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

DURIXG 19th CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 27
held until his sudden and most lamented death from cholera
morbus in Shiraz, October 5, 1821. 1
The leisure which Rich enjoyed from his public duties
he spent in pursuing his favorite historical, geographical,
and archaeological studies, the most valuable fruits
of which
are his accurate survevs and descriptions of the ruins of
Babylon and Nineveh. In December, 181 1, he made his
first brief visit to the site ot Babylon. It lasted but ten
days, but it sufficed to convince him that no correct
account of the ruins had yet been written. Completely
deceived " bv the incoherent accounts of former travellers,"
instead of a few " isolated mounds,
'•'
he found " the whole
country covered with the vestiges of building, in some
places consisting of brick walls surprisinglv fresh, in others
merely a vast succession of mounds of rubbish of such indeterminate
figures, variety, and extent as to involve the
person who should have formed anv theorv in inextricable
confusion and contradiction." He set to work at once to
change this condition.
His two memoirs on the ruins of Babylon (especially the
first)
are a perfect mine of trustworthy information radically
different from anvthing published on the subject in previous
vears. He sketches the present character of the whole
country around Babylon, describes the vestiges of ancient
1
Rich's first " Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon " was written in 181 2
in Baghdad, and published ( with many typographical errors and unsatisfactory
plates) in the Fundgruben des Orients, Vienna, 181 3. To make it accessible
to English readers, Rich republished this memoir in London (1816),
where also his second memoir appeared in 1818. Both memoirs were later
republished with Major Rennel's treatise " On the Topography of Ancient
Babylon," suggested by Rich's first publication, and with Rich's diaries of
his first excursion to Babylon and his journey to Persepolis, accompanied by a
useful introduction and appendix, all being united by Mrs. Rich into a collectiye
volume, London, 1839. His widow also edited his " Narrative of
a Residence in Koordistan and on the site of Ancient Nineveh," London,
1836.