CHAP. IX. DISCOVERY OF EXCAVATIONS UNDERTAKEN BY THE BRITISH MUSEUM.-CHOICE OF WORK- VORCE. ARAB WOMEN. - On my return to Mosul, I received letters from England, informing me that Sir Stratford Canning had made over his share in the discoveries in Assyria to the British nation; and that the British Museum had received a grant of funds for the continuation of the researches commenced at Nimroud, and elsewhere. The grant was small, and scarcely adequate to the objects in view. There were many difficulties to contend with, and I was doubtful whether, with the means placed at my disposal, I should be able to fulfil the expectations which appeared to have been formed as to the results of the undertaking. The sum given to M. Botta for the excavations at Khorsabad alone, greatly exceeded the whole grant to the Museum, which was to include private expenses, those of carriage, and many extraordinary outlays inevitable in the East, when works of this nature are to be carried on. I determined, however, to accept the charge of superintending the excavations, to make every exertion, and to economise as far as it was in my power-that the nation might possess as extensive and complete a collection of Assyrian antiquities as, considering the smallness of the means, it was possible to collect. It was, in the first place, necessary to organise a band of workmen best fit to carry on the work. A general scarcity of corn had driven the Arab tribes to the neighbourhood of the town, where they sought to gain a livelihood by engaging in labors not very palatable to a Bedouin. I had no difficulty in finding workmen amongst them. There was, at the same time, this advantage in employing these wandering Arabs-they brought their tents and families with them, and, encamping round the ruins and the village, formed a very efficient guard against their brethren of the Desert, who looked to plunder, rather than to work, to supply their wants. To increase my numbers I chose only one man from each family; and, as his male relations accompanied him, I had the use of their services, as far as regarded the protection of my sculptures. Being well acquainted with the Sheikhs of the Jebours, I selected my workmen chiefly from that tribe. The chiefs promised every protection; and I knew enough of the Arab character not to despair of bringing the men under proper control. The Arabs were selected to remove the earth-they were unable to dig; this part of the labor required stronger and more active men; and I chose for it about fifty Nestorian Chaldæans, who had sought work for the winter in Mosul, and many of whom, having already been employed, had acquired some experience in excavating. They went to Nimroud with their wives and families. I engaged at the same time one Bainan, a Jacobite or Syrian Christian, who was a skilful marble-cutter, and a very intelligent man. I also made a valuable addition to my establishment in a standardbearer of the irregular troops, of whose courage I had seen such convincing proofs during the expedition to the Sinjar, that I induced his commander to place him in my service. His name was Mahommed Agha; but he was generally called, from the office he held in his troop, the "Bairakdar, or Standard-bearer." He was a native of Scio, and had been carried off at the time of the massacre, when a child, by an irregular, who had brought him up as a Mussulman. In his religious opinions and observances, however, he was as lax, as men of his profession usually are. He served me faithfully and honestly, and was of great use during the excavations. Awad still continued in my employ; my Cawass, Ibrahim Agha, returned with me to Nimroud; and I hired a carpenter and two or three men of Mosul as superintendents. I was again amongst the ruins by the end of October. The winter season was fast approaching, and it was necessary to build a proper house for the shelter of myself and servants. I marked out a plan on the ground, in the village of Nimroud, and in a few days our habitations were complete. My workmen formed the walls of mud bricks dried in the sun, and roofed the rooms with beams and branches of trees. A thick coat of mud was laid over the whole, to exclude the rain. Two rooms for my own accommodation were divided by an Iwan, or open apartment, the whole being surrounded by a wall. In a second court-yard were huts for my Cawass, Arab guests, and servants, and stables for my horses. Ibrahim Agha displayed his ingenuity by making equidistant loopholes, of a most warlike appearance, in the outer walls; which I immediately ordered to be filled up, to avoid any suspicion of being the constructor of forts and castles, with the intention of making a permanent Frank settlement in the country. We did not neglect precautions, however, in case of an attack from the Bedouins, of whom Ibrahim Agha was in constant dread. Unfortunately, the only shower of rain, that I saw during the remainder of my residence in Assyria, fell before my walls were covered in, and so saturated the bricks that they did not dry again before the following spring. The consequence was, that the only verdure, on which my eyes were permitted to feast before my return to Europe, was furnished by my own property — the walls in the interior of the rooms being continually clothed with a crop of grass. On the mound itself, and immediately above the great winged lions first discovered, were built a house for my Nestorian workmen and their families, and a hut, to which any small objects discovered among the ruins could at once be removed for safety. I divided my Arabs into three parties, according to the branches of the tribe to which they belonged. About forty tents were pitched on different parts of the mound, at the entrances to the P principal trenches. Forty more were placed round my dwelling, and the rest on the bank of the river, where the sculptures were deposited previous to their embarkation on the rafts. The men were all armed. I thus provided for the defence of my establishment. Mr. Hormuzd Rassam lived with me; and to him I confided the payment of the wages, and the accounts. He soon obtained an extraordinary influence amongst the Arabs, and his fame spread through the desert. The workmen were divided into bands. In each set were generally eight or ten Arabs, who carried away the earth in baskets; and two, or four, Nestorian diggers, according to the nature of the soil and rubbish which had to be excavated. They were overlooked by a superintendent, whose duty it was to keep them to their work, and to give me notice when the diggers approached any slab, or exposed any small object to view, that I might myself assist in its uncovering or removal. I scattered a few Arabs of a hostile tribe amongst the rest, and by that means I was always made acquainted with what was going on, could easily learn if there were plots brewing, and could detect those who might attempt to appropriate any relics discovered during the excavations. The smallness of the sum placed at my disposal, compelled me to follow the same plan in the excavations that I had hitherto adopted,-digging trenches along the walls of the chambers, and exposing the whole of the slabs, without removing the earth from the centre. Thus, few chambers were fully explored; and many small objects of great interest may have been left undiscovered. As I was directed to bury the buildings with earth after they had been examined, I filled up the trenches, to avoid unnecessary expense, with the rubbish taken from those subsequently opened, having first copied the inscriptions, and drawn the sculptures. The excavations were recommenced, on a large scale, by the 1st of November. My working parties were distributed over the mound-in the ruins of the N. W. and S. W. palaces; near the gigantic bulls in the centre; and in the south east corner, where no traces of buildings had as yet been discovered. It will be remembered that the greater number of slabs forming the southern side of the large hall in the N. W. palace had fallen with their faces to the ground. I was, in the first place, anxious to raise these bas-reliefs, and to pack them for transport to Busrah. To accomplish this, it was necessary to remove a large accumulation of earth and rubbish to empty, indeed, nearly the whole chamber, for the fallen slabs extended almost half-way across it. The sculptures on nine slabs were found to be in admirable preservation, although broken by the fall. The slabs were divided, as those already described, into two compartments, by inscriptions which were precisely similar. The sculptures were of the highest interest. They represented the wars of the king, and his victories over foreign nations. The upper bas-reliefs, on the first two slabs, formed one subjectthe king, with his warriors, in battle under the walls of a hostile castle. He stood, gorgeously attired, in a chariot drawn by three horses richly caparisoned, and was discharging an arrow either against those who defended the walls; or against a warrior, who, already wounded, was falling from his chariot. An attendant protected the person of the king with a shield, and a an arrow, the head of which was in the form of a trident. Behind the king were three chariots; the first drawn by three horses - one of which was rearing and another falling |