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

DURING 19TB CENTURY.- ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 363
distinguish between essentials and secondary matters, or
failing to recognize the significance of certain small traces
occurring in the loose debris or represented by fragmentary
walls which are of paramount importance to the archaeologist,
he would remove them without attempting to give
their accurate location and description, and occasionally
allow his imagination to become an inadequate substitute
for sober facts and simple measurements by feet and inches.
In consequence of these peculiarities his reports frequently
enough present almost as many puzzles as Nuffar itself, and
require their own excavation, through which the original details
furnished by the trenches scarcely improve. What with
Meyer's aid he submitted concerning the xiggurrat of Ashurbanapal,
1 its dimensions, conduits, etc., was on the whole
correct and in many ways excellent. It showed what Haynes
might have accomplished in addition to the unearthing of
the numerous tablets, sarcophagi, drains, and walls which we
owe to his untiring efforts, had he been assisted properly.
We must keep this in mind in order to explain, and to a
certain degree excuse his methods and subsequent one-sided
results, but also to understand, in part at least, why the picture
of the temple of Bel, which I
drew in 1896 on the basis
stances, and that all the scientific details required to complete them would be
found in the books of entry, exhaustive diaries and many other note-books, as
they are usually kept by every expedition. It became apparent, however, in
1 900, that no such books existed, and that these weekly or fortnightly letters
represented all the written information which Havnes had to give on his long
work of three years. I am still inclined to explain this strange fact to a certain
degree by his mental depression referred to above, though, to my sincere
regret, the words of praise as to the character of his work, so liberally expressed
in my introduction to " The Bab. Exp. of the Univ. of Pa.," series
A, vol. i, part 2 (Philadelphia, 1896), pp. 16, seqq., will have to be modified
considerably.
1
Not of Ur-Gur, as on the basis of Haynes' reports was stated in my
first tentative sketch of the ziggurrat, " The Bab. Exp. of the Univ. of
Pa.," series A, vol. i, part 2, pp. 16, seqq.