Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

84 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
peculiar arrangement, the interests of the two European
nations threatened frequently to clash against each other, a
pardonable rivalry existing all
the while between the different
excavators, accompanied by a constant friction and illfeeling
among their workmen. This was particularly the
case at Qal'at Shirgat, where Rawlinson " made a distinct
and categorical assertion of the British claims," and at
Qoyunjuk, where, at Place's request, he had apportioned
the northern half of the mound to the French representative
— a compact which was later entirely ignored by Rassam
on the ground that this mound was not state propertv,
and that Rawlinson accordinglv had no power to give away
what did not belong to him. 1
Unfortunately, a large part of the antiquities excavated by
Victor Place at Khorsabad met with a sad fate. Together
with sixty-eight cases of the finest bas-reliefs from Ashurbanapal's
palace at Qoyunjuk, which Rawlinson had allowed
him to select for the Louvre, and including all the results of
Fresnel's expedition to Babylon, they were lost on two rafts
in the Tigris on their way from Baghdad to Basra in the
spring of 1855. But notwithstanding this lamentable misfortune,
Place was enabled to submit to the public all those
results which he had previously brought on paper in another
magnificent work published by his liberal government. 2
The importance of all the discoveries at Khorsabad,
brought about by the united efforts of Botta, Flandin, and
The mounds under which the
hundred years
Place, cannot be overrated.
monuments had been buried for twenty-five
represented a whole fortified town, called after its founder,
1
Comp. the interesting storv of these quarrels as told by Rassam,
" Asshur and the Land of Nimrod," New York, 1897, pp. 7, 12-27 ;
and
George Rawlinson, " Memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke
Rawlinson," pp. 178, seqq.
2
Victor Place, Ninive et /' Assyrie, avec des essais de restauration par F.
Thomas, 3 volumes, Paris, 1866-69.