Says Hilprecht concerning this remarkable collection, "The owner, or curator, of the little museum of Babylonian originals must have obtained his specimens by purchase or through personal excavations carried out in the ruined buildings of Bel's city. He doubtless lived in the sixth century, about the time of King Nabonidos, and was a man well versed in the ancient literature of his nation and deeply interested in the past history of Nippur. This follows from the fact that his vase was found in the Neo-Babylonian stratum of 'Tablet Hill,' and from the circumstance that the latest antiquity of his collection is dated in the government of Sin-sharishkun, the last representative of the Assyrian dynasty (about 615 B.C.)."
In the second year of this campaign Peters contented himself with 'sounding' as many places as possible rather than settling down to the steady work of excavation, in which preference he resembled Rassam. But his labours were crowned with no little success, for he came upon a large number of Kassite votive objects, the first great collection of antiquities of this dynasty ever found, and a shrine of King Bur-Sin I dedicated to Bel about 2600 B.C. The excavation of the large and important building remains grouped around the temple tower of Bel was, however, Peters' principal task during his second campaign. But his hope of discovering many inscribed tablets while excavating these ruins was not to be realized. He was more fortunate, however, in the triangular mound (that known as 'Mound IV') to the south of the temple, which yielded some 2000 tablets, scientific, literary, and financial manuscripts, and even school exercises being turned up by the spade. About the same time excavations in the south-eastern wing of the large mounds disclosed the presence of thousands of tablets and many figures of Bel and his consort Beltis. Most of the tablets here were commercial, and of date about 2600 to 2000 B.C. In May the labours of the second campaign came to a close.
Haynes' Work at Nippur
The third campaign (1893-1896) Peters delegated to Haynes, who commenced operations at Nippur in the great ridge which stretches along the southward bank of the Shatt-en-Nîl, where numerous tablets had already been unearthed. In about four months he had collected some 8000 tablets, and when the supply of these began to fail he transferred his attention to the temple mound which had been worked at before, and which he continued to explore until April 1894. With the help of Joseph A. Meyer, a young American architect, Haynes concentrated his work on the zikkurat at Nippur. Unfortunately Meyer died in December, but not until he had rendered priceless service to Haynes in his capacity as advisory architect. Haynes, unable to continue the exploration of the temple-mound without expert advice, undertook to unearth a sufficient quantity of tablets to meet Peters' demand for inscribed material. Later he pursued excavations at the Bint-el-Amir, where Peters had worked before him, cleared the zikkurat of Assur-bani-pal there and excavated the court of that building down to the water level. The excavation of the immense façade of this great erection was a work of enormous labour, hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of rubbish having to be removed before a partial clearance was effected.
The excavation of the south-west court of the zikkurat of Assur-bani-pal was the most interesting part of Haynes' work on the temple of Bel. First he had to clear away the Parthian ruins superimposed upon the site, until he came to the brick pavement of Assur-bani-pal. He then came upon a pavement of the Sargonic period which extended through a considerable part of the mound as a dividing line. The rubbish which lay beneath this was about sixteen feet in depth, and had been accumulated within a period of more than three thousand years (3800-350 B.C.). The most important of the many strata of this rubbish-heap is that which lies between the pavement of King Ur-Ninib and that immediately below it. Over 600 fragments of vases, statues, and slabs were gathered here, all seemingly deliberately broken, "by somebody who lived between the reigns of Ur-Gur of Ur and Ur-Ninib of Nisin"—perhaps the leader of an Elamite raid. The famous text of Lugalzuggisi, King of Erech, with its 132 lines of writing, was found here and restored by Hilprecht from sixty-four fragments.
Digging elsewhere, Haynes unearthed the oldest arch in the world at a considerable depth, drain-pipes of the date about 4500 B.C., and pre-Sargonic cellars containing large wine-or oil-jars. In one chamber twenty feet below the surface were found the business archives of a great Babylonian firm, Murashu and Sons, bankers and brokers at Nippur (c. 464-424 B.C.).
Ruins of Babylon Uncovered after twelve years' labour by German archæologists, who began excavating in 1900. Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, London.