5o8 



NA TURE 



[September 2 I, 1693 



in days « hen scientific methods were too feeble to expose the 

 errors on which they were founded, a science which reminds us 

 in a thousand ways that success in life depends on a correct 

 knowledge of the cosmic forces around us, can be opposed to 

 the highest and most durable interests of humanity. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents . Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.\ 



The Thieving of Assyrian Antiquities. 



I HAD hoped that the British Museum slander case, which 

 was decided a few weeks ago at the High Court of Justice, in 

 regard to the calumnies which were circulated against me, 

 would have silenced then and (or ever my would-be detractors ; 

 but the review of the trial which appeared in the impression of 

 Nature of the loih ult. indicates that misrepresentations are 

 still rife, though an English Court of Justice has already sifted 

 the matter, and gave its verdict in my favour. 



2. I must answer your allegations one by one ; and I ask 

 you on public grounds to be so good as to insert my reply in the 

 next issue of Nature. 



3, In the first place, you say "We have not referred to the 

 case earlier, as we had hoped that some action in the public 

 interest would have been taken by the trustees of the british 

 Museum, which would have carried the matter a stage further. 

 For this action however we have waited in vain." 



4 The above remark plainly shows that you are not aware 

 that I have been appealing (or some lime past to the trustees 

 for a Court of Inquiry into the alleged robbery of public 

 property, but the liritih Museum executive authorities per- 

 sisted in refusing it. If you refer to the fourth day's trial, 

 reported meagrely in the daily journals, you will see that I was 

 the one who felt aggrieved that ihe alleged robbery of anti- 

 quities was not inquired into. The Judge was most explicit on 

 this point, and remarked that in consequence of my representa- 

 tions having been ignored by the British Museum authorities I 

 was justified in bringing my case before a Law Court. 



5. Then you say, " From the evidence elicited at the trial it 

 appeared that soon after Mr. Kassam began to dig in Baby- 

 lonia, collections of tablets found their way into the London 

 market, and these were bought by the British Museum for con- 

 siderable sums of money." (Times, July i.) 



6. Flere you are adverting to a vague evidence which was 

 not established in Court ; and if I had been called upon to 

 controvert it, I could have shown then and there the fallacy 

 of it, seeing that the Eiitish Museum acquired by purchase, 

 through the late Mr. George Smith, Babylonian antiquities five 

 years before I commenced work in Southern Mesopotamia. Asa 

 matter of fact, such antiquities have been obtainable from Ar- 

 menian and Jewish dealers long before the trustees of the British 

 Museum ever thought of conducting researches in those parts. 

 Even I, myself, purchased a collection of tablets at Baghdad 

 for the British Museum in 1877, long before I commenced 

 work there, and that was by instruction from the Museum 

 authorities. 



7. Further on you state, " Now as no other excavations were 

 being carried on except by the British Government, and as the 

 internal evidence of the tablets indicated that those which they 

 received from Mr. Kassam as the result of his works and those 

 which they purchased had the same origin, it was natural that 

 the public department should begin to grow uneasy. And this 

 feeling became stronger when it was found that the tablets pur- 

 chased were of much greater value archseologically and his- 

 torically than those which arrived at the British Museum from 

 Mr. Kassam." 



8. The whole of the above assertions are contrary to known 

 facts and the evidence which was adduced before the Court. 

 Excavations by the Arabs have been carried on in Babylonia 

 from time immemorial, and as the land belongs to subjects of 

 the Sultan, and not to the British Government, I do not know 

 by what right you think that the British Museum can prevent 

 others from diggin^j and from selling what they can find to 

 whomsoever th«y choose. 



9. As for the "public department" becoming uneasy, it is 



NO. 1247, VOL 48] 



difficult to understand when and how such an uneasiness began 

 and what caused it. I was always on intimate and friendly 

 terms, as our correspondence shows, with the late Dr. Birch, 

 the head of the Department of Assyrian and Babylonian Anti- 

 quities, until he died in 1885, or three years after my explora- 

 tions ceased ; and I was also in constant communication with 

 the Ihen Principal Librarian, Mr. Bond, until he resigned in 

 1888, or six years after the stoppage of the British Museum 

 works in Babylonia ; and neither he nor Dr. Birch ever made 

 any complaint to me touching the alleged robbery of pul)lic 

 property, though I was the only person who could have taken 

 cognisance of the matter. 



10. Then you go on to assert that the feeling of uneasi- 

 ness became stronger when it was found that the tablets piur» 

 chased were of much greater value, archoeologically and his- 

 torically, than those sent by me. I am certainly surprised at 

 this remark, seeing that no public inquiry ever took place re- 

 garding the value of my discoveries. 



11. Then you go on to say, " Speaking broadly, it seem* 

 from ihe evidence that Mr. Ra«sani sent home 134,000 pieces 

 of inscribed clay from Babylonia, and of these more than 

 125, coo are what Sir Henry Rawlinson, Mr. Maunde Thomp- 

 son, and Dr. Wallis Budge style 'rubbish.' {Standard, ]vLnt yi. 

 Times, July 3.) This represented the direct return for the out- 

 lay. What did go wrong we cannot say, but the outsider will 

 certainlv think that something did go wrong in this matter." 



12. Here again you are asserting what is contrary to acts, as 

 it is known all over Europe that I am the discoverer of Sippara 

 or Sephervaim, and many temples and palaces in As5)ria and 

 Babylonia, from where I sent to the British Museum manyvals- 

 able collections ; and the 134,000 fragments were part asd 

 parcel of them. You seem to have overlooked the evidence of 

 one of the best A-syrian scholars who is the senior assistant in 

 the department of Babyloni.an and Assyrian antiquities at the 

 British Museum, as to the value of the fragments. 



13. In regard to Sir Henry Rawlinson's saying that the frag- 

 ments belonging to a certain collection ijeing " rubbish," it is 

 certainly most startling. As you do not say where this informa- 

 tion was obtained from, I take it for granted that it was sup- 

 plied from the British Museum. Sir Henry Rawlinson would 

 have been the very first man to condemn me if I had allowed 

 any of the fragments to be thrown away, seeing that a mere 

 particle might fit a broken tablet and complete an inportarit 

 text. 



14. Further on you state that "The information which he 

 gathered on all the.-e points he sent home to the British Museum 

 in the form of reports, one of the results o( which was the dis- 

 missal of the native agent. On two subsequent occasions Dr. 

 Budge visited Assyria and Babylonia, and carried on exca- 

 vations for the trustees, and he acquired some thousands ef 

 tablets." 



15. It is very extraordinary that the official report you quote 

 above was withheld by the British Museum authorities from 

 being produced in Court as a privileged document, because it 

 contained matters which would be prejudicial to the public ser- 

 vice, and yet a part of its contents is now revealed in NatuRB. 



16. In continuation of the above remarks you go on to say, 

 " It will easily be guessed that from first to last a very consider- 

 able sum of public money, amounting to tens of thousands of 

 pounds, has thus been spent upon excavations in Assyria and 

 Babylonia, and the question naturally arises, Has this money 

 been spent judiciously, and has the nation obtained what it had 

 a right to expect in return for its money?" 



17. f have no hesitation, in answer to the above remark, to 

 say that my greatest desire is that the public should insist upon 

 an open Court of Inquiry into the manner the British Museatn 

 executive authorities have carried on lately their Assyrian Md 

 Babylonian archaeological researches, and find out whetlier 

 the enormous amount was spent "judiciously" by the different 

 agents they have employed. 



18. You further say, "Sales at auctions have revealed tiie 

 fact that sundry gentlemen had been able to acquire .-Yssyiian 

 slabs from the palaces of Assyrian kings, and as the excava- 

 tions were carried on by the Government it is difficnit to 

 account for this fact. The public has a right to know how 

 property of this nature came into private hands, and the ques- 

 tion must be asked until it is satisfactorily answered. The 

 matter cannot be allowed to rest where it is." „ 



19. I do not know what you mean by " Assyrian slabs 

 having been acquired by purchase, as I know of no such sale 



