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

572 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
built in modern bridges and houses, or accidentally found in
the ground by the natives, special regulations were drafted, 1
and orders were issued to the officials in the provinces to
report new antiquities and to look after their preservation.
There is scarcelv a branch of archaeology which did not
profit in some way by these and similar measures which
originated in the brain of Hamdy Bey. The inscribed basrelief
of Naram-Sin discovered in 1892, near Diarbekr, the
fine alabaster slab of Bel-Harran-bel-usur from Tell Abta
(1894), and the important stele of Nabonidos unearthed by
the brick-diggers of Babil (1895) indicate some of the more
prominent monuments which hereby were saved for Assyriology.
Apart from the numerous antiquities received as gifts,
purchased
from dealers, and obtained through the personal
interest and watchfulness of local governors, the Ottoman
Museum drew its principal collections from its own excavations
and from the trenches of European and American expeditions
in Western Asia. The first tentative Turkish
diggings at Nebi Yunus, 2 undertaken more to satisfy curiosity
and to secure hidden treasures than to serve the cause
of archaeology, were soon followed by the serious exploration
of the temple of Hecate at Legina, by Hamdy Bey's and
Osgan Effendi's scientific mission to the snowy summit of
Nimrud Dagh, 3 by the former's famous discovery in the
1
At the request of Hamdy Bey the present writer was commissioned to
report to the Ottoman Minister of Public Instruction as to the best manner of
protecting the Babylonian and Assyrian relics and mounds. The report was
submitted in 1894, and action was soon afterwards taken in accordance with
the recommendations. Comp. pp. 68, seq. ; and Hilprecht, Turkische
Bestrebungen auf dem Gebiete der Assyriologie, in Kblnischc Zcitung, second
supplement of the Sunday edition, March 8, 1896 ; also Hilprecht, " Recent
Researches in Bible Lands," Philadelphia, 1896, pp. 81-93.
2
Comp. p. 211, above.
3
Comp. Hamdy Bey and Osgan Effendi, Le Tumulus de Nemroud-Dagh,
Constantinople, 1883.