ABSTRACT
As spring arrived Layard began to make plans for an excursion. The only major river which joins the Euphrates after it has rushed down from the mighty Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey and glides majestically through the wide Syrian steppes is the Habur. This river drains a very large area and a host of smaller streams, which have their origins in the southern slopes of the Taurus, form the sources for the Habur. The area that is touched by all this water is one of quite extraordinary fertility, and through many periods from prehistory it has been very heavily populated. At this moment the Habur region is the centre for the most intensive archaeological exploration in the entire Near East and dozens of mounds from just about every period since the earliest Neolithic are being excavated. In Layard's time, however, the area was not just unknown in an archaeological sense, it was nearly empty of human habitation.
