ABSTRACT
The sources from which we derive our knowledge of the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations which flourished in the Tigris-Euphrates plains before the Christian era, are almost exclusively the inscriptions and monuments of the two civilizations themselves. To M. Botta, French Consul at Mosul, is due the distinction of having first undertaken systematic excavations to recover traces of the ancient Assyrian Empire. He was responsible for the discovery in 1842, on the site of IChorsabad, of Dûr-Sharrukin, the town built by Sargon at the end of the eighth century before our era. A little later, the Englishman, Layard, took up works which Botta had abandoned and revealed the important library of King Ashurbanipal (seventh century b.c.) together with the ruins of ancient Niniveh. 1 It lies outside the scope of our subject to recall all the researches conducted by French, English, German and American archaeologists after these happy beginnings. But as far as Babylonia is concerned, we cannot forget the work of Ernest de Sarzec. Appointed French vice-consul at Basra, and two months after having taken up his duties in January, 1877, he attacked the mounds of sand named Tello and carried on till his death fruitful campaigns at the site, which were continued by Col. Cros. They have yielded tens of thousands of texts and the history of Lagash, an important city throughout the third millennium. We must also mention the Délégation Scienlifique en Perse du Ministère de l'Instruction Publique, Between 1897 and 1912, under the able direction of M. Jacques de Morgan, it exhumed from the ruins of Susa, the capital of a country bordering on, and often hostile to, Babylonia, numerous artistic and epigraphical documents which throw brilliant light on Babylonian civilization; it will suffice to cite the triumphal stele of Narâm-Sin (twenty-eighth century) and the Code of Hammurabi (twenty-first century), the most important text of ancient law yet discovered.
