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Youth
Austen
Henry Layard was one of the great archaeological pioneers of the
Victorian Age. Together with the Frenchman, Paul Emile Botta,
he brought to light one of the major civilizations of the ancient
world, Assyria. Of course, in a profoundly religious age, most
Europeans were quite familiar with the Assyrians from the Old
Testament where they appear as brutal conquerors who dragged the
10 lost tribes into captivity. Virtually nothing was known, however,
of the Assyrians themselves until Botta and Layard uncovered the
remains of their palaces in the plains of northern Iraq.
Fortunately
for us, Layard was a prolific writer and we know a good deal about
his life and career. Literally thousands of his letters along
with extensive diaries and notebooks can be found in the Library
of the British Museum. He published several volumes on his work
and experiences in the Near East and an autobiographical work
entitled Early Adventures.
Henry
was born in a hotel on the Left Bank in Paris on March 5th, 1817.
His father, Peter Layard, suffered from asthma and, although from
a respectable family, was not a particularly wealthy man. It was
much cheaper for he and his wife Marianne to live on the Continent,
and the climate was better for his health. Layard spent much of
his youth in France and Italy and enjoyed himself thoroughlyalthough
he received little in the way of formal education. His parents
encouraged his interest in art and literature, however, and, when
the family eventually moved back to England, he was sent off to
public school. He hated the whole experience and did not get along
at all with his fellow students who resented his Continental airs.
Henrys
father died shortly after their return and had to rely on his
mother's brother, a fairly well to do lawyer named Benjamin Austen.
To please his uncle, he changed the order of his names from Henry
Austen to Austen Henry and, after he finished school at the age
of 17, took up an apprenticeship in his law firm, with a view
to eventual partnership. But he found the office routine a complete
bore and lived only for the weekends and holidays. On Sundays,
he was often invited to his uncle's house where he met many of
the most important people of the timeincluding young Benjamin
Disraeli. He also met Charles Fellows, a noted gentleman
traveller, who some years earlier had travelled throughout
south-western Anatolia (modern Turkey), exploring the ruins of
ancient Lycia. He was very helpful to Layard when it came time
for him to begin his own explorations of the region-which routes
to follow and which areas had archaeological potential. That same
summer, he went on an extended trip to Scandinavia and St. Petersburg
and, while in Copenhagen, met Christian Thomsen, founder of the
Danish National Museum. Thomsen was the man who devised the Three
Age System of classification for archaeological material-the Stone
Age; Bronze Age; and Iron Age-and he gave Layard a personal tour
of the collection.
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finished his apprenticeship and wrote his final examinations
in 1839 but had decided by then that the law as a career held
no attraction for him-at least not in London. An alternative
presented itself to him in the form of another uncle who had
just returned from Ceylon and suggested that Layard pursue his
legal career there. He leapt at the chance. He was lucky enough
to be introduced to another young man, Edward Mitford, who was
also planning to go to Ceylon (to start a coffee plantation)
and the two of them decided to travel togetheroverland
and on horseback! It was a risky plan-particularly since Persia,
through which they had to pass, had just recently broken off
diplomatic ties with Britainbut they were determined nevertheless.
To prepare himself, Layard talked to members of the Royal Geographic
Society and read everything he could get a hold of on the countries
involvedincluding a pamphlet by a certain Major Rawlinson. |

Austen
Henry Layard
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The
Journey East
Layard
left London on July 10th 1839, taking the steamer to Ostende and
meeting up with Mitford in Brussels. As funds were short, they
intended to travel light but well armedthey each bought
a double-barrelled rifle and Layard bought a pair of pistols as
well. Since the planned to make detailed surveys en route (Layard
had taken courses before he left London) they also purchased a
sextant and compasses. He had deposited £300 with a bank
in order to be able to draw on funds while he was travelling and
the pair of them had received £200 from a publisher as an
advance on a proposed account of their travels. They headed for
Montenegro, whose mountain strongholds had never been subdued
by the Turks and was the only Christian-ruled country in the Balkans,
and continued through Albania and Macedonia, reaching Istanbul
by the middle of June. Layard had come down with malaria on the
way and was bedridden for several weeks after arriving-enduring
a treatment which included blood-letting with leeches. They crossed
the Hellespont at the beginning of October and headed overland
through Anatolia-noting the ancient monuments and ruined sites
which they passed along the way. When they reached Syria, they
found the region devastated by the armies of the Egyptian pasha,
Mohammed Ali, who had recently annexed all of the Levant. The
people had to suffer the burden of harsh taxation by the Egyptian
government and the affects of a complete breakdown of law and
orderthe Egyptian soldiers had not been paid in two years.
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They
reached Jerusalem in February 1846 and, while there, Layard
heard of the spectacular ruins at Petra (left), south of the
city, and expressed a desire to visit them-despite the fact
that the area was beyond government control. Mitford refused
to go along and they agreed to split up for the time being and
meet again in Aleppo. Layard made arrangements with one of the
local sheikhs to provide protection and a couple of guides (at
a price)any attack on Layard would therefore involve the
offender in a blood feud with the tribe. That was how it was
supposed to work in theory, at least, but things do not always
go according to plan. His party was attacked by robbers almost
at once and they escaped only because Layard rode straight up
to the leader and levelled one of his pistols at the mans
head. When they reached Petra the local tribe demanded a huge
sum for permission to view the ruins and when Layard refused
to pay, things got ugly. On the way back, he was continually
harassed, deserted by his guides and robbed several timesthe
last time by a group of Egyptian army deserters. |
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He
finally reached Damascus clad only in trousers and the shirt on
his back, with but a single coin, which had been overlooked by
the robbers, at the bottom of his saddlebag. Fortunately, that
was enough of a bribe to enable him to avoid the forty day quarantine
imposed because of the plague that was ravaging the district.
He finally met up with Mitford at Aleppo and the started out on
the trek east to Mosul in the middle of March, 1840.
Despite all of the adversity, in later years Layard looked back
with a great deal of nostalgia at his early adventures:
I
look back with feelings of grateful delight to those happy days
when, free and unheeded, we left at dawn the humble cottage
or cheerful tent, and lingering as we listed, unconscious of
distance and of the hour, found our-selves, as the sun went
down, under some hoary ruin tenanted by the wandering Arab,
or in some crumbling village still bearing a well-known name.

Layard's
Travels, July 1839-August 1841
Mesopotamia
Layard
and Mitford spent more than two weeks in Mosul and were particularly
impressed by the ruins across the riverespecially Layard
who insisted on visiting them all. As he later wrote:
These
huge mounds of Assyria made a deeper impression on me, gave
rise to more serious thoughts and more earnest reflection than
the temples of Balbec, and the theatres of Ionia
.
A deep mystery hangs over Assyria, Babylonia and Chaldaea
.
With these names are linked great nations and great cities dimly
shadowed forth in history; mighty ruins in the midst of deserts,
defying, by their very desolation and lack of definite form,
the description of the traveller; the remnants of the mighty
races still roving over the land; the fulfilling and fulfilment
of prophecies; the plains to which the Jew and the Gentile alike
look as the cradle of their race.
(Layard
1849, vol. I: 2-3)
While
in Mosul they met the French explorer, Charles Texier, who was
on his way back home after exploring the ruins of Persia where
he made a number of drawings and plans of Persepolis and Pasargadae.
The English Vice-Consul, a local Christian named Christian Rassam,
invited the pair on a trip to the ruins of Hatra where a number
of buildings of the Persian and Hellenistic periods were wonderfully
preserved. As it happened, their first campsite was across the
river from the ruins of Nimrud (below), a place where Layard was
destined to spend a lot of time:
As
the sun went down, I saw for the first time the great conical
mound of Nimrud rising against the clear evening sky. It was
on the opposite side of the river and not very distant, and
the impression that it made upon me was one never to he forgotten.
After my visit to Küyünjik and Nebi Yunus, opposite
Mosul, and the distant view of Nimrud, my thought ran constantly
upon the possibility of thoroughly exploring with the spade
those great ruins.
(Layard 1903: 311)

Eventually,
the pair decided they must be on their way and rented a kelek
(a raft of inflated goat skins) to take them south to Baghdad.
At Nimrud, they encountered rapids which the skipper explained
were caused by the remains of a large dam built by King Nimrod.
Within a week they were in Baghdad and were received by the current
British Resident, Colonel Taylor. They stayed for a couple of
months, visiting some of the more important ruins in the neighbourhoodespecially
the remains of ancient Babylonand taking advantage of the
resources of Taylors library.
They
intended to continue overland, through Persia to Indiadespite
the fact that war was looming between the Shah and the Sultan
and that, as already mention, relations were strained between
Persia and Britain. They decided to cross the Zagros mountains
by way of Kermanshah and, donning local dress in order to blend
in as much as possible, joined up with a small caravan composed
mainly of poor Shiite pilgrims, returning from the holy
places in southern Iraq. When they arrived at Kermanshah, they
went to visit Bisitun where the cliffside bore a lengthy trilingual
inscription and while they were there ran into a Frenchman named
Flandin who was drawing the monument. At this point they learned
that, if they wished to travel further through the Shah's dominions,
they would have to seek official approval from the latter or his
vizier at Hamadan.
Layard
had decided to take the southern route, through Seistanin
part because it was the region where Zoroastrianism was presumed
to have originated but also because of the many ruins to be found
there.
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The
vizier refused to permit thishe regarded the pair of them
as spies intent on gathering information about the routes between
India and Persia. Layard was persistent, however, and proposed
to proceed entirely at his own risk, without official permission
or with any guarantees of their safety. Mitford, probably rightly,
thought that this would be tantamount to signing their own death
warrants and the two of them decided to split up. He took advantage
of the viziers offer to provide official sanction for the
more northern route to India by way of Afghanistan but Layard
insisted on remaining in the vicinity in the hopes that the next
year would bring a change in attitude and that he would be allowed
to proceed as he desired. Although he maintained the pretence
in his letters home, it is clear that by now Layard had lost interest
in a career as a lawyer in Ceylon. However, he had no firm idea
of what he wanted to do instead.
Among
the Bakhtiaris
After
Mitford had departed, Layard rode off into the mountains of Luristan
and Khuzistan, dressed in the local garb (he is shown below, in
Bakhtiari costume). However, the hostility of the local people
coupled with recurrences of malaria forced him to turn back. So
he went instead to Isfahan where he met with the Persian governor,
a notoriously brutal Georgian eunuch named Manuchar Khanhis
cruelty was excessive even by Persian standards. Shortly before
Layard arrived he had ordered the construction of a tower out
of 300 prisoners held together by mortar, which stood for weeks,
long after the prisoners had died an agonizing death. In another
case, he had a prisoners teeth extracted in order to be
used as buckshot for his own execution.
The
governor refused permission for Layard to travel through Seistan
but did allow him to pass through the country of the Bakhtiaris
to the south of Isfahan. Everyone warned him that it was a risky
undertaking, that the Bakhtiaris were cruel and untrustworthy,
but Layard was undaunted. After crossing their territory, he planned
to continue south, to try and determine the location of ancient
Susa (where the Book of Esther was set) and then travel on to
Persepolis in the province of Fars. He set out in September of
1840, travelling with a caravan to Kala Tul, one of the mountain
strongholds of the Bakhtiaris, but found that the chief, a man
named Mehemet Taki Khan, was away.
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While
he was awaiting his arrival, Layard found that the eldest
son of the Khan was very ill and, the local doctors having
proved ineffectual, Layard was asked by the boy's mother
and chief wife of the Khan, to intervene. Layard, who was
always highly appreciative of beautiful women, was completely
captivated by her and describes her in the most glowing
terms. However, the two holy men who had been treating the
boy absolutely forbade him to so much as touch the boy and
sent instead for his father, who came galloping into the
town at the head of his men. Layard was most impressed by
him:
Mehemet
Taki Khan was a man of about fifty years of age, of middle
height, somewhat corpulent, and of a very commanding presence.
His otherwise handsome countenance was disfigured by a wound
received in war from an iron mace, which had broken the
bridge of his nose. He had a sympathetic, pleasing voice,
a most winning smile, and a merry laugh.
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He
was in the dress which the Bakhtiari chiefs usually wore on
a journey, or when on a raid or warlike expeditiona tight-fitting
cloth tunic reaching to about the knees, over a long silk robe,
the skirts of which were thrust into capacious trousers, fastened
round the ankles by broad embroidered bands. Round his Lur skullcap
of felt was twisted the lung, or striped shawl. His arms
consisted of a gun, with a barrel of the rarest Damascene work,
and a stockbeautifully inlaid with ivory and gold;
a curved sword, or scimitar, of the finest Khorassan steelits
handle and sheath of silver and gold; a jewelled dagger of great
price, and a long, highly ornamented pistol thrust in the kesh-kemer,
or belt, round his waist, to which were hung his powder-flasks,
leather pouches for holding bullets, and various objects used
for priming and loading his gun, all of thechoicest description.
The head and neck of his beautiful Arab mare were adorned with
tassels of red silk and silver knobs. His saddle was also richly
decorated, and under the girths was passed, on one side, a second
sword, and on the other an iron inlaid mace, such as Persian
horsemen use in battle. Mehemet Taki Khan was justly proud of
his arms, which were renowned throughout Khuzistan. He had a
very noble air, and was the very beau-idéal of a great
feudal chief.
Layard
was immediately called upon to treat the sonhis father
offering the most extravagant rewards for a cure (failure would
have undoubtedly meant his life). In the event, a dose of Dovers
Powderan opiate that induces sweatingfollowed
by some quinine proved efficacious and the boy recovered.
His
success brought him the friendship of the Khan and his wifeKhatun-jan
(The Lady of my soul)asked him to stay as a
member of the family. She had a younger sister who was even more
beautiful than her and the Khan suggested on more than one occasion
that Layard convert to Islam and marry her, the inducement
was great but the temptation was resisted. He spent the
next few months hunting, training and touring the land under the
Khan's protectionalthough, this did not prevent him being
threatened and robbed on several occasions.
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Bisitun
Inscription
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In
the spring of 1841 the Persian governor received orders to subdue
the independent Bakhtiari chief, who was beginning to think
in terms of a separate state for his people, and demanded a
huge tax from Mehemet Taki Khan, knowing that it would be impossible
to collect. The Khan stalled for time and sent Layard to the
Gulf island of Karak where a British garrison was stationed,
hoping to get their supportBritain had broken off
ties with Persia, it will be remembered. It took he and his
guide several days to reach the coast and when they got there,
all they could scrounge up was a leaky rowboata storm
blew up and what was normally an overnight journey took a couple
of days. In the end, the effort was futilethe British
had absolutely no intention of getting involved in the tribal
politics of the highlandsand Layard decided to return
to Kala Tul with the bad news. His guide, assuming that Layard
would remain with his countrymen, had meanwhile taken off with
his horse leaving Layard to borrow a donkey and make his way
back alone. |
In
the meantime, the governor had sent an army into the mountains
to confront the Bakhtiari chief directly and Mehemet Taki Khan
was forced to submit. He pledged his eldest son as a hostage in
exchange for a fair hearing but the governor had no intention
of honouring his side of the bargain and he was forced to flee
to the Mesopotamian plain with the rest of his family. The Persian
army was unable to penetrate the marshes and the governor offered
to give him free passage and restore him to office and, despite
the protests of his kinsmen, the Khan agreed to trust him once
again. He entered the Persian camp with some of his followers
(including Layard) and was promptly thrown in chains. Layard,
who had hung in the back and had not been noticed, managed to
escape in a small boat and found his way back to the others in
the Marshes. The Persians then demanded that the Arabs surrender
the entire family and followers of Mehemet Takisomething
that Arab honour and sense of hospitality would not allow. They
unanimously decided to mount a rescue operation, a night attack
on the Persian camp, in which Layard was an enthusiastic participant:
The
camp of an Eastern army has rarely any proper outposts, and
we were almost in the midst of the Persian tents before our
approach was perceived. A scene of indescribable tumult and
confusion ensued. The matchlock-men kept up a continuous but
random fire in the dark. The Arabs who were not armed with guns
were cutting down with their swords indiscriminately all whom
they met. Bakhtiari and Arab horsemen dashed into the encampment
yelling their war-cries. The horses of the Persians, alarmed
by the firing and the shouts, broke from their tethers and galloped
wildly about, adding to the general disorder. I kept close to
Au Baba Khan, who made his way to the park of artillery, near
which, he had learnt, were the tents in which his brothers were
confined. I was so near the guns that I could see and hear Suleiman
Khan giving his orders, and was almost in front of them when
the gunners were commanded to fire grape into a seething crowd
which appeared to be advancing on the Matamet's pavilion. It
consisted mainly of a Persian regiment, which, having failed
to form, was failing back in disorder. It was afterwards found
to have lost a number of men from this volley.
(Layard 1894; 261-2)
They
were unable to accomplish their mission, only managing to rescue
the Khans brother Au Kerim, but the losses to the Persians
were such that they were forced to withdraw. Khatun-jan decided
that the group should seek the protection of relatives in the
Zagros but these proved to be faithlessone of them
even clapped Layard and Au Kerim in chains. He thought his hour
had come:
I
was labouring under too much. anxiety, and overwhelmed by too
many thoughts to be able to sleep. To he murdered in cold blood
by a barbarian, far away from all help or sympathy, the place
and cause of one's death to he probably forever unknown, and
the author of it to escape with impunity, was a fate which could
not be contemplated with indifference.
(Layard 1894: 272)
But
the wife of his captor, shamed by her husbands breach of
faith, helped the pair to escapealthough his companion
was later recaptured when his horse threw him.
By
this time, Layard had decided he had done what he could to help
his friends and decided to make his way back to Mesopotamia-even
so, he was caught by the Persians and was their guest
for a time before escaping. It was now the hottest part of the
summer and Layard spent several weeks travelling through a scorched
landscape before reaching the Tigris near Basra. As luck would
have it, there was a British merchantman anchored in the riverone
of its sailors later recorded his shock at being hailed in firm
Queens English by what appeared to be a particularly ragged
native. After a brief rest (and a hot bath) he headed north to
Baghdad only to be robbed repeatedly along the way and narrowly
escaping death on one occasion. He arrived in Baghdad, naked and
with bleeding feet, in the middle of the night and passed out
next to its locked gates:
A
crowd of men and women bringing the produce of their gardens,
laden on donkeys, to the bazaars, were waiting for the moment
when they were to he admitted. At length the sun rose and the
gate was thrown open. Two cawasses of the British Residency,
in their gold-embroidered uniforms, came out, driving before
them with their courbashes the Arabs who were outside, to make
way for a party of mounted European ladies and gentlemen. It
was the same party that, on my previous visit to Baghdad, 1
had almost daily accompanied on their morning rides. They passed
close to me, but did not recognise me in the dirty Arab in rags
crouched near the entrance, nor, clothed as I was, could I venture
to make myself known to them. But at a little distance behind
them came Dr. Ross. I called to him, and he turned towards me
in the utmost surprise, scarcely believing his senses when he
saw me without cover to my bare head. with naked feet, and in
my tattered abba.
It
was weeks before he could walk normally againalthough he
later recovered his clothes and other effects. Some time later,
he came across Mehemet Taki Khan, shackled to a dungeon wall in
the town of Shuster and his womenfolk in a squalid little house:
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I
spent some hours daily with Khatun-jan Khanum and her companions
in misfortune, who treated me as if I were one of Mehemet Taki
Khan's family. I learnt much from them relating to female life
and customs among Shi'a Musulmans. Their affectionate gratitude
to me in return for my sympathy, which was all I could give
them, was most affecting. I found in these poor sufferers qualities
and sentiments which would have ennobled Christian women in
a civilised country.
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The
whole family was eventually sent to Teheranthe beautiful
younger sister dying en routewhere Mehemet Taki Khan eventually
died in 1851.
Layard
and Canning
Back
in Baghdad, Layard finally received letters from home and had
to address the issue of his future. Circumstances in Ceylon (the
bankruptcy of his uncle there) made the prospects look less bright
in that direction and his wealthy uncle, Benjamin Austen, was
unwilling to make any guarantees for his future in London. He
spent much of his time writing a long report on his observations
in Khuzistan for the Royal Geographical Society. In the end, it
was his other experiences in Khuzistan, which offered him an opportunity,
for the Persian campaign against the Bakhtiaris and Marsh Arabs
led to a larger conflict with Turkey. Colonel Taylor, the Resident,
was keen to have Britain intervene on the side of Turkey and sent
Layard to Istanbul with reports (he stopped in Mosul on the way,
where he met the new French Consul, Paul Émile Botta. Part
of Botta's mission was to acquire antiquities for the Louvre and
he informed Layard of his intention to begin excavations at the
mound of Küyünjik, which lay across the river.
Layard
arrived in the Turkish capital in July of 1842, in Bakhtiari dress:
I
disembarked from the steamer in the Golden Horn. Having secured
a room, and deposited my scant luggage, I engaged a caïque
to take me to Buyukdereh, where Sir Stratford Canning, the British
Ambassador, was then residing. On arriving there I presented
myself at the Embassy and delivered my letter for the Ambassador
to a servant. I was told to wait, which I did for a considerable
time. At length a fashionably-dressed young gentleman appeared,
asked me roughly for the despatches of which I was the bearer,
informed me that the Ambassador was too much occupied to see
any one, and turning on his heel left the room without deigning
to listen to what I had to say.
But
within a few hours he received word from the ambassador himself
and had a long interview with him the next day, eventually offering
him a position on his staffalbeit an unofficial one.
Sir
Stratford Canning was a very commanding figure, tall and handsome
with firm convictions and a certainty in his own rightness.
He was adamantly opposed to any expansion of Russian influence
into the Near East and often got into hot water with his superiors
in Whitehall on that account. He was convinced of the innate superiority
of the British way of life and had a tendency to treat all foreigners
as inferiors to varying degrees. Although he tended to be pro-Ottoman
he was more than a little condescending towards the Turks whom
he thought of as somewhat naughty children who had to be told
what was good for them. As Canning's agent, Layard found it impossible
to get any sort of official standing and remained simply a member
of the ambassadors personal staff, whose wages were paid out of
his pocket.
Both
men supported Turkey in the boundary dispute with Persia and both
supported the progressive, reformist element in the Turkish ruling
class, positions that ran counter to the prevailing policies of
Lord Aberdeen's government in London. During this period Layard
received regular correspondence from Botta, describing the new
excavations that he was conducting at the site of Khorsabad to
the north of Mosul. The results so far had been spectacular, particularly
the carved reliefs and statues of huge human-headed, winged bulls.
He urged Layard to join him in the projectbut the latter
was forced to decline. However, he did use the information provided
by Botta to publish a series of articles in the Malta Times, which
excited great interest in Britain. He also heard from Henry Rawlinson,
the new Resident in Baghdad, who expressed interest in Layard's
experiences.
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Rawlinson
(right) was an Indian Army man who had served as military
advisor to the Shah of Persia in the 1830's. He was fascinated
by Oriental languages and had used his spare time to make
a copy of the inscription cut into the rock face at Bisitun.
The inscription was in cuneiform, the same writing system,
which was used on the clay, tablets and inscriptions used
by the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. The text was in
three different languages, one of which was in an ancient
form of Persian. Using this as his starting point, Rawlinson
and others were beginning to make progress in deciphering
the other languages. One of these turned out to be Babylonian
essentially the same as the inscriptions found in Assyria.
However, it would still be several years before his understanding
was sufficient to be able to read it with any degree of confidence.
Layard
tried to interest Canning in an excavation at Nimrud and finally
convinced him to support his plans to begin in the autumn
of 1845it would have been a personal triumph
for him, as he later wrote his wife:
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I
am quite proud of my public spirit in the cause of antiquity and
fine art. But I must not ruin either you or the children; and
I propose to call in the aid of the Governmentwhether Whig
or Toryto accomplish what mayeasily prove beyond my reach.
Now you must be tired, dead tired of all this, and perhaps you
think me crazy for caring so much about such trifles, but they
are trifles for which colleges universities and nations would
take each other by the cars, and as Major Rawlinson tells me,
the inscriptions are likely to throw much light upon Scripture
history, particularly on our old friend Tiglath-Pileser.
Nimrud
Layard
returned to Mosul in October 1845 with £150 in expense money
and a set of instructions from Canning, who clearly considered
Layard to simply be his agent:
I
rely upon Mr Layards
obliging attention to the following points:
- To
keep me informed of his operations, and of any objects of
sufficient interest and curiosity which he may see or discover.
- To
keep clear of political and religious questions, and as much
as possible of Missionaries, or native chiefs and tribes regarded
with enmity or jealousy by the Turkish authorities.
- To
cultivate the goodwill of the Pashas and others of the Sultan's
functionaries by all becoming means.
- To
bear in mind that his professed occupation will he that of
a traveller, fond of antiquities, of picturesque scenery,
and of the manners peculiar to Asia.
- Not
to start on his return without a previous communication with
me subsequent to his first inquiries and attempts at discovery.
- In
case of success to give me early and exact information as
to the nature of the objects discovered, & the best means
of removal etc with an estimate of cost, doing what he can
to obtain the necessary help on the spot.
He
was met by an English merchant named Henry Ross and the Vice-Consul
Christian Rassamhe would need to rely on their help as he
had no firman (official permission from the Ottoman government)
to dig. The three of them were very surreptitious in their movesRassam
used the construction of a house as a pretext to acquire tools
and Ross went on a hunting trip to Nimrud while Layard
followed with the tools on a kelek. They based themselves at the
nearby village of Naifa, which they found almost deserted due
to the depredations of the Pasha's soldiers and tax-collectors.
They were well-received by the local sheikh and his family and,
when they explained their intentions, the he agreed to collect
some workmen from one of the neighbouring villages. Layard was
filled with excitement at the prospect before him:
Visions
of palaces underground, of gigantic monsters, of sculptured
figures, and endless inscriptions, floated before me. After
forming plan after plan for removing the earth, and extricating
these treasures, I fancied myself wandering in a maze of chambers
from which I could find no outlet. Then again, all was reburied,
and I was standing on the grass-covered mound. Exhausted, I
was at length sinking into sleep, when hearing the voice of
Awad, I rose from my carpet, and joined him outside the hovel.
The day already dawned; he had returned with six Arabs, who
agreed for a small sum to work under my direction.
(Layard I 1849, vol. I: 25)
The layout of the site is trapezoidal covering some 357 hectares
enclosed by 8 km of wallsthe Acropolis lies in the southwest
corner and covers approx 24 hectares. The Acropolis was what the
Arabs called a tell, an artificial mound made up of the
superimposed remains of hundreds, if not thousands, of years of
occupation. In the southeast corner was an area now known as Fort
Shalmaneser, which served as a barracks and as the arsenal. Layard
believed that it was the site of Nineveh itself at first but he
was wrong. When decipherment reached the point where he was able
to read the inscriptions it turned out to be the city of Kalhu,
known as Calah in the Old Testament and said to have been founded
by Nimrod, the mighty hunter.

The
first thing Layard and his companions did was to survey the upper
surface of the Acropolis, the most promising area to dig, where
they found pieces of broken alabaster carved with reliefs. Eventually,
while unsuccessfully trying to extract a particularly large block
in the north-western part of the site, they uncovered a room,
with an inscription running around the walls. Also, since it appeared
that the alabaster fragments were particularly concentrated in
the southwest corner of the tell, Layard decided to do some probing
there and managed to find another room. So, on his first day he
managed to locate and begin excavations at two of the major palaces
at the site. His excitement was tempered by the fact that the
slabs had been badly damaged by firethose in the south-western
area actually crumbled to bits when they were exposed to the air.
The same sort of fire damage was found by Botta at Khorsabad and
was undoubtedly due to the destruction of Assyria at the end of
the 7th century BC as described in the Old Testament.
After
a week, Layard returned to Mosul to confront the pasha, Mohammed
Keritli Oglu, who had gotten wind of his activities. Pasha Mohammed
was a one-eyed, one-eared brute of a man who, when on his way
to take up his position in Mosul, reintroduced the dish parassi,
a tax on the villages where he stayed to compensate him for the
wear on his teeth caused by having to eat their humble food. When
he arrived in Mosul, he seduced the community leaders with promises
of fair play and then had them all beheaded. His favourite trick
was to spread word of his own demise and then confiscate the property
of those who seemed unduly happy. However, the main obstacle to
Layards plans was not the pasha but the qadi, the
religious leader of the town, who resented the growth of European
influence in his communityhe had already incited a mob to
destroy the British consulate.
By
now, Layard had expanded his workforce from 6 to 30 menmainly
Nestorian Christians who had fled to this region to escape the
Kurds in their Zagros homeland and were desperate for employment.
Into the second week of excavation, they came upon their first
complete slab bearing carved reliefs:
The
Arabs were no less excited than myself by the discovery; and
notwithstanding a violent shower of rain, working until dark,
they completely exposed to view two slabs. On each slab were
two has-reliefs, separated from one another by a band of inscriptions.
The subject on the upper part of No. 1. was a battle scene.
Two chariots, drawn by horses richly caparisoned, were each
occupied by a group of three warriors; the principal person
in both groups was beardless and evidently a eunuch. He was
clothed in a complete suit of mail, and wore a pointed helmet
on his head, from the sides of which fell lappets covering the
ears, the lower part of the face, and the neck. The left hand,
the arm being extended, grasped a how at full stretch; whilst
the right, drawing the string to the ear, held an arrow ready
to he discharged. A second warrior urged, with the reins and
whip, to the utmost of their speed three horses, which were
galloping over the plain. A third, without helmet, and with
flowing hair and beard, held a shield for the defence of the
principal figure. Under the horses' feet, and scattered about
the relief, were the conquered, wounded by the arrows of the
conquerors.

The
other relief was similarly decorated and was found upside down
and Layard concluded that it and its companion were brought from
elsewhere to be re-carved. He was right on that scorethe
building, as we now know, was begun by Esarhaddon (680-669 BC)
but never seems to have been completedother reliefs were
found facing the wall.
That
evening the leader of the local militia, a man named Daoud Agha,
arrived with orders from the Pasha to stop the digapparently
the qadi had pointed out to the latter that the site was
Muslim cemetery. He wrote Canning, urging him to apply for a proper
firman so that he would not be further harassed but Canning
prevaricated. Meanwhile, he continued to work in secret while
Daoud turned a blind eyehe was mortally offended by the
fact that the Pasha had ordered his men to remove tombstones from
other cemeteries to set up on the tell. Eventually, Mohammed
Keritli Oglu was deposed by the Sultan and a new, more moderate
Pasha, Ismail, was appointed in his place and the situation eased
somewhat.
Layard
had arrived with funds from Canning for two months work and now
these were beginning to run out. The new Pasha was sympathetic
to Layard but, since the qadi was organizing a campaign
directed against the excavations, he thought it would be best
if Layard called a temporary halt to his activities. In the event,
Layard reduced the level of activity but did not stop work altogether.
He left a skeleton crew behind to continue limited operations
while he went off to visit some of the local Bedouin tribes, especially
the Abu Salman tribe who lived in the vicinity. He was particularly
impressed with their sheikh, Abd-ur-rahman:
He
was one of the handsomest Arabs I ever saw; tall, robust, and
well-made, with a countenance in which intelligence was no less
marked than courage and resolution. On his head he wore a turban
of dark linen, from under which a many-coloured handkerchief
fell over his shoulders; his dress was a simple white shirt,
descending to the ankles, and an Arab cloak thrown loosely over
it. Unlike Arabs in general, he had shaved his beard; and although
he could scarcely be much beyond forty, I observed that the
little hair which could he distinguished from under his turban
was grey. He received me with every demonstration of hospitality,
and led me to the upper place, divided by a goat-hair curtain
from the harem. The tent was capacious; half was appropriated
for the women, the rest formed the place of reception, and was
at the same time occupied by two favourite mares and a colt.
A few camels were kneeling on the grass around, and the horses
of the strangers were tied by the halter to the tent-pins. From
the carpets and cushions, which were spread for me, stretched
on both sides a long line of men of the most motley appearance,
seated on the hare ground. The Sheikh himself, as is the custom
in some of the tribes, to show his respect for the guest, placed
himself at the furthest end; and could only he prevailed upon,
after many excuses and protestations, to share the carpet with
me. In the centre of the group, near a small fire of camel's
dung, crouched a half-naked Arab, engaged alternately in blowing
up the expiring embers, and in pounding the roasted coffee in
a copper mortar, ready to replenish the huge pots which stood
near him.
(Layard 1849, vol. I: 56-7)
At
about this time he received word that the French had applied for
a firman to excavate at Küyünjik and wrote to
Canning, stating that it would be a blow to national pride if
this were allowed to happen.
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Operations
at Nimrud, meanwhile, had shifted to the north-western part
of the mound where their work was soon rewarded by the discovery
of a large head. Although partly buried it was clear that
it belonged to one of the large winged bull or lion figures
that guarded the more important doorways and gates of the
palace. His workmen were dismayed and extremely agitated by
the appearance of the monster, which they took for a jinn:
I
was
not surprised that the Arabs had been amazed and terrified
at this apparition. It required no stretch of imagination
to conjure up the most strange fancies. This gigantic head,
blanched with age, thus rising from the bowels of the earth,
might well have belonged to one of those fearful beings
which are pictured in the traditions of the country, as
appearing to mortals slowly ascending from the regions below.
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But
Abd-ur-rahman convinced them that it was an antediluvian idol
and had been one of, those infidel giants of whom the Prophetpeace
be with him!has said that they were higher than the tallest
date tree; this is one of the idols which Noahpeace be with
him!cursed before the flood!
He
immediately wrote Canning of the momentous discovery and urging
him once again to act on the matter of a firman and more
funding-pointing out the enormous public relations coup it would
be. More immediate problems were at hand, for one of the workers
had been terrified and had run all the way to Mosul to announce
that the ancient giant Nimrod had returned:
He
had scarcely checked his speed before reaching the bridge. Entering
breathless into the bazaars, he announced to every one he met
that Nimrod had appeared. The news soon got to the cars of the
Cadi, who, anxious for a fresh opportunity to annoy me, called
the Mufti and the Ulema together, to consult upon this unexpected
occurrence. Their deliberations ended in a procession to the
Governor, and a formal protest, on the part of the Mussulmans
of the town, against proceedings so directly contrary to the
laws of the Koran. The Cadi had no distinct idea whether the
bones of the mighty hunter had been uncovered, or only his image;
nor did Ismail Pasha very clearly remember whether Nimrod was
a true-believing prophet, or an Infidel. I consequently received
a somewhat unintelligible message from his Excellency, to the
effect that the remains should he treated with respect, and
be by no means further disturbed; that he wished the excavations
to he stopped at once, and desired to confer with me on the
subject.
(Layard 1849, vol. I: 67-8)
Excavations
were suspended forthwith but Layard won a good deal of local support
by throwing a huge party at the site and inviting all of the local
Arabs together with the Christians of Mosul to attend. He borrowed
some white pavilions from the Pasha and hired troupes of Kurdish
musicians and entertainersjugglers, sword-dancers and clownsthe
party lasted until dawn. Abd-ur-rahman was utterly smitten by
one of the guests, the French Consul's wife:
Wallah,
he whispered to me, she is the sister of the sun! What
would you have more beautiful than that? Had I a thousand purses,
I would give them all for such a wife. See!her
eyes are like the eyes of my mare, her hair is bitumen, and
her complexion resembles the finest Busrah dates. Anyone would
die for a houri like that.
Layard's
financial problems continued and he could not seem to motivate
Canning to act although he used every argument he could think
ofculture, history, national pride, etcand was fully
supported by Rawlinson. As it happened, Canning was in the midst
of trying to transfer responsibility to the government and had
already written to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, in glowing
terms:
On
the banks of the Tigris not far from Mosil there is a gigantic
mound called Nimroud. My agent has succeeded in opening it here
and there, and his labours have been rewarded by the discovery
of many interesting sculptures, and a world of inscriptions.
If the excavation keeps its promise to the end there is much
reason to hope that Montagu House [the British Museum] will
beat the Louvre hollow.
In
the end, the long awaited firman arrived in the form of
a letter from the Grand Vizier to the Pasha informing him of Layard's
activities and granting the latter permission to continue his
excavations and to send the discoveries back to England. The terms
were generous and Layard used them to open up some trenches on
Küyünjikover the strenuous objections of the new
French Vice-Consul who felt that Botta's activities there had
given his country a prior claim.
Layard's
troubles with French officialdom were insignificant, however,
compared to the brouhaha he incited within the local community.
One evening, while returning to Mosul from Küyünjik
on the ferry, he had a run in with the qadi who had been
praying with a group of holy men at the tomb of Jonah. Insults
led to blows and Layard cracked open the head of the qadi
with his stick. Only the presence of a pair of soldiers prevented
his death at the hands of the cleric's followers. Needless to
say, the incident sparked bitter anti-European feelings in the
town and Layard had to take refuge in the Pasha's palace. Thanks
to the latter's support, the eventually blew over and Layard was
able to resume work.
By
now it was the hottest part of the summer and Layard decided to
take an extended trip into the mountains northeast of Mosul from
whence many of his Nestorian workmen had come. The Nestorians
were a Christian sect, deemed heretical in the West, that had
been long settled in the region. Within a few years their community
would be all but wiped out by the Kurds (of whom Layard had little
good to say). A similar fate would befall another group Layard
encounteredthe Yezidis. Layard was warmly welcomed by these
people and given the great honour of visiting the tomb of Sheikh
Adi, the great 12th century mystic who was revered by the Yezidis
as their greatest saint. It was located in a former Christian
monastery north of Mosul and was the scene of a great annual pilgrimage.

Tomb
of Sheikh Adi
Little
is known about their practicesLayard was one of the few
outsiders who actually saw their ritualsand nothing about
their origins. The Yezidi religion combines features of Zoroastrianism,
Manichaeism, Judaism, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam. They
believed that they were created separately from the rest of mankind
and consequently kept themselves strictly segregated from their
neighbours. The focus of their worship is Satan who, as the Peacock
Angel, rules the universe with six other angels. All seven
are subordinate to God but the Yezidis believe that the latter
has taken no interest in the universe since the Creation. They
deny the existence of evil and therefore reject the notion of
sin and of damnation. They have a reputation as devil-worshipers
but this is based on misunderstanding. They believe that Satan
repented of his sin of pride before God, was pardoned and made
chief of the angels once again.
They
had suffered badly under the recent crop of pashas and were naturally
very suspicious of Turkish authority. Layard witnessed a campaign
in which the Turks captured the main Yezidi settlement and executed
the old people who had been left to defend it. The rest of the
inhabitants were barricaded in a gully and defended themselves
ferociously. The Pasha's troops attacked their position several
times but were driven off with heavy losses.
When
he returned to Mosul he found a letter from the British Museum
appointing him their agent an providing him with some funds, amounting
to about £1000. This was a wholly inadequate amount for
the job at hand and Layard was deeply offended by their stinginess.
He also received a lengthy document from the Trustees, detailing
his responsibilities and informing him that he could be promised
no further employment once his work in Iraq was finished. It did
not improve his mood.
More
Discoveries
Layard
finally resumed work at Nimrud on November 1st, 1846concentrating
his efforts in the northwest and central parts of the site, where
he had already located parts of palaces. He was unable to identify
the names of the builders from their inscriptions and had to awkwardly
refer to the Khorsabad king or the son of the
builder of the North-west Palace. In the Central Building
he found stacks of reliefs leaning up against the walls, waiting
to be transported elsewhere. In the central part of the site,
they recovered a polished basalt stele known as the Black Obelisk.
It was just over 2 metres tall with a stepped top and was sculpted
on all four sides with 20 small relief panels-mainly depicting
foreign princes bringing their tribute to the king:
 |
It
appears to have been erected to celebrate the conquest of
some remote country, for amongst the animals represented
as brought to the king are the elephant, rhinoceros, lion,
Bactrian camel, wild mule, ibex, stag, several species of
baboon and monkey etc.-you will observe that the bas reliefs
are in many instances repetitions of the larger sculptures
in the earlier building of Nimroud, with which it was contemporary.
He
could not know that one of the figures shown grovelling before
the king was Jehu of Israelthe problem, of course, lay
in the inability to read the inscription, in this case a rather
lengthy one.
|
By
this time, he and Rawlinson could establish a sequence of royal
names but were unable to read so much as one of them. Layard was
familiar enough with the formulae to be able to work out a rough
sequence of constructionfor instance he knew that the king
who built the Central Palace was the son of the builder of the
Northwest Palace. He had noted that his sequence was supported
somewhat by the sculptures which seemed to belong to distinct
stylistic phases.
By
April of 1847, in the Northwest Palace alone, he had explored
28 halls and chambers, lined with reliefs, along with 13 pairs
of winged bulls or lions. Now it was time to suspend operations
and Layard began to organize the shipment of the pick of his finds
down the Tigris to Baghdad and thence to Basra and England. He
needed to find a lot of rope and mats, to secure and protect the
reliefs, and these had to be imported from Syria. When a consignment
was stolen by Bedouin tribesmen, Layard rode out to their camp
with a couple of Turkish constables to confront the culprits and,
noticing the sheikhs tent had new ropes, addressed him:
Peace
he with you. Your health and spirits are, please God, good.
We have long been friends, although it has never yet been my
good fortune to see you. I know the laws of friendship; that
which is my property is your property, and the contrary. But
there are a few things, such as mats, felts, and ropes, which
come from afar, and are very necessary to me, whilst they can
he of little use to you; otherwise God forbid that I should
ask for them. You will greatly oblige me by giving these things
to me.
When
the sheikh denied he had these things, Layard slapped handcuffs
on him and dragged him away from the tent. The following day,
his fellow tribesmen produced Layard's goods.
In
March he had begun the removal of the bulls:
The
men being ready, and all my preparations complete, I stationed
myself on top of the high bank of earth over the second bull,
and ordered the wedges to he struck out from under the sculpture
to he moved. Still, however, it remained firmly in its place.
A rope having been passed around it, six or seven men easily
tilted it over. The thick, ill-made cable stretched with the
strain, and almost buried itself in the earth round which it
was coiled. The ropes held well. The mass descended gradually,
the Chaldaeans propping it up with the beams. It was a moment
of great anxiety. The drums and shrill pipes of the Kurdish
musicians increased the din and confusion caused by the war-cry
of the Arabs, who were half frantic with excitement. They had
thrown off nearly all their garments; their long hair floated
in the wind; and they indulged in the wildest postures and gesticulations
as they clung to the ropes. The women had congregated on the
sides of the trenches, and by their incessant screams, and by
the ear-piercing tahlehl, added to the enthusiasm of the men.

The
bull once in motion, it was no longer possible to obtain a bearing.
The loudest cries could produce were lost in the crash of discordant
sounds. Neither the hippopotamus-hide whips of the Cawasses,
nor the bricks and clods of earth with which I endeavoured to
draw attention from some of the most noisy of the group, were
of any avail. Away went the bull, steady enough as long as supported
by the props behind; but as it came nearer to the rollers. The
beams could no longer he used. The cable and ropes stretched
more and more. Dry from the climate, as they felt the strain,
they creaked and threw out dust. Water was thrown over them,
but in vain, for they all broke together when the sculpture
was within four or five feet of the rollers. The bull was precipitated
to the ground. Those who held the ropes' thus suddenly released,
followed its example, and were rolling, one over the other,
in the dust. A sudden silence succeeded to the clamour. I rushed
into the trenches, prepared to find the bull in many pieces.
It would be difficult to describe my satisfaction when I saw
it lying precisely where I had wished to place it and uninjured!
The Arabs no sooner got on their legs again, than, seeing the
result of the accident, they darted out of the trenches, and,
seizing by the hands the women who were looking on, formed a
large circle, and, yelling their war-cry with redoubled energy,
commenced a most mad dance. The musicians exerted themselves
to the utmost; but their music was drowned by the cries of the
dancers. Even Abd-ur-rahman shared in the excitement and, throwing
his cloak to one of his attendants, insisted upon leading off
the dehkhé.
Once
removed from the site, they were transported by the same methods
Botta had usedLayard even used some of Botta's original
ox-carts. They were then loaded onto rafts and floated down the
Tigris to Baghdad (below).

He
had a little time and money left and so he used them to do some
preliminary work at Qalat Shergat (ancient Aur)
and revealed much of the Southwest Palace at Küyünjik.
The latter, he believed (quite rightly as it turned out) must
belong to one of the kings mentioned in the Old Testament-Sennacherib,
Esarhaddon or Tiglath-Pileser. He left Mosul in June of 1847 after
bidding a tearful farewell to his workers and their families,
taking with him a young friend, Hormuzd Rassam, the younger brother
of Christian Rassam, the Vice-Consul.
Layard's
Triumph
Layard's
return to Europe was somewhat overshadowed by the Revolutions
which broke out throughout Europe in 1848. He was informed of
a pending offer of a permanent post with the Foreign Office and
instructed to wait in Istanbul where he cooled his heels for a
while, waiting for Canning, but he came down with malaria and
steamed for Italy that autumn, where he visited old friends and
toured the ruins of Pompeii before heading to Paris. Botta greeted
him with open arms and he was invited to address the Académie
des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres where he was very warmly received
and congratulated on his work. As for Botta himself, he had fully
expected to be back in Mosul as French Consul by now but political
developments in France prevented this. As it happened, within
a few months King Louis-Philippe was a refugee and there was a
Republic once again in France and Botta was banished to a minor
post at Jerusalemthe two men never met again.
Pressing
on to London, Layard arrived at his uncle's house on Montague
Square in December 1847 and soon made contact with his employers
at the British Museum. The first consignments from Nimrud had
already arrived and the objects were on displayalthough
there were crates still on the quayside at Basra. For the time
being, he needed to rest and recover from the exhaustion and recurrent
bouts of malaria, which had greatly weakened him. The Foreign
Office had at last found a position for himas member of
an international boundary commission to settle the frontier between
Turkey and Persia. He was not exactly keen to head back to the
Near East so soon after his arrival homehe was enjoying
his new-found fame and the round of dinners and parties it brought.
Arrangements were made to publish his drawings and copies of the
texts along with a popular account of his excavations but the
Museum was not keen to provide funds for further excavations.
Layard wanted £4000-5000 for the first year alonetotally
unrealistic under the circumstances.
The
1840's were a tumultuous time-the effects of the industrial revolution
on society were abundantly apparent to writers like Disraeli and
Dickens (Marx and Engels were working on the Communist Manifesto).
Ireland had just gone through the Potato Famine and the Chartist
Movement was agitating for political reform in Britain. On the
Continent, the February Revolution in Paris was followed by similar
outbreaks throughout Europe, in Germany, Italy and the Hapsburg
dominions (Hungary). The government had more pressing matters
to considerand more urgent demands on its budgetthan
archaeological expeditions to the Middle East.
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Charlotte
Guest
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It
was still a very class-conscious age and Layard had no powerful
relatives to promote his interests. Among his many loyal supporters
during this period was his cousin Charlotte who appears to have
arranged his contract with the publisher John Murray. She was
introduced to London society when she was 21beautiful,
vivacious, witty and intelligent, she was a much sought-after
lady. She had a brief fling with Benjamin Disraeli she married
a wealthy industrialist named Josiah John Guest who owned a
large ironworks near Cardiff. The marriage was considered a
bad one by her friends and familyhe was considerably older
than she and, even worse, he was in trade but there
must have been something between them for in 15 years of marriage
she gave birth to 5 sons and 5 daughters. She was a woman of
wide-ranging intellect, learning several foreign languages during
her confinements and took an active role in her husband's business
affairs. She organized schools for her husbands workers
and translated and published a three-volume edition of the classic
Welsh mythical cycle, the Mabinogion. |
The cousins became very close and it is strongly suspected that
they may have been in love if not actually loversLayard was
always discreet in his dealings with ladies, whether in England
or in Middle East. She was supervising a substantial rebuilding
of her home at Canford Manor and Layard gave her some reliefs to
help with the decorationone was recently rediscovered in a
public school, covered with a thick coat of plaster. She gave him
great encouragement and pressed him to complete his account of his
discoveries and, when that was done, persuaded John Murray to publish
a scholarly edition of his drawings. Nineveh and Its Remains
came out in 1849 and The Monuments of Nineveh a year
later.
Layard
spent most of 1848 working on his popular account, living with
his mother in Cheltenham. He resigned his place on the Boundary
Commission in September of that year. At about the same time,
the boxes containing the bulk of his excavated material finally
arrived in Londonhaving already been displayed in Bombay
where they had spent several months awaiting shipment. But when
he unpacked them he found that they had been carelessly packed
and most of them had been broken. The documentation, showing their
provenance was all mixed up and many of the smaller objects had
entirely disappeared.
In
December, he decided to head back to Istanbul to take up his duties
as a member of Canning's embassy staff-a situation which neither
man viewed with much relish but early in 1849 Nineveh and its
Remains was published and became an instant best-seller. Praise
rained down on Layard from all quarters-the president of the Royal
Asiatic Society call the book 'the greatest achievement of our
time' and even Uncle Benjamin was impressed. Interest in renewed
excavations in Iraq, at Küyünjik in particular, was
strong and the Museum agreed to finance at least two more seasons
(but for the niggardly sum of £3000 in total). This time
he was to have an artist, F. C. Cooper, and the services of an
assistant, Hormuzd Rassam as well as a doctor, Humphrey Sandwith.
However, one thing that was a matter of considerable concern to
Layard was the lack of a new firman from the Turkish authorities.
For political reasons, Canning was reluctant to pursue the matter.
Excavations
at Nineveh
Soon
after his arrival in Mosul, he took a tour of Küyünjik
across the river where his friend Henry Ross had been conducting
small operations over the past couple of years. The site of ancient
Nineveh lies just across the Tigris, at the point where the Khosr
River flows into it. The ruined line of its walls could still be
discerned, enclosing a trapezoidal area containing two substantial
mounds:
- Küyünjik,
the main Acropolis, is an oval (ca. 950 x 500 metres) roughly
30 metres high
- Nebi
Yunus (the Tomb of Jonah) is smaller and presumed
to have been the Arsenal
Botta
had conducted soundings Küyünjik in 1842 but in areas
that were badly disturbed and unproductive. So the following spring
he abandoned all activity there and transferred his attentions to
Khorsabad about 20 kilometres to the north. Layard had began excavating
on the site in 1847, just before his return to England, and work
had continued in his absence under the direction of Henry Ross and
Christian Rassam.
|
The
depth of deposit at the site meant that the practice of excavating
by means of open trenches was impractical and Rassam's man
on the spot, Fat Toma, devised a new technique to get the
remains. His method was simplehe would have his workers
sink a shaft in a likely area and then tunnel along laterally
(right) until they ran into a wall. Then it was a simple matter
of following the wall through doorways, from room to room
until the whole complex was revealed. Unfortunately, like
most buildings in Mesopotamia, Assyrian palaces were largely
made out of sun-dried mudbricka material which is very
difficult for the untrained eye to recognizeand the
workmen bored right through many walls without even realizing
they had done so. It also meant that the centre of the room
was unexcavated.
The
remains discovered so far were in the south-western part of
the mound and formed part of another palace complexLayard
speculated that it may have belonged to Sennacherib (correctly,
as it turned out).
|
 |
When he visited the site, Layard saw rooms of newly uncovered
reliefs and was struck by how different they appeared to those
he had found at Nimrudmore like the examples from Khorsabad.
The sculptors covered the entire slab with carvings, rather than
dividing it into two registers, and there was much more attention
to background detail as well as an attempt to convey a sort of
perspective. Layard got the impression that the reliefs in a particular
room were intended to convey a single storygenerally a military
campaign. Great care was taken to show the local terrain-the mountains
of western Iran; the marshes of southern Mesopotamia; and the
orchards and vineyards of the Levantso that the viewer could
easily identify the country involved.
The
sculptors covered the entire slab with carvings, rather than dividing
it into two registers, and there was much more attention to background
detail as well as an attempt to convey a sort of perspective.
Layard got the impression that the reliefs in a particular room
were intended to convey a single story-generally a military campaign.
Great care was taken to show the local terrainthe mountains
of western Iran; the marshes of southern Mesopotamia; and the
orchards and vineyards of the Levantso that the viewer could
easily identify the country involved. As was the case at Nimrud
and Khorsabad, they were badly damaged by fire making them very
brittle and, in many cases, only the lower portion survived. This
made it impossible to move them so they were left in situ and
then the room was backfilled. In most cases, the drawings made
by Layard or Cooper are the only record we have of them.
Of
particular interest were the scenes found in one of the courtyards
showing the quarrying and transportation of one of the colossal
winged bull figures which guarded many of the doorways in the
palace. They were apparently roughed out at the quarry and then
dragged down to the river on sledges where they were loaded onto
keleks and floated to the site of the palace. Here they
received their final dressing before being dragged into their
final position. The methods were virtually identical to those
used by Botta and Layard when they removed them and shipped them
back to Europe.

He
organized a dozen or so teams of workers-about one hundred
men altogetherto extend the excavations of the South West
Palace at Küyünjik while he and Hormuzd Rassam went
to Nimrud to plan a resumption of activity. Layards plan
was to uncover more of the North West Palace and to explore the
area around the Pyramidal Mound to the north. While
surveying the site he came across none other than Henry Rawlinson,
asleep at the bottom of one of the old trenches, wrapped in a
rug. It was not a very happy meetingRawlinson was sick with
the fever and clearly exhausted. He was not particularly interested
in the architecture and was somewhat condescending about the artall
he seemed to be interested in were the texts. But thanks to his
own efforts and those of an Irish parson named Edward Hinkes,
it was now possible to read some of the simpler inscriptions with
some confidence making it possible to determine which king built
the various structures and the order in which they reigned.
Layard
spent most of the following months travelling back and forth from
one site to the other, supervising operations at both. At Nineveh,
he located an imposing doorway flanked by a monumental façade,
with enormous winged bulls and Gilgamesh figures,
similar to one found by Botta at Khorsabad. This was the entrance
to the Throne Room, located on the western side of a large courtyard.
At Nimrud, meanwhile, he was dealing with the mass of material,
including metalwork, glass vessels and ivory furniture, that had
emerged from a well in the southern part of the North West Palace.
The pyramid turned out to be a type of stepped tower
known as a ziggurat. Digging straight into it, he uncovered a
long, low gallery (30 x 2 metres) which had evidently been broken
into some time in the past, presumably by robbers. Its contents
and function remain a mystery.

Comparison
of the facaces at Nineveh (above) and Khorsabad (below(
He
found himself under a good deal of strain during this period.
Money was running low and he became embroiled in an ongoing feud
with some of the directors of the British Museum, his sponsors.
He had powerful friends in England who were campaigning through
the newspapers for increased funds to be made available to him.
Of course the Museum found this all profoundly embarrassing and
blamed Layard. There were also problems locally where his relationship
with one of his guests scandalized some members of the European
community. Captain Stewart Rolland and his wife Charlotte were
travelling through the Iraq and stayed with Layard for a time.
Captain Rolland was utterly charmed by his host and very supportive
of his efforts but was much more interested in hunting than archaeology.
Charlotte, on the other hand, was very keen on the subject and
through herself enthusiastically into the work at Küyünjik.
She was a real beauty, always a plus with Layard, and the two
of them had a free and easy relationship that met with strong
disapproval from the missionary community.
His
work was also hampered by the unsettled state of affairs in the
region where Bedouin tribes were allowed to raid virtually unhindered.
Layard witnessed such a raid at the village near Nimrud:
One
morning, I was suddenly disturbed by the reports of firearms,
mingled with the shouts of men and the shrieks of women. Issuing,
immediately from the house, I found the open space behind it
a scene of wild excitement and confusion. Horsemen, galloping
in all directions and singing their war song, were driving before
them with their long spears the cattle and sheep of the inhabitants
of the village. The men were firing at the invaders; the women,
armed with tent poles and pitchforks, and filling the air with
their shrill screams, were trying to rescue the animals. The
horsemen of the Arab tribe of Tai had taken advantage of a thick
mist hanging over the Jaif, to cross the Zab early in the morning,
and to fall upon us before we were aware of their approach.
No time was to be lost to prevent bloodshed, and all its disagreeable
consequences. A horse was soon ready, and I rode towards the
one who appeared to be the chief of the attacking party. Although
his features were concealed by the keffieh closely drawn over
the lower part of his flee, after the Bedouin fashion in war,
he had been recognised as Saleh, the brother of the Howar, the
Sheikh of the Tai. He saluted me as 1 drew near, and we rode
along side by side, whilst his followers were driving before
them the cattle of the villagers. Directing Hormuzd to keep
back the Shemutti, I asked the chief to restore the plundered
property. Fortunately, hitherto only one man of the attacking
party had been seriously wounded. The expedition was chiefly
directed against the Jebours, who some days before had carried
off a large number of the camels of the Tai. I promised to do
my best to recover them. At length Saleh, for my sake, as he
said, consented to restore all that had been taken, and the
inhabitants of Nimroud were called upon to claim each his own
property. As we approached the ruins, for the discussion had
been carried on as we rode from the village, my Jebour workmen,
who had by this time heard of the affray, were preparing to
meet the enemy. Some had ascended to the top of the high conical
mound, where they had collected stones and bricks ready to hurl
against the Tai should they attempt to follow them. Thus probably
assembled on this very mound, which Xenophon calls a pyramid,
the people of Larissa when the ten thousand Greeks approached
their ruined city. Others advanced towards us, stripped to their
waists, brandishing their swords and short spears in defiance,
and shouting their war cry. It was with difficulty that, with
the assistance of Hormuzd, I was able to check this display
of valour, and prevent them from renewing the engagement. The
men and women of the village were still following the retreating
horsemen, clamouring for various articles, such as cloaks and
handkerchiefs, not yet restored. In the midst of the crowd of
wranglers, a hare suddenly sprang from her form and darted over
the plain. My greyhound, who had followed me from the house,
immediately pursued her. This was too much for the Arabs; their
love of the chase overcame even their propensity for appropriating
other people's property; cattle, cloaks, swords, and keffiehs
were abandoned to their respective claimants, and the whole
band of marauders joined wildly in the pursuit. Before we had
reached the game we were far distant from Nimroud. I seized
the opportunity to conclude the truce, and Saleh with his followers
rode slowly back towards the ford of the Zab to seek his brother's
tents. I promised to visit the Howar in two or three days, and
we parted with mutual assurances of friendship
An
Expedition to the Khabur
|

Layard's
camp in the Khabur region
|
Whenever
he could get away, Layard liked to tour some of the other important
sites in the region and set his workmen to open trenches at
a number of these. In the Spring of 1850, word reached him of
the discovery of two colossal bull statues at a site in the
Khabur region. The Khabur River is the last tributary of the
Euphrates before it joins the Tigris near Basra. Its headwaters
are in northern Syria, a region largely unexplored by Westerners
but known to be rich in archaeological sites. He decided to
organize a large expedition and set out in March of that year
under the protection of one of the sheikhs of the Shammar, the
predominant tribe in the region. |
Travelling
across the Jebel Sinjar, Layard's caravan passed through a landscape
dominated by the ruined mounds of ancient tells:
As
the evening crept on, I watched from the highest mound the sun
as it gradually sank in unclouded splendour below the sea-like
expanse before me. On all sides, as far as the eye could reach,
rose the grass-covered heaps marking the site of ancient habitations.
The great tide of civilisation had long since ebbed, leaving,
these scattered wrecks on the solitary shore. Are those waters
to flow again, bearing back the seeds of knowledge and of wealth
that they have wafted to the West ? We wanderers were seeking
what they had left behind, as children gather up the coloured
shells on the deserted sands. At my feet there was a busy. scene,
making more lonely the unbroken solitude which reigned in the
vast plain around, where the only thing having life or motion
were the shadows of the lofty mounds as they lengthened before
the declining sun. Above three years before when, watching the
approach of night from the old castle of Tel Afar, I had counted
nearly one hundred ruins, now, when in the midst of them, no
less than double that number were seen from Tel Jemal.
The
Khabur region was just as unsettled as the rest of Iraqtribal
feuds were endemic and attacks on caravans were quite common.
Layards group ran into a band of Bedouins who had just plundered
a Turkish government caravan:
We
crossed, daring the following evening, a beautiful plain covered
with sweet smelling flowers and aromatic herbs, and abounding
in gazelles, hares, and bustards. We reached in about two hours
the encampments, whose smoke we had seen during the preceding
evening. They belonged to Bedouins of the Hamoud branch of the
Shammar. The tents were pitched closely together in groups,
as if the owners feared danger. We alighted at some, distance
from them to avoid entering them as guests. The chiefs soon
came out to us, bringing camels' milk and bread. From them we
learnt that they had lately plundered, on the high road between
Mosul and Mardin, a caravan conveying, amongst other valuable
loads, a large amount of government treasure. The Turkish authorities
had called upon Ferhan, as responsible chief of the Shammar,
to restore the money, threatening, in case of refusal, an expedition
against the whole tribe. The Hamoud, unwilling to part with
their booty, and fearing lest the rest of the Shammar might
compel them to do so in order to avoid a war, were now retreating
towards the north, and, being strong in horsemen, had openly
defied Ferhan. They had been joined by many families from the
Assaiyah, who had crossed the Euphrates, and united with the
Aneyza on account of a blood feud with the Nejm. The Hamoud
are notorious for treachery and cruelty, and certainly the looks
of those who gathered round us, many of them grotesquely attired
in the plundered garments of the slaughtered Turkish soldiery,
did not belie their reputation. They fingered every article
of dress we had on, to learn its texture and value.
When
he arrived at Arban, where the bulls were found, he was greeted
by the sheikh, Mohammed Emin,
The
tents of the chief were pitched under the ruins of Arban, and
on the right or northern bank of the river, which was not at
this time fordable. As we drew near to them, after a ride of
nearly two hours, Mohammed Emin pointed in triumph to the sculptures,
which were the principal objects of my visit. They stood a little
above the water's edge, at the base of a mound of considerable
size. We had passed several tells and the double banks of ancient
canals, showing that we were still amidst the remains of ancient
civilisation.

Arban
The
ancient site was cut by the river and the bulls had been partially
exposed as the result of a landslide and so excavating them was
going to be tricky. They were smaller and, to Layard, seemed cruder
than those found at the major palaces. The inscription on them
said that they belonged to the palace of so-and-so
but the name was unfamiliar.
|
We
now know that they were set up by the local governor, a man
named Muezib-Ninurta, in about 800 BC. Layards
workers found no walls in association with them nor with another
pair found in the course of their excavations. Of course there
were walls but, because they were made of mud-brick and had
not been lined with stone slabs like those at Nineveh and
Nimrud, they went unrecognized. In all, Layard was somewhat
disappointed and gave up on further excavations.
|
When
they returned to Mosul, it was evident that Layard's relationships
with some of the Europeans were becoming strained. This was particularly
so with Captain Rolland who clearly was jealous of the relationship
between Layard and his wife. Layard described Rolland as, one
of the most selfish, ill-bred, unfeeling and conceited men I ever
met and it was clear that she was being abused, verbally
if not physically. The captains mood swings were becoming
increasingly violent and were having a profound effect on Charlotte.
Layard's solution was to give her a room in his own houseperhaps
not the most prudent move. Things reached a head when the party
was returning to Mosul from Nimrud. Rolland became abusive and
was particularly insulting to Layard, who chose not to respond.
He then dragged his wife off to their tent.
A
few moments afterwards I heard violent screams proceeding from
his tent, which was left completely open on two sides. One of
my servants running in at the same time cried out that Mr. Rolland
had thrown his wife to the ground and was attempting to murder
her. I had only one course to pursue and calling some people
we separated them and secured him. He was in a most violent
state-uttering abuse which I need not repeat and calling for
his armsbecause I had dared to interfere between him and
his wife.
In
the end, the captain was released and wrote a formal letter of
apology absolving Layard of any impropriety. The Rollands were
asked to leave and headed back to England.

Ninurta
Temple, South Entrance
While
he had been in the Khabur country, work had continued around
the ziggurat at Nimrud and two temple complexes to the east
of it had been reached by tunnelling. The larger building had
two entrances, one of them guarded by colossal human-headed
winged lions while the other was formed of large relief blocks.
A particularly fine, arched stela of the king stood to one side
of the second doorway along with a small stone altar. The interior
of the temple, which we now know was dedicated to the god Ninurta,
was badly damaged by fire and produced little in the way of
artefactsalthough there was a large slab bearing a long
inscription. The smaller temple, dedicated to Itar-belit-mati
(Itar, mistress of all lands), was guarded
by a pair of large naturalistic lions and contained a superb
statue of the king who built the North West Palace, Aur-nasirpal
II.
All
of this was reported to Layard by Matilda Rassam, wife of the
British Consul, when he returned to Mosul. However,
she also had to report torrential rains had flooded the whole
area, right up to the base of the mound, and that one of the
colossal lions had been broken when the pair of them were being
loaded onto rafts for shipment. A week later, he received a
letter from Captain Felix Jones, who commanded a steamship on
the river, that one of the two rafts had been swept into an
enormous swamp created by a breach in the Tigris bank. Fortunately,
it was possible to manoeuvre the steamship into the swamp and
transfer the cases of smaller reliefs and objects. Shifting
the lion proved to be a very difficult proposition but, eventually,
it was rescued too.
At
Küyünjik too, the work was proceeding most satisfactorily
and more rooms of the South West Palace had been uncovered,
mainly through tunnelling. One long corridor was decorated with
reliefs showing servants carrying platters of choice delicacies
(including dried locusts) for some banquet al fresco. Another
set of rooms, guarded by figures that appeared to be part man
and part fish, contained over twenty thousand cuneiform documents-the
archives of the palace.
They
worked into the summer, although by July conditions had become
unbearable, with temperatures often reaching 50° C. Cooper
and Dr. Sandwith were both suffering from heat exhaustion and
had to be sent into the hills to recover. Layard and Hormuzd
Rassam each suffered recurrent bouts of malaria. So in July,
Layard suspended operations and packed up the first shipment
of sculptures from Küyünjik. Then the two of them
caught up with Cooper and Sandwith and the whole party headed
for Lake Van, high up in the mountains. Unfortunately, the condition
of the doctor and the artist continued to worsen and they had
to be sent to Constantinople.

Plan of
the South West Palace at Küyünjik
While
Layard was away, work progressed rapidly at Küyünjik
and several more rooms had been uncovered, centred around a
large courtyard. The reliefs in this part of the palace were
predominantly military in theme, the ones in the courtyard depicting
a campaign in Babylonia (the twin rivers and the date palms
give away the locale). On the west side of the courtyard was
a monumental doorway, guarded by a pair of winged bulls. The
doorway led through a pair of broad antechambers to a small
room at the back (XXXVI). Evidently it was a room of some importance
since each doorway leading to it was flanked by a similar pair
of bulls. The reliefs in this room depicted the siege and capture
of a town in the Levant (the landscape depicts hills covered
with vineyards). We now know that the town in question was Lachish,
one of the garrison towns of the Kingdom of Judah whose capture
by Sennacherib is described in terrifying detail in the Old
Testament. The whole sequence of events, from the arrival of
the Assyrian army to the deportation of the survivors is shown
in a single tableau. The centrepiece of the composition, placed
opposite the doorway, was the storming of the town. Under the
covering fire of archers and slingers, the Assyrian heavy infantry
are shown advancing up a siege ramp, pushing battering rams
up to the town walls. The defenders, meanwhile, are frantically
throwing bricks onto the heads of the attackers and trying to
destroy their siege engines with torches. Recent excavations
at the actual site of Lachish have confirmed many of the details
of the composition, such as the ramp and the double walls. The
reliefs now hold pride of place in the Assyrian collection of
the British Museum.
Departure
By
October, Layard stopped work at Nineveh and had organized another
large shipment of objects for the British Museum. He had long
since reached the decision that this would be his final season
in Iraq and applied for permission to return home the following
Spring in order to catalogue his finds and write a final report.
In the meantime, he intended to travel south by raft to Babylonia
where he could explore its ancient mounds in the cooler winter
months. The countryside was crawling with bandits, however,
and one of the rafts carrying Layard's finds had already been
attacked. Layard himself travelled under the protection one
of the local sheikhs and reached Baghdad with little incident.
Baghdad
was a particularly dangerous place to be in the 1840's. Not
twenty years had passed since the city had been utterly devastated
by an outbreak of the plague. People had died in their tens
of thousands-out of a total population of perhaps 150,000 or
so. The situation was made infinitely worse when the Tigris
burst its banks and flooded the city. By the time of Layard's
second visit, its population had scarcely reached a third of
its previous total. The countryside was swarming with bandits
and it was very dangerous to be outside the walls. It wasn't
much safer inside the walls. The sanitation system had completely
broken down after years of neglect and epidemics were a regular
occurrence. Under the circumstances, Layard stuck fairly close
to the city until he reached some sort of understanding with
the local authorities but in December he was able to start work
at Hillah, the site of ancient Babylon. The results were less
fruitful than he had hoped because of the overburden of Hellenistic
remains and he decided it would be a waste of both time and
money to continue. In January 1851, he tried his luck further
south at the site of Nippur but was disappointed here too and
eventually returned to Baghdad suffering from recurrent bouts
of malaria and complete exhaustion.
Despite
his condition and the fact that, after having spent the better
part of a decade in the Near East, he had clearly lost his enthusiasm,
Rawlinson and others tried to urge him to continue and had raised
private funds for the purpose. But Layard was determined to
return home and could not be swayed. He returned to Mosul where
he handed over responsibility for continued excavation at Küyünjik
to a young man named Bell who had come to replace Cooper as
artist. He supervised the loading of the last consignment of
cases and wrote his final account of the excavations for the
British Museum. As he took one last tour through its rooms and
corridors, he had every reason to be proud of himself:
Such
were the discoveries in the ruined palace of Sennacherib at
the time of my departure for Europe. In this magnificent edifice
I had opened no less than seventy-one halls, chambers and
passages, whose walls, almost without an exception, had been
panelled with slabs of sculptured alabaster recording the
wars, the triumphs, and the great deeds of the Assyrian king.
By rough calculation, about 9880 feet, or nearly two miles,
of reliefs, with twenty-seven portals, formed by colossal
winced bull and lion-sphinxes, were uncovered in that part
alone of the build explored during my researches. The greatest
length of the excavations was about 720 feet the greatest
breadth about 600 feet. The pavement of the chambers was from
20 to 35 feet below the surface of the mound.
A
glance at the general plan will show that only part of the
palace has been explored, and that much still remains underground
of this enormous structure. Since my return to Europe other
rooms and sculptures have been discovered. Both to the north
and to the east of the ruins comprised in the plan, I had
found traces of chambers, and the fragments of has-reliefs.
The excavations having been carried to the very edge of the
mound to the south and the west, nothing, of course, remains
to be discovered on those sides. How far any of the unexplored
part of the palace may still he preserved, it is of course
impossible to conjecture.
| Layard
went on to have a long and colourful career, serving as an
MP until 1869 and becoming a highly respected and effective
politician-in 1861 he became Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs.
In 1855 he had been one of the founders of the Ottoman Bank
and became its chairman of the boardfrom then on, he
was financially independent. He spent his holidays in Italy
and where he enthusiastically pursued his passion for Italian
art-he headed the Arundel Society dedicated to its protection
and took a special interest in the fate of Venice. After the
death of her husband in 1853, Charlotte Guest decided to marry
the her son's teacher, a man 14 years younger than herself-Layard
did not approve and there followed a rift between the two.
After a few years, the pair seem to have patched things up
but they fell out again in 1869 when the 55 year-old Layard
proposed marriage to her 25 year-old daughter, Enid. He served
as ambassador to Spain from 1869-77 and then as ambassador
to Turkey, thus taking over the post that Canning had held
all those years ago. |
 |
After
his retirement in 1884, he moved to Venice where he and Enid
shared a palazzo on the Grand Canalhe died there in 1894,
after a brief illness. After his death, his wife presented his
papers to the British Librarybut was very careful to remove
all of the correspondence between Layard and her mother.
©
Odyssey, Adventures in Archaeology. 2003
Suggested
Reading
| Larson,
M.T. |
(1994) |
The
Conquest of Assyria |
| Layard,
A. H. |
(1849) |
Nineveh
and Its Remains |
| |
(1849-53) |
Monuments
of Nineveh |
| |
(1853) |
Discoveries
in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon |
| |
(1894) |
Early
Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia |
| Waterfield,
G, |
(1963) |
Layard
of Nineveh |
|
|


Ur
in
the Age of Hammurabi
Of
Related Interest
The
Siege of Lachish: Slide Show
|