SECTION OF ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES. 101 



Oyrus, contaiuing an account of the taking of Babylou, and giving the 

 genealogy of the great king. Sir Henry Eawlinson says that it is per- 

 haps the most interesting cuneiform document that has been yet dis- 

 covered. 



While Eassam was digging in North Babylonia, under the auspices of 

 the British Museum, M. Ernest de Sarzec, the French vice-consul at 

 Basra, near the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris, found in the ruins 

 of Telloh, on the canal Shatt-el-Hai, a number of colossal statues, four 

 standing and four seated, covered with archaic inscriptions of the ancient 

 Chaldean king Gudea, who reigned about four thousand years B. C 

 One of the seated figures holds on the knees a diagram with a plan of a 

 city or fortress, and an accurate rule. The collection, which is exceed- 

 ingly important tor the history of early Chaldean art, was purchased for 

 the Louvre at a price of 150,000 francs, and forms a most valuable addi- 

 tion to the Paris antiquities from Mesopotamia. 



But since these remarkable discoveries were made all digging on the 

 Mesopotamian sites has practically come to a stop. There is a strong 

 opposition now on the i>art of the Turkish authorities to archaeological 

 research by agents of European countries. The superintendent of the 

 British excavations himself states that the attitude assumed by the 

 British Government in the Egyptian difficulty has alienated the good 

 feeling of the Sublime Porte towards the English, and the Sultan not 

 caring to grant them any favors, everything has gone against them 

 And France, as well as the other continental powers, is not able to 

 take up this scientific mission. 



Now I should like to ask, is not America called upon to step in 

 here ? During the last few years Assyrian studies have made such 

 great progress in this country that the eminent French archaeologist and 

 chief justice of the supreme court of Eoueu, M. Joachim Menant, in a 

 recent work reviewing the development of Assyriology, declares that 

 the most serious efforts in this line are concentrated in America. There 

 are more specialists in this branch of Biblical philology here than in 

 England, and I venture to assert that they are not inferior to the Eng- 

 lish. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, 

 Princeton, Johns Hopkins, and other universities, as well as various 

 theological seminaries in New York, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, An- 

 dover, Newton Centre, etc., recognizing the importance of these investi- 

 gations, have appointed professors of Assyriology, who have gathered 

 around themselves a band of zealous workers. 



It can be confidently stated that if a national expedition, composed 

 of delegates from all these various institutions of learning, enjoying the 

 enlightened protection of the United States Government, and supported 

 by all who take an interest in the history of their religion, could be sent 

 from this country, it would yield excellent results, whose publication in 

 a monumental work, under the auspices of our great national institu- 

 tion for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, would be a lasting 



