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

308 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
ruins seemed to fulfil all the conditions required, and from
the very beginning was therefore pointed out by the present
writer as the most important mound for our work next
to the temple ruin proper.
It will always remain a source of deep regret that Dr.
Peters did not rely more upon the judgment and scientific
advice of his Assvriologists in deciding strictly technical
questions, but that in his anxious but useless efforts to
arrange all the essential details of this first expedition in
person, he allowed himself frequently to be led by accidents
and secondarv considerations rather than by a clearly definite
plan of methodical operations. The first trenches were
opened on February 6 by the thirty-two workmen hired
in Hilla. The circumstance that some of the Arabs, while
gathering bricks for certain constructions in our camp, had
accidentally struck a large tomb in a small gully near us
influenced the director to begin the excavations at this point
(VII), which soon led to the discovery of a construction of
columns made of baked bricks and of such a
mass of slipper-shaped
coffins, funeral urns, bones, ashes, and other
we were inclined to regard
remains of the dead, that at first
the whole southwestern half of Nuffar as a vast graveyard
or a regular " city of the dead," similar to those explored
by Moritz and Koldewey at Surghul and Kl-Hibba. The
next point attacked by him was an extremely insignificant
out-of-the-way mound at the northwestern end of the Shatt
en-Nil, selected chiefly because it was small enough to be
excavated completelv within a few weeks.
Several days later,
when a sufficient number of workmen had been obtained
from the neighboring tribes, the systematic exploration of
Bint el-Amir was undertaken in accordance with a plan prepared
by the Assvriologists and the architect. The first task
which we had set for ourselves was to determine the corners
and walls of the stage-tower, and to search for barrel cylinders
and other documents which might have been deposited in