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March 5, 1817

 

Austen Henry Layard (March 5, 1817 to July 5, 1894) was an Englishman born to great affluence, who spent his formative years in various European locales. He is remembered today as the first archeologist of Nimrud, a capital in what was once Assyria, located on the Tigris river. One of his books on his work there, he titled, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853). That is where we found this description of the setting of his work.

     The greater part of the country below ancient Babylon has now been for centuries one great swamp....The embankments of the rivers, utterly neglected, have broken away, and the waters have spread over the face of the land. ...
The Arab tribes inhabiting them are, as I have already observed, amongst the most wild and ignorant that can be found in this part of Asia. ..[.W]hilst the Turk looks upon these Arabs as mere wild beasts, they in return have lost all confidence in the faith and honor of the Ottoman government. ... These Arabs are of the Sheeah sect of Mussulmans, ... 

     The marshes and the jungles near the rivers are the retreats of many kinds of wild animals. Lions abound. I have seen them frequently, and during the excavations at Niffer we found fresh traces of their footsteps almost daily amongst the ruins. ...In the jungles are also found leopards, lynxes, wild cats, wolves, hyenas, jackals, deer, porcupines, boars in vast numbers, and other animals. Wild fowl; cranes, and bustards abound, and that beautiful game-bird the francolin, or black partridge, swarms in the low brushwood. The Arabs shoot them with ball. The marshes are full of fish, ...They are generally taken by the spear.
     Although the inhabitants of the marshes recognise some of the laws of the Bedouins, they are wanting in many of the virtues of the Arabs of the Desert. They have, however, several customs relating to the duties of hospitality, which are rigidly adhered to. To say of a Maidan "that he has sold bread," is to offer him the greatest of insults. To part with a loaf for money is accounted an act bringing disgrace not only upon the perpetrator, but upon his whole family. I found this peculiar custom exceedingly inconvenient during my residence amongst the Afaij. Sheikh Agab insisted upon giving daily to my large party their supplies of bread; and it was impossible to obtain it in any other manner. Even its sale in the public market was forbidden. I was, at length, compelled to send to a considerable distance for flour, and then to employ my own workmen in baking it. The same scruples do not exist with regard to other articles of food. ....

Among the gold and sculptures Layard discovered were "colossal winged man-headed lions" weighing more than 9 tons. There were more than six pairs of these so-called 'portal guardians' and Layard returned with antiquities for the British museum, including one of the lion pairs. He returned to England in the 1850s to a career in government. In 1866 he was made a trustee of the British museum, so he did not relinquish all contact with the Assyrian art. He retired though, after more decades, to Italy, to pursue his artistic interests.

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