The great valley of Baby lonia derives its marvelous fertility from its two notable rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. Both have their rise in the mountains of Ar menia, and both have their debouchement in the Persian Gulf. The Tigris, from its source, flows in a southeasterly and southerly direction, cutting through the uplands of Assyria, and along the eastern side of the Babylonian Valley, until, mingling with the waters of the Euphrates, it falls into the Persian Gulf. The Euphrates, from its source, flows toward the southwest and bends southward within 100 miles of the Medi terranean Sea, and thence in general toward the southeast and south until, in union with the Tigris, it pours into the same gulf. These two arterial streams are the life of this great lower valley. By irrigation they were made to fertilize all their adjacent lands, and thus placed these among the richest countries on earth. In addi tion to water these streams bring annually from the mountains of Armenia great quantities of alluvium and deposit it in the lower valley. Geologists estimate that the shores of the Per sian Gulf have been pushed southward, by de posits of this alluvium, fully 125 miles since the earliest periods of Babylonian history. In other words, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that now enter the Gulf as one stream forming a vast morass, formerly had separate mouths, about 125 miles north-northwest of their present out let. If this estimate be correct, the ancient Ur of the Chaldees (modern Mu heir) was prac tically a seaport city. The Tigris, being the shorter river, has a very swift current, and is less valuable for navigation than the Euphrates. Upon this latter stream vessels of profitable draft may ride to a distance of 800 miles above its mouth. The territory of Mesopotamia proper is watered by the Balikh and Khabur, two rivers that flow southward, emptying into the Euphrates above the site of ancient Baby lon. The region of Babylonia proper, though a waste to-day, shows marks of having sup ported a dense population in antiquity.
References to Ancient Present day students and scholars inferred from f re quent references in the Old Testament and in the compiled works of Berosus, Manetho, Jo sephus and others that this valley had been the headquarters of mighty nations. Classical writers carry echoes of an ancient glory won by great armies and powerful monarchs from the East, whose records were otherwise unknown, and whose mighty deeds seemed as unreal as fiction. The rise, conquest and reign of these giant figures aroused the enthusiasm of every student of ancient history. The far-reaching influence and power over neighboring kings of these monarchs, dimly outlined in the vague second-hand records, set scholars to work. It drove them to search far and wide for other traces of peoples who had completely perished from the face of the earth, and who had, so far as they could see, left no story of their achieve ments. The reports of travelers who had passed through and spent some time in those countries attracted their attention.
Ancient The entire territory drained by the two great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, was found to be dotted by extensive mounds, ruins of ancient walls, piles of dis integrating towers, beds of ancient irrigating canals and other marks of a once elaborate civilization. Travelers had often picked up near
these mounds little bits of antiquities, bricks, tablets and cylinder seals, that carried on their surfaces many curious wedge-shaped characters, which they regarded either as writing or orna mentation. These miscellaneous curios were thought to represent the civilizations of an unknown past, of peoples who occupied this territory in the days when prosperous cities and fruitful fields filled this great valley.
Earliest The first persons to take an active interest in the ruins of Baby Ionia and Assyria were Englishmen resident as government officials in some one of the chief modern cities of that country. C. J. Rich, a resident of Bagdad (1808-21), carefully ex ambled and described several mounds, and some inscriptions, in small works published during his residence. These attracted considerable at tention. But the first systematic excavations within this valley were undertaken by P. E. Botta, French consul at the time in Mosul, a modern city of some commercial and political importance on the upper Tigris River, in 1842 45. He began work on the colossal mounds opposite Mosul, on the east bank of the Tigris River; but he had little success until he trans ferred his force to the mound Khorsabad, about 14 miles north-northeast of the first site. Khorsa bad proved to be an immense treasure-house of antiquities. Here he uncovered the stupendous royal palace which later proved to be that of Sargon II (722-705 ac.), with a mass of in scriptions and antiquities of various kinds. This splendid find was greeted with enthusiasm by the scholarly world, and set minds to think ing and wills to acting to uncover other antiqui ties representing such a marvelous past. In 1845-47, A. H. Layard, an Englishman, began to dig at Nimroud, the ancient Calah, a mound about 20 miles south of Mosul, on the east bank of the Tigris. Persevering through almost in describable difficulties, Layard finally succeeded in bringing to light the palaces of Assurnasirpal (884-858 ac.). Shalmaneser III (858-823 ac.) and Esarhaddon (680-668 ac.). In 1849-51 this same intrepid excavator burrowed into the mound Kuyunjik, one of the mounds of ancient Nineveh, and laid bare two more great palaces, that of Sennacherib (705-680 a.c.), and that of Assurbanipal (668-626 Lc.). Botta's finds, so far as transportable, were taken to Paris and deposited in the Museum of the Louvre; those of Layard to the British Museum in London, but the largest objects were again buried for their better In this same period, Hormuzd Rassam, trained under Layard, made some valuable dis coveries (1851-54) at Kuyunjik for the Eng lish; and Victor Place at Khorsabad and Ful gence Fresnel and Jules Oppert at Hillah for the French. In most of the work undertaken by the English, Henry C. Rawlinson was a close adviser and an enthusiasticp_romoter.