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

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 309
this ancient structure by the different monarchs who restored
it.
If ever they existed, — and certain discoveries made later
in the rubbish around its base proved that they actually did,
— these building records must have been destroyed at the
time of the Parthian invasion, when the whole temple
complex was remodelled for military
purposes.
Apart from a stray cuneiform tablet of the period of Sargon
I. — the first of its kind ever discovered, — three small
fragments of inscribed stone picked up by the Arabs, a few
Hebrew bowls, and a number of bricks bearing short legends
of the kings Ur-Gur, Bur-Sin I., Ur-Ninib, and Ishme-Dagan,
all of the third pre-Christian millennium, no inscribed documents
had been unearthed during the first
ten days of our
stay at Nuffar. No wonder that Dr. Peters, who began to
realize that his funds of $15,000 were nearly exhausted, grew
uneasy as to the tangible results of the expedition, the future
of which depended largely upon quick and important discoveries.
I seized this opportunity to submit once more for his
consideration my views, given above, concerning the topography
of the northeast half ot the ruins, pointing out that in
all
probability tablets would be found in that large isolated
hill, which I
believed to contain the residences of the priests
and the temple library (IV), and requested him to let me
have about twenty men for a few davs to furnish the inscribed
material so eagerly sought after. This was a somewhat
daring proposition, which scarcely would have been
made with this self-imposed restriction of time had I not
been convinced of the general correctness of mv theory.
After some hesitation the director was generous enough to
place two gangs of workmen at my disposal for a whole
week in order to enable me to furnish the necessary proof
for my subjective conviction. On February 1 1 two trenches
were opened at the western edge of IV on a level with the
present bed of the ancient canal. Before noon the first six
cuneiform tablets were in our possession, and at the close of