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

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 195
in between heaps of fragments of bricks, mortar, and pottery
— a vast picture of utter contusion and destruction.
To secure good
results it would
have been necessary
to remove
and to sift
this whole mass
of earth. All
that Smith
could do was to
select the library
spaces of the
two ruined
buildings and
to examine that
neighborhood
once more for
fragments of
tablets,
leaving
their discovery
chiefly to good
circumstances.
luck and to fortunate
But
after all, the
mission for
which he had
been sent out was accomplished more quicklv than he could
have expected. On the 14th of May, on cleaning one of
the fragments of cuneiform inscriptions from the palace
of Ashurbanapal, the result of that day's digging, he found to
his surprise and gratification " that it contained the greater
portion of seventeen lines of inscription belonging to the
first
column of the Chaldean account of the Deluge, which
15
The Ruins of Nineveh
A North gate. B North palace (of Ashurbanapal). C Southwest
palace (of Sennacherib) . D
Village of Neb'i Yunus.
E Burial ground. F Large east gate. Roads are marked
thus : .