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

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DURING 10 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 301
tion as the University of Pennsylvania's Assyriologist, all
the necessary expenses to be paid by himself and Rev. Dr.
H. Clay Trumbull, editor of" The Sunday School Times."
I consented to go without a salary, as Harper and Field
had done before. In the course of the summer the members
of the expedition left at intervals for the East, finally
meeting at Aleppo on December 10.
Peters and Prince had
spent three months in Constantinople to obtain a firman
for successive excavations at El-Birs and Nuffar ; Harper,
Field, and Haynes had visited the Hittite districts of Senjirli,
Mar'ash and Jerabis (Carchemish)
!
while the present
writer had worked on the cuneiform inscriptions of the
Nahr el-Kelb and Wadi Berisa, 2 at the same time searching
the whole Lebanon region for new material. After an
uneventful trip down " the great river " 3 and a fortnight's
stay at Baghdad, largely devoted to the examination and
purchase of antiquities, 4 the party proceeded by way of
1
Comp. Harper in "The Old and New Testament Student," vol. viii
(1889), pp. 183, seq. ("A Visit to Zinjirii") and vol. ix (1889), pp.
308, seq. ("A Visit to Carchemish ").
2
Comp. Hilprecht in "The Sunday School Times," vol. xxxi. (1889),
p. 163 ("The Mouth of the Nahr el-Kelb"), pp. 547, seq. ("The
Inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar in Wadi Brissa"), and vol. xxxii (1890),
pp. 147, seq. ("The Shaykh of Zeta " ) ; also Die Inschriften Nebukadnezar's
im Wadi Brissa, in Luthardt's Zeitsehrift fur kirchliche WissenscHaft
und MrMiches Lebe?i, vol. ix (1889), pp. 491, seqq.
8
Comp. Harper in "The Old and New Testament Student," vol. x
(1890), pp. 55, seqq., 118, seq., 367, seq. ("Down the Euphrates Valley,"
i-iii) ; and /. e., vol. xiv (1892), pp. 160, seqq., 213, seqq.,
and vol. xv (1892), pp. 12, seqq. ("The Expedition of the Babylonian
Exploration Fund," A-C).
4
In the course of the first expedition there were purchased through different
members of the staff five distinct collections of Babylonian antiquities, containing
about 1 800 specimens (tablets, seals, jewelry), namely, Colls. Kh(abaza) 1 ,
Kh*, Sh(emtob), Mrs. H. V. H(ilprecht), D. J. P(rince), besides a collection
of Cappadocian tablets and other antiquities, and a set of plaster casts
of Assyrian and Babylonian monuments from the British Museum. Apart