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

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 443
temple library, could not be determined, as proper descriptions
were lacking and no attempt was made to reproduce
a few lines of some of the better-preserved documents.
It was very evident that, above all, the assistance of an
experienced archaeologist and Assyriologist was required
Nuffar to decipher tablets, to determine the characteristic
features of strata, to fix the approximate age of walls and
other antiquities, to ascertain their probable purpose and
use, to lay trenches for other reasons than to find tablets,
and to gather all the loose threads together and to endeavor
to reconstruct some kind of a picture of the ancient city on
the basis of his examination and studies. The architects did
their very best to assist Haynes and to promote the cause
of the expedition.
But entirely unfamiliar with Babylonian
archaeology as they then were, and for the first time confronted
with the complicated problems of a Babylonian ruin,
they needed technical advice as to how to overcome the difficulties.
Being left entirely to their own resources, they
decided to undertake what they were able to do under the
circumstances. They sketched drains, tombs, vases and
various other antiquities to illustrate Haynes' weekly reports
; they tried to make themselves acquainted with the
remains of the ziggurrat previously drawn by Meyer, and to
survey and plot the constructions occupying the eastern corner
of the temple court prior to their removal.
at
But they also
facilitated my later work on the ruins in -one essential point.
As we saw above (pp. 371, seq.\ in the course of the third
campaign, Haynes had discovered the remains of the original
approach to the ziggurrat, indicated by two almost parallel
walls, extending nearly at a right angle far into the court
from the southeastern face of the stage-tower. It had
appeared, therefore, most natural to the present writer to
assume that the principal gate or entrance to the temple
court must lie in the enclosing wall somewhere opposite
that approach. In 1897, when I first had occasion to