling
and so being broken. The sculptures were first of all wrapped in mats or
felt to mitigate the effect of any misfortune that might befall them,
either through the ropes giving way or cutting the soft stone. Heavy
wooden rollers had been procured from the mountains; these were placed
upon sleepers laid parallel to the sculpture, and it only now remained
to lower the winged creature on to the rollers; this was effected by
means of ropes skilfully applied, the descent of the gradually sinking
monument being checked by thick beams which supported it in its fall and
were gradually withdrawn as the occasion required. As the bull
approached the rollers the beams had to be entirely removed, the whole
of the weight and strain thus being on the cables and ropes, which
stretched until finally they reached breaking point, and the bull fell
some four feet or more to the ground, but fortunately without being
damaged. A trench of about 200 feet in length, 15 feet wide, and in some
places 20 feet deep, having been duly made through which the bull might
proceed on the rollers to the edge of the mound—this course was
necessary owing to the impossibility of lifting such a massive
weight—the giant animal was slowly pulled by a large number of Arabs to
the end of the trench and down the slope of the mound, where it was
lowered on to a specially-constructed cart, which had been a nine days’
wonder to the natives ever since its appearance. The cart itself was
fitted with two strong axles which had been used by Botta in the removal
of sculptures from Khorsabad. “Each wheel was formed of three solid
pieces, nearly a foot thick, from the trunk of a mulberry tree, bound
together by iron hoops. Across the axles were laid three beams, and
above them several cross-beams, all of the same wood. A pole was fixed
to one axle to which were also attached iron rings for ropes to enable
men as well as buffaloes to draw the cart. The wheels were provided with
movable hooks for the same purpose.” The mulberry wood used had of
course to be procured in the mountains, there being no wood of the
required substance or size in the Mesopotamian valley. Buffaloes were
first harnessed to the pole, while a number of men tugged at the ropes
attached to the wheels and the movable hooks, but the buffaloes appear
to have soon struck, and they were consequently taken out, the whole of
the work now being done by three hundred Arabs. At length, after
multitudinous efforts, the bull arrived at the river where it was landed
on a specially-prepared platform from which it might slide on to a raft.
Thus much for the obstacles to be surmounted in the mere removal of
these enormous blocks of stone by an excavator of the nineteenth
century, from which we may form a small and very inadequate estimate of
the indomitable zeal and invincible energy of the Assyrians some
twenty-six or twenty-seven centuries ago in quarrying, carving,
transporting and fixing the guardian genii.
_PLATE III_
[Illustration: _From Layard_
EXCAVATIONS AT NIMRÛD (CALAH) IN ASHUR-NAṢIR-PAL’S PALACE]
Calah (Nimrûd) was the capital of Assyria for 220 years (885-668), but
at the close of that period she had to yield her pre-eminence to
Nineveh, which Sennacherib rebuilt and which was the capital of the
empire from his time till the end of the chapter, i.e. till about 630
B.C. Sennacherib naturally built a palace at his new capital, Nineveh,
and the discovery and excavation of this palace are also due to the
indefatigable efforts of the late Sir Henry Layard and his assistant
Hormuzd Rassam. This palace of Sennacherib occupied the south-west
corner of the northern of the two groups of mounds known as Kouyunjik
which mark the site of ancient Nineveh, Ashur-bani-pal’s (668-626 B.C.)
palace being located immediately to the north of it. Unfortunately
Sennacherib’s palace suffered from fire when the Medes took the city in
606 B.C. in consequence of which most of his wall bas-reliefs are
greatly marred. The complete excavation of this palace was the great
triumph of Layard’s second campaign (1849-1851), and the bas-reliefs
taken from the walls of its seventy or more halls and chambers now form,
in spite of their comparatively bad state of preservation, one of the
most priceless possessions of the British Museum. But one more
epoch-making discovery in the annals of Mesopotamian excavations must be
attributed to this world-renowned excavator.
One day Layard discovered two chambers connected with each other, and
after removing the débris, he found that “to the height of a foot or
more from the floor they were entirely filled with cuneiform tablets of
baked clay, some entire, but the greater part broken into many
fragments.”
In point of fact he had chanced upon part of the library of
Ashur-bani-pal, one of Assyria’s greatest kings; the library appears to
have been stored partly in the northern palace, that of Ashur-bani-pal
proper, and partly in the south-western palace built by Sennacherib; it
was in the latter that the rooms referred to were found; the other half
of this great library of the later Assyrian kings was subsequently
unearthed by Rassam. The contents of these tablets, made of the finest
clay and ranging from one to fifteen inches, are as varied as the
tablets themselves. Some of them contain historical records, others
astronomical reports, or mathematical calculations: there are also
letters of a private and public character, but the majority of the
tablets deal with astrology and medicine, both of which subjects were
intimately connected in the mind of the Babylonian. Prayers,
incantations, psalms and religious texts in general, formed a
considerable part of this library, and as a large proportion of the
“volumes” or tablets are not original works but copies from earlier
Babylonian productions, the value of the library,—now known under the
name of the “Kouyunjik collection,”—for the study of the religious and
mythological conceptions of both the Babylonians and Assyrians is more
than can be adequately estimated. Many of the tablets are bilingual, the
ideographic Sumerian being provided with an Assyrian interlinear
translation, and these, together with other tablets of the collection
containing syllabaries in which the Sumerian value, the Assyrian name,
and sometimes the Assyrian meaning of different signs are given, have
been of the utmost use in the rediscovery of the languages of
Mesopotamia. Layard also visited Babylonia, and began to excavate at
Babylon and Nippur, but his Babylonian operations were not attended with
the extraordinary success of his excavations at Nineveh and Calah.
In 1851 a French expedition was sent out to Babylonia under Fresnel and
Jules Oppert: they secured various relics from the ruined mounds of
Babylon, among which may be especially mentioned a fine collection of
coloured-brick fragments, but unfortunately all was lost through a
mishap on the Tigris in 1855.
In 1852 Rassam succeeded Layard in the field, and at once had to contend
with difficulties resulting from Rawlinson’s concessions to Victor
Place, to whom he had transferred the right of excavating what remained
to be excavated at Kouyunjik, which from Rassam’s point of view fell
within the sphere of British influence, and to which therefore British
excavators had a prior claim. In 1853 Rassam commenced operations at
Ḳalat Sherḳât, but apart from the discovery of two clay prisms inscribed
with the annals of Tiglath-Pileser I (1100-1080 B.C.), the ancient Ashur
did not yield much fruit on this occasion. At Calah, the scene of
Layard’s brilliant triumphs, Rassam discovered E-zida, the temple of
Nebo, the god who vied with Marduk for the first place in the Babylonian
pantheon of later days, and whose name is commemorated in the names of
several of the kings of the first Babylonian empire, as also in three of
those of the second empire, the most familiar of whom is the Biblical
Nebuchadnezzar; six large statues of the god were brought to light, two
of which at all events are by their inscriptions shown to be
contemporaneous with the Assyrian king Adad-nirari III (812-783); a
stele of King Shamshi-Adad II (825-812 B.C.), and the remains of an
inscribed obelisk of Ashur-naṣir-pal complete the list of his principal
finds on this site. But his name will be for ever associated with
Kouyunjik; his first efforts were productive of no very great results
beyond the discovery of a limestone obelisk of Ashur-naṣir-pal covered
with bas-reliefs, and now in the Assyrian Transept of the British
Museum, and a female torso from the palace of Ashur-bêl-kala, king of
Assyria about 1080 B.C. (cf. Pl. XXIV). Rassam however profited by
Victor Place’s omission to make use of the permission accorded to him by
Rawlinson to explore the northern part of Kouyunjik, but at the same
time took the precaution of making his initial operations under the
cover of night. His nocturnal labours were crowned with the greatest
success which the excavators of those days could have—the discovery of a
new palace—and after he was satisfied on this point, the digging was
allowed to proceed during the daytime, as it is a recognized rule that
the discoverer of a new palace has established his claim to the complete
excavation of it, as against the rest of the world. The newly-discovered
palace turned out to be that of Ashur-bani-pal, king of Assyria (668-626
B.C.), in whose reign Assyria attained the height of her power both at
home and abroad, extending her sway even as far as Thebes, the capital
of Upper Egypt, which was taken and sacked by this king in B.C. 666.
But Ashur-bani-pal as well as being a great warrior, was also a great
huntsman, and the bas-reliefs which he caused to be sculptured upon the
walls of his palace at Kouyunjik, in commemoration of his exploits in
the chase, are probably the masterpieces of Assyrian art. They thus
testify not only to the sportsmanship of this king, but also to the
encouragement which he gave to art, while Rassam’s further discovery of
the other half of Ashur-bani-pal’s library has shown that king to have
been an even greater patron of literature than there had hitherto been
reason to suppose.
_PLATE IV_
[Illustration: _Both from Layard_
“FISH-GOD,” KOUYUNJIK
ENTRANCE PASSAGE, KOUYUNJIK]
In the spring of 1854, funds failed and Rassam was in consequence
obliged to return, but shortly afterwards he accepted a political
appointment at Aden. The meanwhile, work had already been commenced in
Babylonia by W. K. Loftus who carried on small excavations at Warka, the
ancient Erech, the ruins of which are the largest in Babylonia, but
though many interesting antiquities were unearthed, none of them are of
an epoch-making character, the slipper-shaped coffins belonging to the
Parthian period, being perhaps the best known. Owing to the fact that
Erech has been occupied during the greater part of its history, i.e.
some 5000 years, it is not a fruitful mine for early antiquities.
Senkereh (Larsa) on the other hand, which has been identified with the
Ellasar of Genesis xiv. 1, seems to have remained more or less
unoccupied after the Persian period, and hence it is a better site for
the exploration and study of the earlier history of Southern
Mesopotamia. Inscribed bricks from Senkereh show that Khammurabi (the
Amraphel of Genesis xiv.?), and the most famous king of the first
dynasty of Babylon, repaired the ancient temple-tower there, as also did
his Neo-Babylonian successor, Nabonidus, some fourteen centuries later,
while the famous Nebuchadnezzar of Old Testament fame had also not
neglected it in his works of restoration. The lower strata of the mound
showed that Ur-Engur, King of Ur, whose reign may probably be assigned
to the latter part of the third millennium B.C., had also made his
presence felt in this ancient city of Larsa. Subsequently Larsa shared
the fate of other early Babylonian cities, and was used as a cemetery:
the tablets found near the coffins apparently belong to a much earlier
date, and were probably found by the grave-diggers to whom their altered
position is to be ascribed. Excavations were also conducted at the same
time at Tell Sifr, which resulted in the discovery of about a hundred
so-called case-tablets (i.e. tablets protected by a clay cover or
envelope), belonging to the time of the first dynasty of Babylon, which
in their turn led to the discovery of a hitherto unknown king of this
dynasty, Samsu-iluna, the successor of Khammurabi.
When Loftus was excavating at Warka at the beginning of 1854, J. E.
Taylor, the Vice-Consul at Basra, undertook excavations on behalf of the
British Museum at Muḳeyyer, the site of the ancient city of Ur. He
commenced operations on what appeared at the time, and what ultimately
turned out to be, the principal building of the city, the temple of the
Moon-god Sin, in the four corners of which he discovered four clay
cylinders, and also another barrel-shaped cylinder the inscription of
which is of even greater importance than those of the corner-cylinders.
We learn that Ur-Engur, King of Ur, built the temple, that his son Dungi
repaired it, and that Nabonidus the last King of Babylon restored it
some two thousand years later. These foundation-cylinders of Nabonidus
proved of great historical interest, the inscription on each of them
concluding with a prayer for Bêl-shar-uṣur, the King’s son and heir, the
Belshazzar of Daniel v., who was in command of Babylon at the time of
the capture of the city by Cyrus. Taylor also conducted excavations on
other Babylonian sites, the most important of which was Abû Shahrein,
the ancient Eridu whose god Ea was one of the most illustrious as well
as one of the most time-honoured gods in Babylonia. Its ruins are
smaller than those of Ur, but they contain the remains of a
temple-tower, consisting of two storeys, which Taylor laid bare. From
the inscribed bricks recovered, the identification of this site with the
ancient Eridu was established.
Towards the end of the year 1854, Sir Henry Rawlinson commenced
excavating Birs-Nimrûd, the Borsippa of antiquity; he commenced digging
at the four corners of what ultimately proved to be the famous E-zida,
the temple of Nebo, in search of clay cylinders such as had been found
at the corners of other Babylonian buildings; he recovered two such
foundation-cylinders which turned out to be duplicates, together with
fragmentary parts of other cylinders, all of which had been deposited
there by Nebuchadnezzar.
Soon after Rassam’s return from Assyria in the year 1854, Loftus entered
the service of the Trustees of the British Museum, and was sent out to
continue the excavation of Kouyunjik. Loftus ably followed up the work
of his predecessor; new reliefs were brought to light, the most
celebrated of which perhaps is that of Ashur-bani-pal and his queen
reclining at meat in the garden (cf. Pl. XXI), but again though the
spirit was willing, the funds were weak, and Loftus had to abandon all
hope of completing the excavation of the palace of Assyria’s most famous
king.
The abundant harvest, yielded by these numerous excavations in
Mesopotamia, and stored away in the Museums, afforded a supply of
material copious enough to occupy the intellectual acumen of the savants
for some time to come, while the general public whose interest in these
archæological expeditions depended on the tangible results forthcoming,
were inclined to await the decipherment and publication of the
accumulated mass of clay tablets, monuments and stelæ already to hand,
before furnishing the necessary funds for any fresh expeditions, and it
was not till 1873 that George Smith, the able assistant of Sir Henry
Rawlinson, whose discovery of the Babylonian account of the Deluge had
alike won for him great fame, and also kindled again the enthusiasm of
the public in the cause of excavation, was enabled, thanks to the
munificence of the proprietors of the “Daily Telegraph,” to personally
conduct an expedition to Mesopotamia. In the January of that year Smith
set out for Mosul, but on his arrival, he found to his dismay that the
requisite firmân had not as yet been granted by the Turkish Government,
and he accordingly journeyed southward, examining the ruined mounds of
Nimrûd and Ḳalat Sherḳât on the way. In northern Babylonia he spent but
a short time which he employed in visiting the sites of Babylon,
Borsippa (Birs-Nimrûd) and other ancient ruins, but by the beginning of
April, he obtained the necessary permission to excavate in Assyria, and
accordingly returned at once to Mosul. His attention was first of all
directed to Nimrûd, the scene of so many of Layard’s triumphs, but his
predecessors in the field had reaped their harvest to the full, and the
gleanings which remained were poor and meagre.
In the following month he transferred the seat of his operations to
Kouyunjik, with a view to discovering the remainder of Ashur-bani-pal’s
library. The work was far from easy owing to the complete state of
confusion in which the ruins then were, partly owing to the work of
earlier excavators, partly owing to the builders of the bridge at Mosul
who had made use of the remains of Assyria’s ancient buildings for the
construction of the bridge, and partly owing to the instability of some
of Layard’s tunnels, which had the meanwhile collapsed. Here too, the
harvest was past and the summer of Assyrian excavations was ended, but
the object which the “Daily Telegraph” proprietors had in view was
realized in the discovery of another fragment of the Babylonian account
of the Deluge, which proved to fill in the chief lacuna in the story.
Smith had entertained the hope that this all-important discovery would
be an inducement to his financiers to grant an additional sum for the
continuation of the work, but they declined. Smith accordingly had
reluctantly to set his face westward and return to London, but before
the year was out he was on his way back to the Orient, the Trustees of
the British Museum having voted £1000 for another expedition thither.
He arrived at Mosul on New Year’s Day 1874, and recommenced his quest
for tablets, but the time at his disposal was short, his firmân expiring
in the ensuing March; this notwithstanding, in the three months spent at
Kouyunjik on these two expeditions, he brought to light some three
thousand tablets dealing with a variety of different subjects, and
providing invaluable material for the student of Babylonian and Assyrian
astronomy, theology and chronology. To him is due not only the
rediscovery of the Babylonian story of the Flood, but also of portions
of the Creation legends, and of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero of
Babylonian folk-lore, while to the student of Old Testament History, his
discovery of Sargon’s own account of his campaign against the city of
Ashdod recorded in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah is of paramount
importance. In the spring of 1876 Smith conducted his third and last
expedition to Assyria, under the auspices of the British Museum, the
value of whose collections he had already so greatly enhanced. But he
arrived to find the cholera rampant all over the country, and confusion
and disorder reigned everywhere. To excavate under such circumstances
was an impossibility, but Smith spared no effort in his futile endeavour
to overcome the impossible, boldly facing all dangers and difficulties,
but he ultimately succumbed to the disastrous effects of climate and
exposure, and died at Aleppo in August 1876, a martyr to the cause of
science. George Smith was not only an excavator, but also a scholar, and
his scholastic achievements are the more praise-worthy, when it is
recollected that he was practically a self-educated man, who by dint of
his extraordinary perseverance and indomitable will succeeded where
other men of perhaps greater ability failed, and who on that account
alone is entitled to the prominent place which he occupies in the annals
of Assyriology.
Soon after the death of George Smith in 1876, the Trustees of the
British Museum requested Rassam to resume his long-abandoned labours in
Assyria, and after some unavoidable delay, operations were commenced in
January 1878. The work was greatly facilitated by the presence of Sir
Henry Layard as British special representative at Constantinople, for
the latter having always been on friendly terms with the Turkish
Government, was consequently able to secure concessions which might well
have been denied to anyone else. Rassam’s marching orders were
sufficiently explicit, he was sent out to continue the excavation of
Nineveh, but his heart was bent on the discovery of palaces and temples
rather than on the comparatively unexciting task of searching for
tablets, the importance or non-importance of which could never be
determined off-hand, without a detailed study of the contents. His
ambition was satisfied shortly after his arrival: a year before his
resumption of the work of Assyrian exploration two portions of a bronze
door-panel covered with figures and cuneiform characters had been sent
to him by a friend, and immediately on his return to Assyria he made
enquiries as to where these pieces of worked metal had been unearthed.
He soon discovered that they formed part of a large bronze door-panel
discovered quite accidentally by a peasant in a mound, some fifteen
miles east of Mosul, called Balâwât. Accordingly, his immediate desire
was to discover the remainder of this unique monument of ancient
metallurgy, and with that end in view he determined to explore the
Balâwât mound. He discovered that the site had been used as a cemetery
by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and was consequently outside
the limits of his firmân, but disregarding the risk of a collision with
the authorities and the still more imminent risk of inciting the native
population to open resistance, for no people civilized or uncivilized
are in the habit of passively acquiescing in the disinterment of their
dead, he determined to hazard everything in pursuit of his prize.
Success attended his efforts, and very soon after the cutting of the
first trenches, fragments of bronze plates similar to those which had
previously come to light, were unearthed. In the course of a short time,
the remaining panels were duly restored to the light of day: these
panels had once upon a time decorated the wooden gates of a large
building, to which they were affixed. The scenes portrayed thereon
represent incidents in the life and campaigns of Shalmaneser II (860-825
B.C.), the successor of Ashur-naṣir-pal, and the first Assyrian king who
is known to have come into immediate contact with Israel. In the course
of his excavation of the mound, he came across the ruins of a small
temple, and a large coffer made of marble containing two tablets made of
the same material and bearing inscriptions of Ashur-naṣir-pal. Rassam’s
work at Kouyunjik and Nimrûd was also far from fruitless, though Nimrûd
certainly failed to yield a harvest in any way comparable to that of
bygone days, a few bas-reliefs, a number of clay tablets and some
enamelled tiles practically comprising all that Nimrûd contributed to
the study of Assyrian antiquity on this occasion. So too at Kouyunjik,
clay inscriptions were the chief and indeed practically the only fruits
of the excavations carried on by Rassam during his four expeditions
(1878-1882). The most epoch-making of these inscriptions consisted in a
ten-sided baked clay prism containing the annals of Ashur-bani-pal, and
four barrel-shaped cylinders inscribed with an account of Sennacherib’s
various campaigns. Rassam further attempted the complete exploration of
Nebi Yûnus, the second large mound which marks the site or part of the
site of ancient Nineveh, but he did not meet with the success which his
indefatigable efforts deserved, owing to the innate factiousness and
aptitude for intrigue which lie dormant in the Oriental breast even at
the best of times, and which on this occasion so far from being dormant,
showed themselves in all their pristine vigour, the result of which was
the cessation of Rassam’s labours, and the final dissipation of all his
hopes.
_PLATE V_
[Illustration: _Déc. en Chald., Plate 53, ii_
DOORWAY AT TELLÔ, ERECTED BY GUDEA; ON THE LEFT A LATER BUILDING OF
SELEUCID PERIOD]
[Illustration: _Déc. en Chald., Plate 54_
SOUTH-EASTERN FAÇADE OF UR-NINÂ’S BUILDING AT TELLÔ]
Meanwhile excavations were also going on in Babylonia, excavations
moreover which were destined to usher in a new era of Babylonian
exploration, and which proved of incalculable value both to the
archæologist, and also to the student of early art. In the spring of
1877, some few months before Rassam’s return to Assyria after an
interval of a quarter of a century, Ernest de Sarzec, the French
Vice-Consul at Basra, started tentative operations at the ruined mounds
of Tellô, whither his attention had been directed by J. Asfar, a native
Christian, and formerly a dealer in antiquities. Tellô had already won
for itself a name as a site likely to repay the labour entailed in its
methodical excavation, in consequence of the discovery of inscribed
cones and bricks in its ruins, and needless to say, it has more than
lived up to its early reputation, for of all the ancient sites of
Babylonian civilization, Tellô has yielded by far the richest harvest of
material for the reconstruction of Sumerian history, and the systematic
study of Sumerian art and culture. It would be impossible here to
chronicle all the far-reaching results of De Sarzec’s immortal work, and
we must therefore content ourselves with a notice of the more important
of his discoveries. On his very first visit to Tellô he was fortunate
enough to find a portion of a dolerite statue lying at the foot of one
of the mounds, from which he correctly inferred that the statue itself
must have originally occupied a position in some large building, the
ruins of which he assumed to be lying concealed within the mound in
question. He accordingly commenced excavating the mound, and very
shortly discovered that it contained a building of no small dimensions,
erected upon a large platform of crude, or sun-dried bricks: the objects
which he unearthed comprised a large statue of dolerite bearing an
inscription of Gudea, priest-king of Lagash about 2450 B.C., inscribed
door-sockets, sculptures and vases, copper statuettes of a votive
character, and last but most important of all, the first fragments of
the Vulture stele of Eannatum, one of the most famous works of early
Babylonian art, both in regard to its antiquity and also in regard to
the manner in which it illustrates not only the artistic but also the
military operations of the Sumerians at this remote period (cf. Pl.
XII). In his next two campaigns (1880-81) he systematically excavated
the building in the mound generally known as “A,” in the course of which
he discovered some nine or ten dolerite statues, numerous statuettes,
and a stone vase of Narâm-Sin, son of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade, who
probably lived some few centuries before Gudea. The building itself,
which in the main belongs to the Parthian-period, but in which part of
the old palace of Gudea had been incorporated is briefly discussed on
page 149. But as Prof. Hilprecht[21] truly says, the dolerite statues of
Gudea “will always remain the principal discovery connected with De
Sarzec’s name,” famous alike for the animation and life with which they
are inspired, and also for the skill and dexterity which these early
Babylonians display in their treatment of the hardest stones. Among
other valuable or rather invaluable finds may be mentioned the
well-known silver vase of Entemena (cf. Fig. 45), the carved mace-head
of Mesilim, an enormous copper spear-head, and some bas-reliefs of
Ur-Ninâ, the founder of the First Dynasty of Lagash. In mound “B,” De
Sarzec’s excavations not only laid bare the building of Ur-Ninâ (cf. Pl.
V) but also revealed the remains of a yet earlier structure lying
beneath the edifice of this ancient ruler, and resting on a pavement
some 16 feet below Ur-Ninâ’s platform. Copper statuettes and stone
bas-reliefs of a most archaic character were also brought to light on
this occasion.
In 1889 De Sarzec left Babylonia, not to return till 1894, when he
renewed his excavations in mound “B.” Two wells and a watercourse of
Eannatum’s time were discovered, while among the small relics of this
long-forgotten age were various pieces of shell carved with pictures of
trees and animals. It would be altogether impossible to over-estimate
the debt which both the historian of early Babylonia, and the student of
early Mesopotamian art owe to the work of that distinguished excavator;
if to Layard, Botta, and Place is due the opening up of the book of
Assyria’s ancient history, and the breaking of the seals that had kept
that book closed for so long a period, to De Sarzec we owe the recovery
of an even earlier page in the history of human life and progress. The
last quarter of the 19th century which embraced the period of De
Sarzec’s extraordinary activity in the archæological field (the first of
his expeditions being conducted in 1877 and the last in 1900) will
remain for all time memorable for the epoch-making discoveries in
Babylonia, discoveries which posterity will for ever associate with the
name of the illustrious French excavator.
_PLATE VI_
[Illustration: _Déc. en Chald., Pl. 56, ii_
REMAINS OF A STELE IN A BUILDING UNDER THAT OF UR-NINÂ]
[Illustration: _Déc. en Chald., Pl. 57, ii_
THE WELL OF EANNATUM]
The meanwhile Rassam, had used to the utmost the facilities granted to
him under the generous terms of the 1878 firmân, and had covered as much
ground and visited as many sites as possible, though whether science
would have gained more by the systematic exploration of a few mounds
than by the ransacking of many is a question which would probably have
to be answered in the affirmative. In 1879, he commenced operations in
Babylonia, the ruined mounds of Babylon and Borsippa being the first to
receive his attention. On his arrival he found a number of Arabs busily
engaged in extracting building material from the Babil mound, and in the
course of their digging they came upon four wells, some 140 feet deep,
and made of blocks of red granite, each block being about 3 feet high,
and fitted to the adjoining block with an extraordinary degree of
precision. From the general appearance of the mound as well as from the
magnitude of the ruined walls which it covered, Rassam came to the
conclusion arrived at by Rich nearly a century before, and accepted by
Hilprecht some years later, that to Babil we must look for the
world-renowned hanging gardens of Diodorus and Pliny.
Rassam’s trenches on the Ḳasr mound were attended with no important
results, but his work at the Jumjuma mound in the South,—so called from
the name of the modern village now situated there,—yielded a rich
harvest of tablets, mostly of a commercial character. Borsippa in like
manner responded to the appeal made to it by the spade of Rassam, many
tablets being recovered, while a large part of the renowned temple of
E-zida, dedicated to the god Nebo, once again saw the light of day: among
the smaller relics, the recovery of a bronze step of the famous
Nebuchadnezzar is deserving of special mention, and also a baked clay
cylinder of the time of Antiochus Soter 270 B.C., the latter being,
according to Hilprecht, “the last royal document composed in the Old
Babylonian writing and language.” But perhaps Rassam’s most valuable
contribution to Assyriology was the identification of the site of
ancient Sippar. Many unsuccessful attempts had previously been made to
locate this city, so frequently mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions,
and already George Smith had tentatively suggested the mound of Abû
Habba, located about thirty miles north of the City of Babylon, as its
possible site, but to Rassam we owe the actual identification of the
site of this old centre of the worship of Shamash the Sun-god in the
Babylonian plain. The ruins of Abû Habba are low but extensive, the
longest of the ancient city-walls measuring some 1400 yards, while on
the western side the remains of an old ziggurat, or temple-tower are
still to be seen. Rassam’s excavations on this site were abundantly
successful, the most important of his discoveries in the ancient
building with which he was principally concerned, being the famous stone
tablet of Nabû-aplu-iddina, king of Babylonia, about 870 B.C. The
inscription which records the restoration of the temple of the Sun-god
by that king is surmounted on the obverse side by a magnificent
bas-relief representing the worship of the Sun-god (cf. Pl. XIV and p.
205). The recovery of this remarkable tablet, apart from the value
attaching to it as a work of art and a historical document, meant
further the identification of one of the earliest sites of Mesopotamian
civilization, and the rediscovery of the time-honoured shrine of
Shamash. Among the other inscriptions unearthed on this occasion, the
large clay cylinders of Nabonidus (555-538 B.C.), the last king of the
Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, are of paramount importance. Allusion has
already been made to the tradition recorded by Nabonidus on his cylinder
regarding the date of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade, and his son Narâm-Sin,
and also to the archæological evidence calculated to diminish the
historical value of Nabonidus’ record (cf. p. 5). Rassam reconnoitred
many other sites in Babylonia, notably that of Tellô, from which he
recovered a few objects, including a number of tablets and two
gate-sockets inscribed with the name of Gudea, during his swift and
somewhat stealthy visit in the early part of 1879. But the three great
triumphs of the excavator whose long career came to its natural end in
1910, were the identification of Sippar’s long-forgotten site, the
discovery of the bronze gates at Balâwât, and last but far from least,
the unearthing of Ashur-bani-pal’s northern palace at Nineveh, and the
disclosure of the priceless relics of art and literature which it was
found to contain.
Meanwhile other nations besides the French and the English were
preparing themselves for the work so remarkably commenced, and so full
of promise for the future. Germany was slow to move, but thanks to the
munificence of Mr. L. Simon, an expedition was sent out to the Orient in
the autumn of 1886, under the auspices of the Royal Prussian Museums of
Berlin, and under the directorship of B. Moritz, R. Koldewey and L.
Meyer. But in spite of the tardiness of German activity in the field of
exploration, it must never be forgotten that to Friedrich Delitzsch
belongs the unique honour and glory of having placed Assyriology upon a
scientific basis, and in a real sense that distinguished scholar may be
regarded as the father of that science. At the same time Delitzsch’s
predecessor Schrader deserves a special mention, as being the first to
lecture in Germany on this subject, and to whose lectures Delitzsch and
other scholars doubtless owed much. The 1886 expedition commenced
operations early in 1887 at the ruins of El-Hibba and Surghul, two
mounds situated close to each other to the north-east of Tellô, which
resulted in the discovery of buildings innumerable, mostly of a private
character; the small relics yielded by the German excavations on these
two sites were for the most part considerably damaged by fire which had
played much havoc in both places.
But the chief point of interest in regard to the excavations at El-Hibba
and Surghul was the discovery of a number of early graves. Many of the
bodies had been burnt, from which Koldewey inferred that cremation[22]
was one of the ways in which the Sumerians of antiquity disposed of
their dead. Many of the inscriptions recovered were published by the
lately deceased Dr. Messerschmidt. The tablets in question include texts
belonging both to first and second Dynasties of Lagash (Tellô). One of
the tablets unearthed at Surghul and written by Gudea, the most famous
ruler of the Second Dynasty of Lagash, showed that both El-Hibba and
Surghul acknowledged Gudea as their suzerain-overlord.
At about the same time, the excavating spirit in America was also
gradually fanning itself into life, and to-day America is doing more
archæological work than any other country in the world.
The ancient city of Nippur had long been known as one of the most famous
centres of Babylonian religion, and of the worship of the great god
En-lil, and it was accordingly to this city that the Americans first
directed their attention, and it was here that they made those
epoch-making discoveries which have won for them so prominent a place in
the history of Mesopotamian excavation, and that in spite of all the
controversies which have arisen out of those discoveries. The
Americans had indeed sent out an expedition to Babylonia as early as
1884 under the directorship of Dr. W. Hayes Ward of the New York
“Independent,” but the object for which it was sent was general
exploration rather than for actual excavation. The first expedition
(1888-89) to Nippur, which was organized chiefly by Prof. J. P. Peters,
who was supported by Dr. Wm. Pepper, Provost Harrison, Messrs. E. W.
Clay, C. H. Clark, W. W. Frazier, and others, was chiefly tentative in
character, and served rather to show the magnitude of the work to be
accomplished than to achieve any definite and practical results. Peters
was the director of the first and second (1889-90) expeditions, while
Prof. R. F. Harper and Prof. H. V. Hilprecht were appointed
Assyriologists to the first expedition, Mr. Field being the architect.
The first expedition was engaged in excavating for two months and nine
days, while the second excavated for three months and eleven days. Dr.
Haynes was the field-director of the third expedition (1893-96), and
remained at the mounds of Nippur for nearly three years without a break.
The fourth expedition (1898-1900) was conducted by Hilprecht as
scientific director, Haynes as field-director, and Messrs. C. S. Fisher
and H. V. Geere as architects, and during the last campaign excavations
were carried on for some sixteen months, and led to many important
discoveries.
The first expedition, as stated, was of a preparatory character, and
consequently its results cannot be estimated merely by the number of
discoveries actually made. During the short two months in which the
excavators continued operations, a large building characterized by
enormous buttresses and two round towers was brought to light. The
building—without doubt a fortress—is of comparatively late date,
belonging to the Parthian period, and was built upon the ancient temple
of En-lil and its staged tower.
Bint-el-Amir, the mound which contained the ruins of this renowned
temple, was conical in shape and covered a surface of more than eight
acres.[23] A scientific examination of a mound of such gigantic
proportions was in itself no light task, while the exploration of the
buried temple was a work of pioneering, none of the large Babylonian
temples having as yet been completely excavated.
The excavation of this temple proved that the stage-tower “did not
occupy the central part of the temple-court,” and though it was
undoubtedly the most conspicuous feature of the temple-area, it was not
actually the temple itself: the latter is to be found in a large
building adjacent to the stage-tower. This building is at all events as
early as the time of the Shar-Gâni-sharri and his son Narâm-Sin. The
stage-tower, which probably never had more than three stages, owed its
latest form to Ur-Engur, king of Ur (_circ._ 2400), though
Ashur-bani-pal, King of Assyria nearly two thousand years after, had
occasion to repair and restore it. The bricks of Ashur-bani-pal, which
are intermingled with those of Ur-Engur, bear the stamped inscription,
“To Bel, the King of the lands, his King, Ashur-bani-pal, his favourite
shepherd, the powerful King, King of the four quarters of the earth,
built E-kur, his beloved temple, with baked bricks.” Four feet behind the
facing-wall of Ur-Engur, large bricks characteristic of Narâm-Sin’s time
were discovered, while the bricks of which the innermost core of the
tower was formed belong to the pre-Sargonic and early Sumerian
days.[24]
The extreme antiquity of the lower strata in this mound may be gauged
from the fact that Haynes in descending into the pre-Sargonic period
below the pavement of Narâm-Sin, penetrated through some thirty feet of
ruins before he arrived at the virgin soil.
_PLATE VII_
[Illustration: EXCAVATIONS IN THE TEMPLE COURT: NIPPUR
(_From C. S. Fisher’s “Excavations at Nippur,” by permission_)]
One of the most interesting discoveries in the early strata was a
vaulted drain (cf. Fig. 15 and p. 170) which purports to be the earliest
Babylonian arch known, while a large number of terra-cotta pipes as well
as a terra-cotta drain were also brought to light. The smaller objects
include votive stelæ (cf. Fig. 25), tablets, cylinder-seals and
terra-cotta vases (cf. Figs. 92, 93). But a large number of relics
contained in the strata above the level of Narâm-Sin were found to be
pre-Sargonic in spite of their position in the mound. They included
door-sockets, fragments of vases, slabs, statues, and more than fifty
brick-stamps, bearing an inscription of Sargon or Narâm-Sin.
But the discovery and partial excavation of the Temple “Library”[25] or
“archive” at Nippur have produced the most far-reaching and epoch-making
results, for thereby literally thousands of tablets have been
unearthed, affording an amount of new material for Assyriological study
seldom paralleled in the history of Babylonian exploration.
The greater part of the excavated material[26] is scientific or literary
in character. The majority of the tablets are unbaked, and have
consequently suffered from the detrimental effects of time, climate and
other influences, among which may be particularly mentioned the havoc
wrought by the invading Elamites during the third millennium B.C. In
consequence of this, the decipherer’s task is much more arduous than it
would otherwise have been, but in spite of the vandalism of the Elamites
and the work of destruction which they sought to, and to some extent did
accomplish, the archæologist probably owes the preservation of these
tablets to their burial in the ruined débris of which they formed a
part. These unbaked clay tablets seem to have been generally arranged on
shelves made of clay and about 1-1/2 feet wide, while they contain every
variety of “literature,” treating of astronomy, astrology, mathematics,
geography, history, medicine, grammar and religion. One of the tablets
gives us valuable information regarding the temple itself; the name of
the great hall of the temple was Emakh, and though En-lil and his consort
were without doubt the principal deities of the place, there were some
twenty-four shrines dedicated to other gods, just as was the case in
E-sagila, the great Temple of Marduk at Babylon, recently excavated by
the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft.
The late Assyrian, neo-Babylonian and Persian periods are also well
represented in the enormous accumulation of cuneiform tablets recovered
from this site, among the most interesting of which are the “Murashû
Tablets,” seven hundred or more of which were unearthed in a ruined
building some twenty feet below the surface. The care with which these
tablets had been made, and the numerous seal-impressions which they
bore, at once attracted Hilprecht’s attention. They proved to belong to
the business archives of Murashû Sons, brokers and bankers at Nippur,
who flourished in the time of the Persian kings, Artaxerxes I (464-424
B.C.) and Darius II (423-405 B.C.). But apart from ordinary banking
business, the firm acted as an agent for the Persian kings. Apparently
the kings of Persia were in the habit of farming out the taxes like the
Roman emperors of later days, and Murashû Sons undertook to levy the
king’s taxes from their Babylonian subjects in Nippur and elsewhere. The
interest of these tablets is not however confined to the information
which they afford us in regard to the mode of conducting business at
that period; but they are of even greater value for the insight which
they give us into the ordinary life of the people.
It was during the last expedition that the city-walls were carefully
examined, and also those which enclosed the temple-area, the name of the
former being Nîmit-Marduk and the name of the latter Imgur-Marduk.
Access to the temple was gained by a gate in the southern wall, which
was at all events as old as the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade. The
“Abullu Rabu,” the great gate of the city, was situated to the
north-east of the Temple; its length is 35 feet, by which we know that
that was the thickness of the wall itself, though unfortunately nothing
remains of the old city-wall at this point, the crude bricks of which it
was composed having been removed and used for building materials in the
later Nippur structures. The gateway itself consisted of a central road
some 13 feet wide used for ordinary traffic, on either side of which
was a raised passage for pedestrians, while the whole structure was
built of thumb-marked bricks, and is therefore pre-Sargonic. Under the
central roadway a foundation consisting of massive blocks of stone laid
in bitumen was discovered. Some distance north of this gate a large part
of the old city wall was discovered, belonging in the main to the times
of Narâm-Sin and Ur-Engur respectively, the work of the latter king
being of course superimposed on that of Narâm-Sin. Traces of some
hundred feet of the wall of Narâm-Sin are still visible, and also a
water-conduit consisting of baked bricks laid in bitumen. The wall was
rebuilt by Ur-Engur, who adorned its outer face with a series of panels
11 feet in width, and placed at intervals of 30 feet, of which some
seventeen were found in their original positions; the excavators were
unable to ascertain the thickness of the wall, but in one place it was
found preserved to the thickness of over 25 feet. Into the inner face of
this later wall were built a number of small chambers in which were
found relics of varying interest; a description of the later Parthian
fortress, and of the little Parthian palace discovered on the other side
of the Shatt-en-Nîl Canal, would treat of a period with which this
volume does not profess to deal, and the reader must accordingly refer
to the standard works of some of the excavators themselves (Peters,
Hilprecht or Fisher) for information concerning these later buildings,
as also for details regarding all the structures and discoveries at
Nippur. Sufficient however has perhaps been recounted to indicate the
extraordinary importance with which the American expeditions to Nippur
have been fraught, though even to-day we are not in a position to
adequately appreciate the full value of the self-sacrificing labours of
the excavators, and the ample results with which those labours have been
and are daily being attended.
Meanwhile, the Turks themselves, alive to the importance of the
monuments and relics recovered from the ruined mounds which ever since
Rassam’s departure from Baghdad in 1882 had been exploited with
considerable success by the agents of antiquity-dealers, determined to
send out an expedition of their own. The expedition was placed under the
directorship of Father Scheil, a young French Assyriologist, and Bedri
Bey, the Ottoman Inspector of Antiquities, who commenced operations in
the spring of 1894 at Abû Habba (Sippar), the site which had been the
particular hunting ground of the dealers, and which therefore was
calculated to be worth scientifically exploring. The most important
result of the expedition was the discovery of about seven hundred
tablets, mostly letters or contracts belonging to the time of the first
Babylonian dynasty, and especially to the reign of Samsu-iluna, the son
and successor of Khammurabi. In 1891 Dr. Wallis Budge excavated the
neighbouring mound of Dêr and recovered many texts, etc.; these are now
in the British Museum.
On March 26th, 1899, Dr. Koldewey, whose excavations at El-Hibba and
Surghul had been more than successful, commenced operations on the Ḳasr
mound at Babylon, the mound which marks the site of the world-famed
palace of Nebuchadnezzar.
The German excavations at Babylon undertaken by Koldewey, Meissner,
Andrae and M. L. Meyer, have not indeed yielded so rich a harvest as was
expected from the important part which that city played in the history
of the country, from the time of Khammurabi onwards, for Sennacherib’s
destruction of the city in 689 B.C. had been carried out with such
rigour that little was left to tell the tale of Babylon’s greatness
before his time, that little consisting chiefly of contract-tablets
belonging to the time of the First Dynasty, and a number of pot-burials
belonging to a yet earlier period. But however greatly we must regret
the dearth of material yielded by Babylon’s ruined mounds, for the
reconstruction of her earlier history, of the period during which she
was at the height of her power,—the period of the great king
Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B.C.)—the German excavations have afforded us
much valuable information. The Ḳasr mound which was found to conceal the
remains of Nebuchadnezzar’s famous palace, the palace in which he lived
during the greater part of his reign and the same one in which Alexander
the Great died, seems to have been a new suburb of Babylon, and
contained nothing earlier than the seventh century. The massive
city-wall, which in all was found to be some 136 feet in thickness, was
discovered, and the palace of Nebuchadnezzar in part excavated, but the
two most important discoveries of the summer of 1899 were a stele of
dolerite and a sandstone bas-relief. The stele of dolerite is 4 feet 2
inches high, and on the smooth side of it the figure of a Hittite god is
depicted, while the reverse contains a Hittite inscription. The god has
his two arms raised and brandishes a trident in one hand, a large hammer
in the other, while a sword hangs from his side. A long plait of hair
hangs down his back, his head-gear being a Phrygian cap, his footwear the
pointed shoes so characteristically Hittite, and his tunic, decorated
with a fringe, reaches just to the knees. The second discovery consisted
in a sandstone slab rather over 4 feet long and about 4-1/2 feet in
height, showing in relief a group of figures of which the two most
noteworthy are the god Adad, armed with two flashes of lightning in
either hand, and the goddess Ishtar.
In the following year Koldewey was able to give more detailed
information regarding the general plan and arrangement of
Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. The palace contained a great number of rooms,
arranged around larger central courts. The walls of the various
buildings rest upon a massive foundation composed of bricks and
fragments. Upon this foundation-platform a rampart-wall running east to
west, over 56 feet thick and pierced with a single gateway, was
discovered, while at the corner of this wall, another building, older
than the wall itself, was brought to light. This building was made of
burnt brick and asphalt, the bricks themselves bearing an Aramaic
inscription and a walking lion.
On the east front of the Ḳasr in Babylon the paving-stones of the street
are made of white limestone, or red and white breccia, but the only part
of the street paving found in its original position is the layer of
burnt bricks covered with asphalt which served as a foundation for the
stone pavement above. The enormous limestone blocks measure over 3 feet
square and about 13-1/2 inches thick. On some of these limestone blocks
an inscription was found giving Nebuchadnezzar’s name, and stating that
he had paved the Babel street for the procession of the great lord
Marduk with “mountain-stone” slabs. The breccia slabs, none of which
have been recovered complete, were apparently of more modest dimensions,
being only about 26 inches square and 8 inches thick. There is no doubt
that these are the paving-stones wherewith Nebuchadnezzar paved the
“Processional street of Marduk” the locus of which is now certain.
Breccia had been used for building purposes before the time of
Nebuchadnezzar: thus we know that Nabopolassar, the founder of the
Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, had used it for paving the processional street,
while at the Amran mound a block of breccia was found bearing an
inscription of Sennacherib.
The discovery of the processional street of Marduk was of the greatest
importance in regard to the topography of ancient Babylon, while the
confirmation of the theory held by Delitzsch and others—hitherto based
chiefly on inferences drawn from Nebuchadnezzar’s texts—in the
identification of Marduk’s temple, E-sagila, with the old Babylonian
building concealed within the Amran mound, during the excavations of May
1900, was of even greater moment.
Koldewey was further fortunate enough to discover a temple erected in
honour of the goddess Nin-makh (Great Lady), who was at all events in
later times identified with Ishtar.[27] The importance of the discovery
lay in the completeness of the building, and not in the magnitude of its
dimensions, for it is quite small. During the excavation of this temple
a well-preserved Assyrian cylinder was found, on which Ashur-bani-pal
records that he has newly built Nin-makh’s temple in Babylon, in return
for which act of piety he clearly expected a rich reward, for he begs
the “sublime Nin-makh to look down compassionately” on his pious deeds,
to pronounce his prosperity daily before Bêl and Bêlit, to prescribe a
“life of many days as his fate,” and to establish his government firmly.
Another interesting discovery was that of a terra-cotta figure of a naked
goddess, doubtless a relic of the Nin-makh-cult (cf. Fig. 86).
The excavations on the Amran hill revealed the presence of buildings
prior to the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The upper strata of the mound
belong for the most part to the Parthian and Seleucidian times, but at a
depth of 68 feet below the surface of the mound, the floor of a
Babylonian building was uncovered, and the clay walls of this building,
which were over 9 feet thick, were still found in position to a
considerable height. The floor itself was made of burnt bricks covered
with asphalt, apparently only the bricks in the uppermost layer bearing
the impress of Nebuchadnezzar’s stamp, in consequence of which it seems
probable that the foundation of the building was laid before that king’s
time. Underneath the lowest flooring a solid foundation of brick some
6-1/2 feet thick was found. On the uppermost flooring various objects of
interest were brought to light, including a thin plate of gold, a silver
knob, a gold ear-ring, and fragments of engraved shells. But the real
importance of the excavations at the Amran mound centres round the
discovery of Marduk’s famous temple—E-sagila, the meaning of which is
“the house of heaven and earth.” The temple was founded by King Zabum
during the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon (_circ._ 2000 B.C.), the
period, that is to say, during which the city of Babylon became the most
powerful city-state in Southern Mesopotamia. But the supremacy of
Babylon meant the supremacy of Babylon’s god, and the prestige to which
Marduk attained at this time is shown by his identification with Bêl,
the ancient god of Nippur. But some few hundred years afterwards, when
the power and influence of Babylon had decreased, and dominion in the
Mesopotamian Valley had passed to the more warlike Assyrians in the
north, E-sagila and her god suffered with the people of Babylon, the
temple being looted and the god Marduk carried off by Tukulti-Ninib,
King of Assyria (_circ._ 1275 B.C.) Some six centuries later found the
Assyrians still all-powerful, though always engaged in suppressing
rebellions among the discontented Babylonian princes, until at last
Sennacherib resolved to wipe out Babylon from off the face of the earth.
E-sagila shared in the general catastrophe, and but little remains of
the early city or of the temple of her time-honoured god, though
fortunately various documents, vessels and other relics belonging to the
time before Sennacherib escaped that king’s fury, and have been
recovered recently by the German excavators. Esarhaddon however, the
successor of Sennacherib, and one of the most humane of Assyrian
monarchs,—which is not perhaps saying a very great deal—made it his
special business to rebuild the city of Babylon and the temple of her
god, but he did not live to see the realization of his project, and the
completion of the work was thus left to Esarhaddon’s joint successors,
Ashur-bani-pal and Shamash-shum-ukîn. The temple was roofed with cedar
and cypress-wood, and was rich with gold, silver and precious stones.
When all was finished, Marduk’s home-coming was celebrated with great
pomp and splendour, Shamash the sun-god, Ea, Marduk’s venerable father,
Nebo his illustrious son—even Nergal the god of the dead, came to
welcome the exiled deity back. But magnificent as was the reconstruction
of Marduk’s ancient fane by Ashur-bani-pal, Assyria’s mightiest king, it
was surpassed by that of Babylon’s native kings—Nabopolassar (625-604)
and his son Nebuchadnezzar. Ashur-bani-pal does not seem to have rebuilt
the temple-tower, which Sennacherib had of course destroyed, but
Nabopolassar reared once more the lofty stage-tower—the E-temen-an-ki
(“house of the foundations of heaven and earth”), and Nebuchadnezzar his
son carried on the laudable work. He built the walls of the chamber Ekua
of pure gold, while the roof he made of cedar-wood which he covered with
gold and precious stones, the sanctuaries of Nebo and Zarpanit being
treated in the same luxurious manner, while all the sacrificial vessels
seem to have been made of pure gold. Neriglissar (559-556 B.C.) a
successor of Nebuchadnezzar further built four gates to this temple,and
when the city was finally taken by Cyrus, it will be recalled that that
king made obeisance to Marduk, at whose behests he professed to have
taken the city—“He (Marduk) sought out a righteous prince, a man after
his own heart, whom he might take by the hand; and he called his name
Cyrus.”
Various graves were discovered in the course of the excavations at
Babylon, but mostly of a late date. A very interesting sarcophagus was
brought to light in 1910,[28] the “head” end of the terra-cotta cover of
which bore in relief the bearded head of a man with long hair, and an
Egyptian type of face. Two other sarcophagi were found at the same time,
and all of these burials were inside ruined houses.
Of the many other important results attending the labours of Koldewey
and his confrères, the discovery of the ancient canal Arakhtu, the
tracing of its quay-walls, the excavation of the great wall between the
north and south castles, and the clearing of the west wall of the
southern citadel, are especially deserving of mention, while for details
the reader must refer to the _Mitteilungen der Deutschen
Orient-Gesellschaft_.
But Babylon was not the only site in Lower Mesopotamia to receive the
attention of the Germans on this expedition. On June 14th, 1902,
Koldewey, Delitzsch and Baumgarten, with a party of labourers, took a
boat down the Euphrates, arriving eventually at the ruined mounds of
Fâra on the 18th. Digging was commenced in the northern part of the
ruin, and it was very soon evident that the whole site is of very
ancient date, not even the uppermost strata of the mounds containing
anything that can be assigned to a late period. Various implements of
bone and stone, including a number of stone hatchets, as well as saws
and knives made of flint or obsidian, all testified to the antiquity of
its occupation, and as nothing was discovered at a greater depth than 6
to 7 feet, Fâra promised at the outset to be one of the most important
sites for the study of early Sumerian civilization. The ruined mounds of
other long-forgotten cities had indeed yielded relics of the past quite
as old as those excavated at Fâra, but in nearly every case the upper
strata of such mounds were found to contain the remains of a later date
and a more recent occupation; Fâra however stands unique in this
respect, as for some reasons unknown, it appears only to have been
occupied in the earliest period of Babylonia’s history, during which it
undoubtedly “had its day,” but has ever since “ceased to be” until the
German excavators have at last rescued it from permanent oblivion. Among
the smaller objects discovered on this site, was a number of
seal-cylinders, the majority of which were made of alabaster, though
sometimes of shells, but very rarely of the hard stones so frequently
employed in later days. They were found sometimes amid the general
débris, sometimes in the tombs; for the most part they exhibit
battle-scenes, the combatants being either men, beasts, or mythical
monstrosities, as the case may be. The simpler specimens of the pottery
found resemble those unearthed by Koldewey at Surghul, while others were
more elaborately decorated. A few tablets were unearthed, mostly round
in shape, and all of them inscribed in archaic characters. The citizens
of Fâra placed the bodies of their dead either in clay sarcophagi, or
else in reed mats. The clay sarcophagi are oval in shape, and about six
feet in length; the sides are perpendicular, and they are closed with a
clay cover. The corpse was generally found lying on its side with the
legs drawn up embryonic-wise, as was the case in pre-Dynastic Egypt, and
one of the hands is holding to the mouth a cup made of stone, shell,
copper, or clay, an incidental proof of the Babylonian’s belief in the
reality of the life after death even at this remote period. The tombs of
the better classes contain also the implements, weapons and ornaments of
the deceased. The arms include spears, poniards and hatchets made of
“bronze” (?), the jewelry taking the form of chains, the beads of which
are in the case of the more wealthy made of lapis lazuli, and agate,
while the poorer folk had to content themselves with ordinary glass.
Bracelets and rings of silver and bronze were also discovered, together
with “bronze” staffs provided with lapis-points at either end. Among the
tools may be enumerated fishing-hooks and hatchets made of “bronze,”
while colour-boxes made of alabaster or shell were usually buried with
the corpse, and were therefore presumably regarded as toilet requisites
in the life beyond just as in the life which now is. The colours in most
cases were found well preserved, the principal of which were black,
yellow, red and light green. Many stone vessels of varying sizes and
shapes were brought to light, most of them being made of alabaster, in
fact alabaster was used quite extensively on this site, contrary to the
usage of the Babylonians of later days, who seldom employed the softer
stones which their Assyrian neighbours utilized so frequently and for so
many divers purposes. The excavators report that they were unable to
determine whether the sarcophagi or the mat-burials were the older, both
apparently being used synchronously; an assumption that the sarcophagi
were used by the better classes, the mat-interments by the poorer, would
in itself be sufficiently reasonable, but for the awkward fact that the
mat-graves are as richly provided with the accoutrements, ornaments and
implements of the deceased as are the sarcophagi themselves. Very few
sculptures were found, most of them being on alabaster and showing
considerable skill in their general execution. The early part of 1903
was signalized by the discovery of a building made of well-baked bricks,
in the ruined débris of which were discovered a large number of
well-preserved tablets.
Meanwhile excavations had been carried on at the same time at the mound
of Abû Hatab, Koldewey having received a report of the discovery of
inscribed bricks on this site. Operations were commenced here on
December 24th, 1902, and resulted in the discovery of a number of small
buildings, the walls of which were notable for their insubstantiality.
Some of the bricks were found to bear an inscription of Bur-Sin, king of
Ur (_circ._ 2350 B.C.). But Abû Hatab yielded little of interest to the
student of early prehistoric remains. The tombs here consisted for the
most part in two large pots “adjusted with their edges in a horizontal
position,” a form of sarcophagus found also in the early strata at
Babylon and Muḳeyyer (Ur). The corpse lay either on its back or side,
but in both cases it was contracted, this being obviously necessitated
by the limitations of the sarcophagus, as was similarly the case in the
early pot-burials of ancient Egypt. A vessel of clay or copper was
generally found placed near the head of the corpse, doubtless destined
to fulfil a purpose similar to that of the drinking cups found in the
graves at Fâra.
At about this time Andrae, Koldewey’s assistant, completed the
excavation of the temple of Nebo at Birs-Nimrûd (Borsippa), whence Nebo
paid his yearly visit to Marduk on the first day of the New Year.
Koldewey and Andrae did not however confine their attention to the
ruined mounds of Babylonia, but in 1903 commenced excavations at Ḳalat
Sherḳat, the site of Ashur, Assyria’s ancient capital, and the name of
the god from whom Assyria derives her name. As early as 1852 Sir Henry
Layard had conducted excavations on this site, the chief tangible result
of which was the discovery of Tiglath-Pileser I’s clay cylinders, though
fragments of bas-reliefs and other inscriptions were also discovered
here both by Layard and Rassam. Shalmaneser I (_circ._ 1300 B.C.) had
transferred the seat of his government from Ashur to Calah, but his
successor Tukulti-Ninib (_circ._ 1275 B.C.) restored the capital of the
empire to Ashur. The mounds which mark the site of this ancient city are
to a great extent of natural formation (cf. Pl. VIII), thereby differing
from most of the ruined mounds in Mesopotamia, which owe their existence
to artificial formation. From September 1903 to April 1904 operations
were of a tentative character and consisted of trial trenches, but in
April 1904 the Germans commenced excavating the large mound of
mud-brick, the ziggurat, the eastern plateau, and the large court of
Ashur’s temple, part of the fortification-wall also receiving attention,
while the main work centred round the palace-buildings of Shalmaneser I
(_circ._ 1300 B.C.). The great temple of Ashur, built or restored by
Ushpia, an early ruler of the city who antedates Irishum, is situated in
the north-east corner, and it adjoins the palace of Shalmaneser I. The
ziggurat or stage-tower lies to the west-south-west, and the palace of
Ashur-naṣir-pal adjoins the temple of Anu and Adad, which would appear
to be the best preserved building in Ashur. Various other buildings have
been discovered, of which the temple of Nebo and the palace of
Tukulti-Ninib I (_circ._ 1275 B.C.) may be specially mentioned. Numerous
graves were found of various kinds, those with brick walls being
undoubtedly Assyrian. Many valuable historical inscriptions were found,
while the discovery of a wall-decoration consisting of a series of
rosettes was another interesting result. The so-called “Mushlala” of
Adad-nirari I (_circ._ 1325 B.C.), according to whom it formed a part of
the temple of Ashur, was found to be identical with that restored by
Sennacherib with “mountain-stone,” and afterwards repaired by Esarhaddon
(681-668 B.C.) with “pîlu”-stone. The foundations of the building
situated at the southern side of the eastern plateau proved to be of
very great depth, while the plan of the building itself is said to
closely resemble the early Babylonian type. The temple of Ashur the
great lord of Assyria is alluded to by Irishum, king of Assyria (_circ._
2000 B.C.), by Shamshi-Adad who calls himself builder of the temple of
Ashur, by Adad-nirari and by Shalmaneser I. In Shalmaneser I’s reign it
was destroyed by fire, and that king undertook its restoration. An
inscription of Tiglath-Pileser II informs us that he decorated the
temple with enamelled bricks. Some of these inscriptions were found “in
situ” thus fixing the precise locus of Ashur’s famous shrine. The temple
was situated at the extreme north of the city, three of its sides
overlooking the open country and the fourth over-towered by the
ziggurat. Remains of Shalmaneser’s work have been found in the
foundation and pavement constructed by that king, and some of the
enamelled bricks which decorated the buildings of Sargon have also been
recovered, while the pavement of the great court, as well as pieces of
enamelled brick and the clay cones of Tiglath-Pileser II have been
brought to light. The temple itself was originally high above the level
of the street. A second smaller ziggurat was further found, which proved
to be a part of the temple of Anu and Adad, and the work of three
distinct periods has been traced in this structure.[29] Of interesting
relics here unearthed, we may specifically mention a three-pronged
thunderbolt of wood sheathed with gold.
_PLATE VIII_
[Illustration: THE ZIGGURAT AND PALACE OF ASHUR-NAṢIR-PAL: ASHUR
(_By permission of the German Oriental Society_)]
The remains of various palaces have been unearthed including those of
Adad-nirari and Shalmaneser I, and the royal residence of Tukulti-Ninib
has been also excavated. Many tablets were recovered, and a pot
containing 113 unbaked clay tablets was also brought to light: the
tablets are written in a script characteristic of the time of
Tiglath-Pileser I, and are chiefly concerned with receipts for cattle.
Much pottery was unearthed, together with a variety of objects including
some Roman imperial coins of the second century. The northern part of
the city was that which was favoured by the Assyrian kings, and
accordingly contains the remains of several temples and palaces, but the
ruins of private houses are perhaps of even greater interest than the
palaces of kings and the abodes of the gods. They are small in size, but
were evidently carefully drained. Within the houses a number of graves
were discovered, apparently belonging to the same period as the houses
themselves. In many cases the excavators state that they found clear
traces of cremation in the graves. Seven distinctly different kinds of
graves were found at Ashur—vaults, clay sarcophagi, baked clay trays
placed over the corpse, jars, brick graves, potsherd graves, and earth
graves. The vaults[30] are of various shapes and dimensions, are made of
burnt brick, and consist generally of a fairly spacious chamber and an
entrance shaft. The bodies—always more than one in each vault—lay on the
floor in a contracted position, surrounded with drinking vessels of
every description, and in all cases there was a small niche for a lamp.
The clay sarcophagi show even greater varieties, including jars into
which the bodies were pressed, and tubs both high and short into which
the corpse was placed in a seated position, while both of these classes
comprise many different types.
Another class of jar-burial, known as the “capsule,” consisted in two
jars drawn over the feet and head respectively and pressed together till
they met, thus forming a “capsule.” The Brick-graves were practically
Brick-sarcophagi, the graves being built coffin-wise, but few of these
have been found. The Potsherd graves are so called from the use of
potsherds to cover the corpse. Apparently these various methods of
burial coexisted at the same time, and they accordingly cannot be
classified into periods, as is the case to some extent in early Egypt.
Concerning the fortifications of the city, the inscriptions of the
various kings who built, repaired, or rebuilt these, afford us a good
deal of information, but the excavations themselves have not up to the
present told us as much as we could desire. Shalmaneser II’s work of
restoration on the southern wall has been identified by the clay-cones
of that king found in the upper part of the wall, while in some of his
inscriptions Shalmaneser calls himself the builder of the “Dûru” itself.
The quay-wall built by Adad-nirari I, restored by Adad-nirari II, and
later on by Adad-nirari III, has been excavated for nearly 490 yards of
its length; it is built of blocks of limestone and is faced with brick
on the river-side, coherency being added to the whole by an ample
employment of asphalt and clay-mortar. Part of the city-moat built by
Tukulti-Ninib I has also been found, the excavations having further
revealed the restoration of the city-wall, for which Ashur-naṣir-pal was
probably responsible.
The year 1908 saw the excavation of the temple erected in honour of the
god Nebo at Ashur by Sin-shar-ish-kun, the last king of Assyria (_circ._
615 B.C.).[31] The general ground-plan of this late Assyrian temple was
found to correspond to that of the Anu-Adad temple, and also to that of
the temple built by Sargon at Khorsabad.[32] Numerous stelæ and other
monuments of stone were recovered from the ruins of Ashur; they include
a basalt stele of Tukulti-Ninib,[33] a stele of Tiglath-Pileser III, and
another of Ashur-rêsh-ishi II,[34] a limestone stele of Ashur-naṣir-pal,
an alabaster stele with the representation of a king adoring a god and
goddess, which in some way resembles the Bavian relief of
Sennacherib,[35] and fragments of a diorite sculpture[36] with small
figures recalling the style of art characteristic of the Khammurabi
period. The interest of these monuments is chiefly centred in the
inscriptions which throw new light upon the number and order of the
Assyrian kings.
Meanwhile the Americans, whose excavations in Babylonia had been
inaugurated with so much promise, had again taken the field. On
Christmas day 1903 an expedition sent out by the Oriental Exploration
Fund of the University of Chicago, under the directorship of Professor
R. F. Harper (E. J. Banks as field-director) commenced excavations at
Bismâya, the name of a group of mounds situated between the Tigris and
Euphrates, and due south of Bagdad. The mounds are very extensive,
measuring about a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, but their
altitude is very low compared with that of other mounds, such as Erech,
Nippur (cf. Pl. X) or Borsippa. The temple was the first building at
Bismâya to receive attention, partly owing to the fact that it happened
to be concealed beneath one of the loftiest of the Bismayân mounds, and
partly because the general shape of the mound suggested the possible
existence of a stage-tower beneath its ruined débris. Trenches dug on
all sides of the mound towards the centre soon revealed the lower
storey of one of these temple towers, the second storey of which had
disappeared, though some of the burnt bricks which formed its outer
casing were found lying about. The surviving lower stage consisted in
crude bricks and clay, but was provided with a facing of burnt brick
some four feet thick. Many of these casing bricks were inscribed with
the name of Dungi, king of Ur (_circ._ 2400 B.C.). Beneath the bricks of
Dungi was found another layer of burnt bricks, some of which bore the
name of Ur-Engur, Dungi’s immediate predecessor on the throne of Ur. Of
small objects unearthed, the three most interesting were a thin strip of
gold found about two feet below the baked bricks of Dungi, and bearing
the name of the renowned Nârâm-Sin, the son of Shar-Gâni-sharri of
Agade, and the second was a small white marble statuette found at no
great distance from the strip of gold, and conforming to the style of
art characteristic of the age of Narêm-Sin, while the third was another
marble statue belonging to the earliest Sumerian period, and closely
resembling those excavated in the lowest strata at Tellô (Lagash). This
statue (cf. Fig. 32) is probably unique as a statue in the round
belonging to so early a period, and is especially noticeable for the
fact that the arms are in this case entirely free from the body, and
carved altogether in the round.
Just below the place where the gold of Narâm-Sin was recovered, large
bricks about 18 inches square and belonging to the age of
Shar-Gâni-sharri were found, while numerous inscriptions of this same
king were forthcoming from some of the other mounds at Bismâya. Beneath
the large Sargonic bricks there was a layer of thin oblong and
finger-marked bricks, while lower still, some five feet below the
surface, small plano-convex bricks set in bitumen were brought to light.
A great number of vase fragments made of marble, porphyry, granite,
alabaster and onyx, together with innumerable objects made of ivory,
mother of pearl, metal and stone were found round about the temple
tower.
In regard to the temple itself, an entrance was discovered on the
south-east side, the principal remaining features of which were the
marble gate-socket supported on two slabs of pink marble. At the south
corner, an oval-shaped room was brought to light, which was once covered
with a dome-shaped roof. But the base of the temple tower had depths
even below the stratum containing the small plano-convex bricks, which
yet remained to be fathomed.
Some sixteen or seventeen feet below the surface a large metal spike
(cf. Fig. 40) terminating in a lion’s head was recovered, while much
lower still, about thirty-nine to forty feet below the level of the
mound a number of fragments of wheel-made black pottery were revealed.
The date of this wheel-made pottery is of course unknown, but judging
from the depth at which it was found, Dr. Banks, the Field-director of
the expedition, suggests a date of 10,000 B.C. In the same year (1903)
in which these successful excavations were being carried on at Bismâya,
Nineveh, the ruined mounds of which once-famous city had already yielded
such a rich harvest to the great pioneers in the field of Mesopotamian
exploration, received further attention at the hands of the Trustees of
the British Museum, who sent out an expedition under Messrs. L. W. King
and R. C. Thompson, with a view to the further excavation of the
Kouyunjik mound. The principal result of the excavations carried on
there between the years 1903 and 1905 was the discovery of the site of
Nabû’s temple, which had however been so ruthlessly destroyed—presumably
by the Elamites—that no complete plan of the temple could be made.
Meanwhile the excavations at Tellô (Lagash) which had been brought
suddenly to an end by the death of the brilliant French excavator (M. de
Sarzec) in May, 1901, were resumed in January, 1903, under the
directorship of Captain Gaston Cros. The principal fresh discovery made
was a massive fortification wall built by Gudea (_circ._ 2450 B.C.). It
is about thirty-two and a half feet thick, and in places is still in
position to the height of twenty-six feet. Captain Cros also excavated a
large rectangular building, and brought to light various objects of
interest, including implements of flint and copper, together with a
brick-stamp of Narâm-Sin, which latter may be regarded as evidence that
building operations were carried on in Lagash by a Semitic king of Agade
during the period of Semitic supremacy.