volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Discoveries at Nineveh by Natives. 23
Thompson, who arrived in M6sul on February 29th, and
took sole charge of the works there from June 22nd,
1904, to February nth, 1905, when the excavations were
finally closed by the Trustees. Short of digging down
and sifting the whole mound, it seemed that nothing more
was to be found there. ^ Two years later rumours reached
London that further excavations had been carried on at
Nineveh, but by whom and in what spot was not clear.
A little later further rumours stated that some important
" finds " had been made, and some of these having made
their way to England were acquired by the British Museum
in 1909-14. Among these were the fine cylinder of
Sennacherib (No. 103,000"), dated in the eponymy of
Ilu-ittia (B.C. 694), and several large pieces of other
historical cylinders of the same king. There is no doubt
that the cylinder was found in a chamber built in the
wall (or perhaps it was sunk in the actual wall), close to
one of the human-headed bulls of one of the gates of
Nineveh, and the bull near which it was placed must have
been removed before it could be extracted from the
wall. There was only one bull left in situ when I was
last at Kujmnjik (1891), and it was in a perfect state.
When Mr. Parry saw it in 1892' its head had been hacked
off and taken to mend a local mill. Subsequently,,
according to report, " the whole monument was sold for
the sum of three shillings and sixpence by the Vali of
Mosul, and burnt into lime by its purchaser."* It is
probable that cylinder No. 103,000 was discovered by
the natives when they were breaking this bull to pieces,
and we must be thankful that they had sense enough to
realize that it would fetch more money complete than
when broken into fragments.
Brief mention must now be made of the other great
^ For descriptions of the tablets and fragments recovered from the
mound by Messrs. King and Thompson, see L. W. King's Supplement
(London, 1914) to Bezold's Catalogue.
^ King, Supplement, No. 3329, p. 222, and Cuneiform Texts,
Pt. XXVI, London, 1909.
' Six Months, p. 248.
* W. A. Wigram, Cradle of Mankind, London, 1914, p. 84.