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

32 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
at once employed skilfully against his opponent, Rennell, to
vindicate the Babylonian origin of the " surprisingly fresh
"
looking ruin of the Qasr ; furthermore, his discussion of
the different kinds of cement (bitumen, mortar, clay, etc.)
used in ancient and modern Babylonia (pp. ioo, seqq.), later
supplemented by Colonel Chesney ;
1
and his endeavor " to
ascertain in what particular part of the ruin each antique is
found" (pp. 187, seqq.), — the fundamental principle of all
scientific excavations, against which later excavators have
sinned only too often.
He spared neither personal exertion nor expenses to acquire
every fragment of sculpture and inscribed stone of
which he had got information. To his efforts we owe the
barrel cylinder, with Nebuchadrezzar's account of his work
on the famous canal, Libil-khegal. It was Rich who collected
the first contract tablets and account lists discovered
in the lower parts of the Qasr (/. c, p. 187), and it is Rich
again who obtained the first fragment of a clay tablet from
Ashurbanapal's library at Nineveh. 2
But in mentioning the latter, we have approached another
field of the indefatigable explorer's labors and researches,
which we now propose to sketch briefly.
In i8aoand 1 821, on his return from a trip to Persia and
Kurdistan, Rich made an exploring tour to some of the
most prominent ruins of ancient Assyria, Erbil (ancient Arbela),
Qovunjuk, Nebi Yunus (Nineveh), and Nimrud. The
modern town of Erbil is situated partly on the top and
partly at the foot of an artificial mound "about 150 feet
high and 1000 feet in diameter." A Turkish castle, which
up to the present day has been the chief obstacle to systematic
excavations, crowns its flat top. Rich spent two and
1
In "The Euphrates and Tigris Expedition," vol. ii., pp. 625, seqq.
2
Whoever has had one of these finest specimens of cuneiform tablets in
his hands will readily recognize the character and origin of Rich's fragment
from his short description (/. c, p. 188).