volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Excavations at D^r Closed. 281
the whole consignment of Arabic, Persian and Turkish
MSS. He said that he would send them to the Ministry
of Public Instruction, and that that Department would
restore them to the institutions from which they had
been stolen. I protested against the confiscation, and
told him that the institutions to which the MSS. belonged
originally no longer existed, because the various Walis
of Mosul had filched away their revenues, and obliged
the custodians to sell the properties in their charge in
order to pay the debts incurred in managing them.
To these remarks the Mudir turned a deaf ear, and the
manuscripts were tied up in his presence and sent to
the Ministry of Public Instruction. I invoked the aid
of Colonel Tweedie, and together we went to see the
Wall, who listened patiently to our protest, but said
that he was not prepared to take any steps in the matter.
He further said that so many Arabic manuscripts had
left the country in recent years that the Porte had
prohibited the further exportation of old manuscripts
absolutely. But he promised to have my collection
which had been confiscated carefully examined, and
if there were found among them any which were not
awMf {i.e., religious bequests) they should be returned
to me. As there was nothing further to be done just
then I returned to Der.
In the course of the following week I received a
letter from Sir William White, saying that he had
telegraphed Colonel Tweedie's report to the British
Museum authorities, and that they had replied to it,
and asked him to tell me to close the excavations whenever
I was convinced that there was no object to be
gained in keeping them open. On February 15th
news reached me that the last lot of cases, which contained
the 2,500 tablets I had acquired, had left the
country, and I decided to close the excavations at Der
at once. I therefore had many of the trenches filled in,
and gave notice to the Arabs, so that they might make
arrangements for taking their wives and famUies back
to their villages. When the authorities in Baghdad
heard of this they set men to watch everyone who