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

218 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LslNDS
operations as quietly as possible, somewhat in the manner
followed bv the first explorers of Assyria. Moreover, the
whole of Southern Babylonia was then in a kind of semiindependent
state under Nasir Pasha, the great chief of the
Muntefik(j), who built the town of Nasriye called after
him, and was appointed the first wali of Basra. It was
therefore necessary to secure his good will and protection
for any scientific undertaking that might be carried on in
regions where the law of the desert prevailed, and Nasir's
power was the only acknowledged authority.
Immediately
after his arrival on the Persian Gulf, De Sarzec entered into
personal communication with the latter and established those
friendly relations by means of which he was able to travel
safely everywhere among his
tribes and to excavate at Tello
or any other ruin as long as Nasir retained his position.
In March of 1877, after a brief reconnoitring tour along
the banks of the Shatt el-Ha'i, we find De Sarzec already in
the midst of his work, commencing that series of brief but
successful campaigns which were soon to surprise the scientific
world, and to make Tello, previously scarcely known
by name in Europe, the " Pompeii of the early Babylonian
antiquity." 1 For very apparent reasons De Sarzec did not
write the history of his various expeditions extending over
a considerable part of the last twenty-four years of the nineteenth
century, so that it becomes extremely 7 difficult for us
to gather all the facts and data necessarv to obtain a clear conception
of the genesis and maturing of his plans, of the precise
results of each year's exploration, of the difficulties which
he encountered, and of the methods and ways by which he
overcame all the obstacles, and in the end accomplished his
memorable task.
1
Thus styled by Heuzey in the introduction to his Catalogue de la Sculpture
Chaldeenne au Musee da Louvre, Paris, 1901, the galley-proofs of
which he kindly placed at my disposal in January, 1901, long before the book
itself appeared.