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

292 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
public at large was not yet prepared to contribute money
for excavations in an unsafe foreign country, however closely
connected with the Bible. Moreover, with the despatch of
this preliminary expedition, the original committee of the
Oriental Society very evidently regarded the work for which
it was called together as finished, and accordingly passed
out of existence.
Among the Semitic scholars who in 1884 had met at
New Haven to discuss the feasibility of independent American
explorations in
different sections of Western Asia, Rev.
Dr. John P. Peters, Professor of Hebrew in the Episcopal
Divinity School of Philadelphia, had been especially active
in promoting that first expedition and in raising the funds
required for it. He and others had quietly cherished
the hope that the lady who so generously defrayed all the
expenses of Dr. Ward's exploring tour would also take a
leading part in future archaeological enterprises of the country.
But for some reason or other their well-founded expectations
were doomed to disappointment. 1 If, therefore, the
former comprehensive scheme of starting American excavations
in one or more of the recommended Babylonian sites
was ever to be realized, it became necessary above all things
to arouse greater interest among the religious and educated
classes of the people by public lectures on Semitic and
archaeological topics, and to make especial efforts to win the
confidence and cooperation of public-spirited men ot
influence
and wealth, on whose moral and financial support the
radons in Babylon" in "Johns Hopkins University Circulars," No. 49,
May, 1886. A large portion of Dr. Ward's abridged diary was published
by Dr. Peters in " Nippur," vol. I, appendix F, pp. 318-375.
1
This circumstance is mentioned especially, because as late as 1900 Mr.
Heuzev, director of the Oriental Department of the Louvre and editor of the
monuments from Tello, assigns the origin of the Nuffar expedition of the Universitv
of Pennsylvania to a legacy left by Miss Wolfe to that institution
for excavations in Babylonia. Comp. De Sarzec and Heuzey, Une Ville
Royale Chaldeenne, Paris, 1900, pp. 31 seq.