Myths of Babylonia and Assyria | Page 5

risk, for the cliff is 1700 feet high and
the sculptures and inscriptions are situated about 300 feet from the
ground.
Darius was the first monarch of his line to make use of the Persian
cuneiform script, which in this case he utilized in conjunction with the
older and more complicated Assyro-Babylonian alphabetic and syllabic
characters to record a portion of the history of his reign. Rawlinson's
translation of the famous inscription was an important contribution
towards the decipherment of the cuneiform writings of Assyria and
Babylonia.
Twelve years of brilliant Mesopotamian discovery concluded in 1854,

and further excavations had to be suspended until the "seventies" on
account of the unsettled political conditions of the ancient land and the
difficulties experienced in dealing with Turkish officials. During the
interval, however, archaeologists and philologists were kept fully
engaged studying the large amount of material which had been
accumulated. Sir Henry Rawlinson began the issue of his monumental
work The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia on behalf of the
British Museum.
Goodspeed refers to the early archaeological work as the "Heroic
Period" of research, and says that the "Modern Scientific Period" began
with Mr. George Smith's expedition to Nineveh in 1873.
George Smith, like Henry Schliemann, the pioneer investigator of
pre-Hellenic culture, was a self-educated man of humble origin. He was
born at Chelsea in 1840. At fourteen he was apprenticed to an engraver.
He was a youth of studious habits and great originality, and interested
himself intensely in the discoveries which had been made by Layard
and other explorers. At the British Museum, which he visited regularly
to pore over the Assyrian inscriptions, he attracted the attention of Sir
Henry Rawlinson. So greatly impressed was Sir Henry by the young
man's enthusiasm and remarkable intelligence that he allowed him the
use of his private room and provided casts and squeezes of inscriptions
to assist him in his studies. Smith made rapid progress. His earliest
discovery was the date of the payment of tribute by Jehu, King of Israel,
to the Assyrian Emperor Shalmaneser. Sir Henry availed himself of the
young investigator's assistance in producing the third volume of The
Cuneiform Inscriptions.
In 1867 Smith received an appointment in the Assyriology Department
of the British Museum, and a few years later became famous
throughout Christendom as the translator of fragments of the
Babylonian Deluge Legend from tablets sent to London by Rassam. Sir
Edwin Arnold, the poet and Orientalist, was at the time editor of the
Daily Telegraph, and performed a memorable service to modern
scholarship by dispatching Smith, on behalf of his paper, to Nineveh to
search for other fragments of the Ancient Babylonian epic. Rassam had

obtained the tablets from the great library of the cultured Emperor
Ashur-bani-pal, "the great and noble Asnapper" of the Bible,[5] who
took delight, as he himself recorded, in
The wisdom of Ea,[6] the art of song, the treasures of science.
This royal patron of learning included in his library collection, copies
and translations of tablets from Babylonia. Some of these were then
over 2000 years old. The Babylonian literary relics were, indeed, of as
great antiquity to Ashur-bani-pal as that monarch's relics are to us.
The Emperor invoked Nebo, god of wisdom and learning, to bless his
"books", praying:
Forever, O Nebo, King of all heaven and earth, Look gladly upon this
Library Of Ashur-bani-pal, his (thy) shepherd, reverencer of thy
divinity.[7]
Mr. George Smith's expedition to Nineveh in 1873 was exceedingly
fruitful of results. More tablets were discovered and translated. In the
following year he returned to the ancient Assyrian city on behalf of the
British Museum, and added further by his scholarly achievements to his
own reputation and the world's knowledge of antiquity. His last
expedition was made early in 1876; on his homeward journey he was
stricken down with fever, and on 19th August he died at Aleppo in his
thirty-sixth year. So was a brilliant career brought to an untimely end.
Rassam was engaged to continue Smith's great work, and between 1877
and 1882 made many notable discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia,
including the bronze doors of a Shalmaneser temple, the sun temple at
Sippar; the palace of the Biblical Nebuchadrezzar, which was famous
for its "hanging gardens"; a cylinder of Nabonidus, King of Babylon;
and about fifty thousand tablets.
M. de Sarzec, the French consul at Bassorah, began in 1877
excavations at the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash (Shirpula), and
continued them until 1900. He found thousands of tablets, many has
reliefs, votive statuettes, which worshippers apparently pinned on

sacred shrines, the famous silver vase of King Entemena, statues of
King Gudea, and various other treasures which are now in the Louvre.
The pioneer work achieved by British and French excavators stimulated
interest all over the world. An expedition was sent out