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.