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

444 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
examine all of Havnes' negatives thoroughly, I was surprised
to find that he had exposed a number of stepped
recesses precisely at the place where the gate should have
existed, and that he had actually discovered the entrance
without knowing and reporting it, as unfortunately he had
cut one half of the gate completely awav by one of his
wretched perpendicular shafts which proved so disastrous to
the temple court. The architects were not slow in recognizing
the importance of these stepped recesses, and asked
at once for permission to remove the large round tower of
the latest fortification, lying directly on the top of them —
the same which Peters had compared with the pillar of Jachin
or Boaz at the temple of Jerusalem (comp. p. 333, above).
Haynes gave it reluctantly, as he thought the expense
of time and labor involved in this work too great in comparison
with the probable results expected by him, and left
the architects in complete charge of this excavation. They
solved their first independent task very satisfactorily, uncovered
the remaining part of the gate, tound a door-socket
in situ, and disclosed the existence of an important tomb
near the south corner of the latest enclosing wall, on which
we shall have to say a few words later.
By the middle of November, 1899, the scientific director
had finished the organization of the Semitic section of the
University Museum, so that
he could leave for the East to
join the other members of the expedition. But in consequence
of considerable delays caused to the boats by storms
in
the Atlantic, by the discharge of a heavy cargo at the Somali
coast, by quarantine in the Shatt el- c Arab for having
touched at
the plague-, cholera-, and small-pox-stricken harbor
of Maskat, and finally by the sudden rise
of the Tigris,
he did not reach Nuftar before March 1, 1900. Having
gone out
the full
"as the representative of the committee and with
powers of the committee," he naturally was held responsible
for the proper execution
of the plans as outlined