ARCHAEOLOGY. 



An immense field for exploration and the re- 

 covery of historical material relating to the 

 extremely ancient empires of Babylonia was 

 observed, of which only Birs Nimrud, Abu- 

 Habba, and Tello have been explored with any 

 thoroughness, while most of the sites, includ- 

 ing two of the great cities, have not been 

 touched. Dr. Ward also recommends the care- 

 ful exploration of the courses of the old chief 

 canals, which were so large as to bear the 

 name of rivers. 



Assyrian and Babylonian Antiquities in the Brit- 

 ish Mnseunit The Assyrian and Babylonian 

 antiquities in the British Museum, including 

 those which were discovered by S. H. Lay- 

 ard at Nlinrud in 1847-'ol, the collections ob- 

 tained by George Smith and Mr. Rassam, and 

 the objects presented by the proprietors of the 

 London "Daily Telegraph," have been arranged 

 in a separate gallery. The collection of inscribed 

 terra-cotta tablets, representing Babylonian lit- 

 erature, illustrates a period more than 2,000 

 years long, extending from B. o. 2500 until 

 less than a century before the Christian era. 

 An important section of the collection is that 

 which contains the monuments and inscrip- 

 tions from Chaldea, the greater part of which 

 are the results of Mr. Rassam's explorations at 

 Abu-Hubba, the ancient Sippara, and in the 

 Birs Nimrud, the ancient Borsippa. In this 

 section many branches of literature are repre- 

 sented : history, by portions of a canon of 

 kings with dynastic summations and frag- 

 ments of narrative; poetry, by hymns and 

 legendary tales; mythology, by fragments of 

 the deluge tablet from the library of the Tem- 

 ple of Nebo at Borsippa; astrology and as- 

 tronomy, by calendars, eclipse tablets, and 

 omen tablets ; and mathematics, by tables of 

 square and cube roots, and abstruse calcula- 

 tions of a cabalistic character. The literature 

 of every-day life is illustrated by a series of 

 commercial tablets and memoranda, ranging 

 from the reign of Eriaku, the Arioch of Gene- 

 sis xiv, the contemporary of Abram, till B. o. 

 93, and letters, notes, and copy-books of 

 school-boys and scribe students. The section 

 exhibits, in a striking manner, the popular and 

 spontaneous nature of the Chaldean literature, 

 in contrast with the exotic and formal charac- 

 ter of Assyrian literature, which was largely 

 indebted to royal patronage for its mainte- 

 nance. Evidences also appear in it of the care 

 with which ancient documents were preserved, 

 and the fidelity with which they were restored 

 or copied if there was danger of their falling 

 into decay or being lost. The existence of bi- 

 lingual populations is indicated by the presence 

 of tablets, some of which are written in Se- 

 mitic Babylonian, and others in the agglutina- 

 tive Accadian or Suraerian. A bi-lingual royal 

 inscription of Khammorabi, in which the two 

 versions are placed side by sid, shows that 

 these elements were coexistent. In the tab- 

 lets of the Egibi firm of bankers at Babylon, 

 which cover several centuries, the occurrence 



of Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, and 

 Egyptian names, besides Babylonian names, 

 shows the extent and variety of the intercourse 

 which this people had with otber nations. 



Persia. The Palaces of Darius and Artaxerxes. 

 M. Dieulafoy, with a French commission, has 

 been conducting excavations in Susiana. The 

 principal object of the excavations in 1885 was 

 the palace of Artaxerxes Mnemon. The aim 

 of the work done in 1886 was to lay open the 

 foundations of a palace beneath the other, 

 which had been built by Darius, and had been 

 destroyed by fire before the time of Artaxerxes, 

 In the midst of these foundations was found, 

 in perfect preservation, a frieze in bas-relief, 

 enameled in colors, 11*80 metres in length and 

 3*60 metres in height, representing twelve sol- 

 diers of the royal guard in the garb and bearing 

 the arms assigned by Herodotus to the ten thou- 

 sand immortals. The figures are 1'41 metres in 

 height, and are shown in profile. Their faces, 

 feet, and hands are black. The examination 

 of the skeletons found on the site makes it ap- 

 pear that the early population of Susiana must 

 have belonged to a black race not negroid, 

 but resembling the present inhabitants of the 

 coast of the Red Sea. In the same neighbor- 

 hood were found fragments of sculptures on 

 baked bricks. The subjects are winged lions 

 and bulls, taken from the mythical fauna of 

 Chaldea, but treated with remarkable freedom 

 of style. In the excavations on the site of 

 Apadana, the hall of the throne has been 

 cleared throughout and its plan accurately de- 

 termined ; and it was possible to reconstruct a 

 magnificent two-headed capital, supported upon 

 four rows of volutes. Its size was 4 mm. 10 

 by 5'24 mm., and it weighed more than 30,000 

 kilogrammes. It has been removed to Paris, 

 together with a part of the sculptured base. 

 Diggings conducted in the neighborhood of the 

 royal tumulus brought to light a small building 

 of the Achsemenid period which M. Dieulafoy 

 considers a temple. If so, it must be of later 

 date than the time of Darius and Xerxes, for 

 the Persians had no temples then. Among the 

 principal objects discovered were funeral urns, 

 molded around the bodies of the dead and 

 baked with them, which were found by hun- 

 dreds, deposited in galleries excavated in the 

 thickness of the walls, bronze coins, jewelry 

 of copper, utensils of earthenware and metal, 

 and lachrymal vessels of glass, mingled with 

 ashes, which were likewise found in the gal- 

 leries. The Museum of the Louvre has ac- 

 quired a large number of enameled vases, 

 arms, lamps, statuettes, a new collection of 

 cuneiform tablets, and nearly three hundred 

 engraved stones, including ninety-seven fine 

 cylinders. The commission also brought back 

 a plan of the tumulus and environs of Susa, 

 many photographs and rubbings, and collec- 

 tions in natural history and geology. 



Palestine. Remains of an Aqueduct at Jerusalem. 

 In studying a section of an aqueduct which 

 was discovered in 1880, in connection with a 



