The Christian View of the Old Testament

by Frederick Carl Eiselen

The pioneer in the work of excavation in the territory of Babylonia and Assyria was Claudius James Rich, who, while resident of the British East India Company in Bagdad, in 1811, visited and studied the ruins of Babylon, and a little later made similar investigations in the mounds marking the site of the ancient city of Nineveh. In the gullies cut by centuries of rain he gathered numerous little clay tablets, covered on every side with the same wedge-shaped characters as those seen on the fragments found by earlier travelers. These he saved carefully, and in time presented them to the British Museum.

No systematic excavations were carried on until 1842, when P. C. Botta was sent by the French government as vice-consul to Mosul on the upper Tigris. He noticed across the river from Mosul extensive artificial mounds which were supposed to mark the site of the city of Nineveh. These so aroused his curiosity that he began digging in the two most prominent mounds. Failing to make any discoveries, he transferred, the following year, at the suggestion of a peasant, his activities to Korsabad, a few miles to the northeast, where the digging produced, almost immediately, startling results. In the course of his excavations he laid bare a complex of buildings which proved to be the palace of Sargon, king of Assyria from B.C. 722 to B.C. 705, a palace covering an area of about twenty-five acres. The walls of the various buildings were all wainscotted with alabaster slabs, upon which were representations of battles, sieges, triumphal processions, and similar events in the life of ancient Assyria. He also found, in the course of the excavations, scores of strange figures and colossi, and numerous other remains of a long lost civilization. Botta's discoveries filled the whole archæological world with enthusiasm.

Even before Botta reached Mosul, a young Englishman, Austin Henry Layard, visited the territory of ancient Assyria, and was so impressed by its mounds and ruins that he resolved to examine them thoroughly whenever it might be in his power to do so. This resolution was taken in April, 1840, but more than five years elapsed before he began operations. It would be interesting to follow Layard's work as described by him in a most fascinating manner in Nineveh and Its Remains, and other writings, which give complete records of the wonderful successes he achieved wherever he went.

Never again did the labors entirely cease, though there were periods of decline. Layard's operations were continued under the direction of Rassam, Taylor, Loftus, and Henry C. Rawlinson; the French operations were in charge of such men as Place, Thomas, Fresnell, and Oppert. However, it was not until 1873 that other startling discoveries were made, chiefly under the direction of George Smith, who was sent by the Daily Telegraph, of London, to visit the site of Nineveh for the purpose of finding, if possible, fragments of the Babylonian account of the Deluge, parts of which he had previously discovered on tablets that had been shipped to the British Museum. In 1877 France sent Ernest de Sarzec as consul to Bosra in Lower Babylonia. His interest in archæology led him to investigate some of the mounds in the neighborhood, and he soon began work at one called Telloh. In the course of several campaigns, which continued until 1894, he unearthed a great variety of material illustrative of primitive ages, among his treasures being palaces, statues, vases, thousands of tablets, and various other articles of interest.

The first steps toward sending out an American expedition for excavation were taken at a meeting of the American Oriental Society in the spring of 1884. In the fall of the same year a preliminary expedition of exploration was sent out, which completed its labors during the winter and spring, returning in June, 1885. But the means for excavation were not forthcoming until 1888, when a well-equipped expedition was sent out under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania. Four successive campaigns were carried on upon the great mounds of Nuffar, the site of Nippur, a center of early Babylonian life. Each expedition brought to light architectural and artistic remains and many thousands of tablets, throwing light upon all sides of the ancient life and civilization, over which hitherto there had lain almost complete darkness. In 1899 Germany sent its first expedition to Babylon and, during successive seasons, extensive excavations have been carried on, which have resulted in the discovery of many interesting finds. At a later date excavations were begun and, like those of Babylon, are still continued, on the mound covering the site of the ancient capital city of Assyria, Asshur, where inscriptions of great value have been uncovered. At the present time the Germans are perhaps the most active excavators in Assyria-Babylonia, and by their painstaking care to record every new discovery they are bound to increase the knowledge of the early history and civilization of these ancient empires.[[2]]

Reference may be made also to the later excavations of the French at Susa, the scene of the book of Esther, where they have uncovered much valuable material. The most important find, made in the winter of 1901-1902, is the monument upon which is inscribed the legal code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, generally identified with the Amraphel of Gen. 14. 1. For a short time the University of Chicago carried on excavations at Bismiyah, in southern Babylonia, which have brought to light many objects of interest, if not of great historical importance. The Turkish government, under whose rule the territory of Babylonia and Assyria now is, stimulated by the example of other nations, is taking an active interest in these excavations, granting the privilege of excavating to an ever-increasing number of scholars, and giving them protection while engaged in their work. The Sultan has erected in Constantinople a magnificent museum, where the valuable antiquities are accessible to the scholarship of the world.

The credit of having first turned the attention of the West toward the monuments of Egypt, and of having brought them within the reach of science, belongs to the military expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte, undertaken in the summer of 1798.[[3]] In August, 1799, a French artillery officer, Boussard, unearthed at the Fort Saint Julien, near Rosetta, in the Nile Delta, a stone of black granite, three feet five inches in height, two feet four and one half inches in width, and eleven inches in thickness. It is thought to have been at least twelve inches higher and to have had a rounded top. On the upper portion of this block could be seen parts of fourteen lines of characters, resembling those seen everywhere on the obelisks and ruined temples of the land; adjoining these below are thirty-two lines of another species of script, while at the bottom are fifty-four lines, twenty-eight of them complete, in Greek uncial letters. The Greek was easily read, and told the story of the stone: It was set up in B.C. 195, by the priests of Egypt, in honor of Ptolemy Epiphanes, because he had canceled arrearages of certain taxes due from the sacerdotal body. The grateful priests ordered the memorial decree to be inscribed in the sacred characters of Egypt, in the vernacular, and in Greek. The Greek portion having been read, it was conjectured that the two inscriptions above the Greek told the same story. Such being the case, the value of the document for the decipherment of the Egyptian inscriptions was at once perceived, and scholars immediately set to work on the task of deciphering the unknown script. The honor of having solved the mystery belongs to François Champollion, who by 1822 had succeeded in fixing the value of a considerable portion of the ancient Egyptian signs, and at the time of his death, ten years later, left behind in manuscript a complete Egyptian grammar and vocabulary.

Through the discovery of Champollion the interest in ancient Egypt grew in all learned circles, and from his day until now efforts at bringing to light the remains of the Egyptian civilization have never ceased. The French have been especially active; but other nations also have been in the field and have greatly added to our knowledge of ancient Egypt. Since 1883 the Egyptian Exploration Fund has been at work in various parts of the Nile valley; private subscriptions have enabled the investigation of certain places of special interest; and now every year new finds are made, which constantly enrich our knowledge of the history, art, and civilization of the land of the Pharaohs.

"Palestine," says Dr. Benzinger, "became the object of most general interest earlier than any other Oriental country.... Nevertheless, Palestine research is but a child of the century just closed, the systematic exploration of the land, in all its aspects, beginning properly speaking with the foundation of the English Palestine Exploration Fund in 1865."[[4]] The reason for this delay is not far to seek. From the time that Christians first began to visit Palestine to a comparatively recent date all pilgrimages were prompted by religious, not by scientific motives. The interest of the pilgrims was excited only by those places which were pointed out to them as the scenes of sacred events, and the knowledge they brought home consisted chiefly of descriptions of the places held in special veneration. In 1841 there appeared in three volumes a work entitled Biblical Researches, in which Professor Edward Robinson recorded the results of his travels in Palestine during the year 1838. In 1852 Robinson made a second journey. During these two trips he and his companions worked with ceaseless industry, always accurately measuring the distances, and describing the route, even to the smallest detail. This painstaking care made the accounts so valuable that his books marked a turning point in the whole matter of Palestinian research, and could serve as a foundation upon which all future researches might rest.