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

DURING 19TB CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 25
parison of its complicated characters with the Babylonian
inscriptions of the East India House in London, published,
soon after their arrival in 1801, by Joseph Hager. This
designation was at once generally accepted, and has remained
in use ever since.
For the time being, however, little
interest was manifested
in the last-named and most difficult system of writing,
which evidently contained only a
Babylonian translation of
the corresponding Persian inscriptions. More material,
written exclusivelv in the third style of cuneiform writing,
was needed from the Babylonian and Assyrian mounds
themselves, not onlv to attract the curiosity but to command
the undivided attention of scholars. This having
been once provided, it would be only a question of time
when the same key, which, in the hands of Grotefend, had
wrought such wonders as to unlock the doors to the history
of ancient Persia, would open the far more glorious and
remote past of the great civilization between the Euphrates
and Tigris. But in order to obtain the inscriptions needed,
other more preparatorv wTork had to be undertaken first.
The treasure-house itself had to be examined and studied
more carefully, before a successful attempt could be made
to lift the treasure concealed in its midst. A survey of
Babvlon and Nineveh and other prominent ruins in easy
access, and more authentic and reliable information concerning
the geographv and topography of the whole
countrv in which thev were situated, was an indispensable
requirement before the work of excavation could
begin.
properly
So far England had been conspicuously absent from the
serious technical work carried on by representatives of other
nations in the studv and in the field. And vet no other
European power was so eminently qualified to provide what
still was lacking as the " Queen of the Sea," through her
regular and well-established commercial and political rela-