224 OLD BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS 



results so far obtained have already proved their great, importance in connection with 

 ancient chronology, and the fact that nearly all the periods of Babylonian history are 

 represented by inscriptions from the same ruins will enable us, in these publications, 

 to establish a sure foundation for palseographie research. 



Each of the three expeditions which make up this gigantic scientific undertaking 

 has contributed its own peculiar share to the total results obtained. The work of the 

 first, while yielding many inscribed documents, was principally tentative and gave us 

 a clear conception of the grandeur of the work to be done. The second continued in 

 the line of research mapped out by the first, deepened the trenches and gathered a 

 richer harvest in tablets and other inscribed monuments. But the crowning success 

 was reserved for the unselfish devotion and untiring efforts of Haynes, the ideal Baby- 

 lonian explorer. Before he accomplished his memorable task, even such men as were 

 entitled to an independent opinion, and who themselves had exhibited unusual cour- 

 age and energy, had regarded it as practically impossible to excavate continuously 

 in the lower regions of Mesopotamia. On the very same ruins of Nippur, situated 

 in the neighborhood of extensive malarial marshes and "amongst the most wild 

 and ignorant Arabs that can be found in this part of Asia," 1 where Layard himself 

 nearly sacrificed his life in excavating several weeks without success, 2 Haynes has 

 spent almost three years continuously, isolated from all civilized men and most of the 

 time without the comfort of a single companion. It was, indeed, no easy task for any 

 European or American to dwell thirty-four months near these insect-breeding and pes- 

 tiferous Affej swamps, where the temperature in perfect shade rises to the enormous 

 height of 120° Fahrenheit (= c. 39° Reaumur), where the stifling sand-storms from the 

 desert rob the tent of its shadow and parch the human skin with the heat of a furnace, 

 while the ever-present insects bite and sting and buzz through day and night, while 

 cholera is lurking at the threshold of the camp and treacherous Arabs are planning rob- 

 bery and murder — and yet during all these wearisome hours to fulfill the duties of three 

 ordinary men. Truly a splendid victory, achieved at innumerable sacrifices and under 

 a burden of labors enough for a giant, in the full significance of the word, a monumen- 

 ium aere perennius. 



But I cannot refer to the work and success of the Babylonian Exploration Fund 

 in Philadelphia without saying in sorrow a word of him who laid down his life in 

 the cause of this expedition. Mr. Joseph A. Meyer, a graduate student of the De- 

 partment of Architecture in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, 



1 Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 565. 



2 Layard, I. c, pp. 556-562. " On the whole, I am much inclined to question whether extensive excavations car- 

 ried on at Niffer would produce any very important or interesting results" (p. 562). 



