ts. Victor Place, a French architect of note, who succeeded
Botta as the French consul at Mosul, devoted his term of service, from
1851 to 1855, towards completing the excavations at Khorsabad. A large
aftermath rewarded his efforts. Thanks, too, to his technical knowledge
and that of his assistant, Felix Thomas, M. Place was enabled more
accurately to determine the architectural construction of the temples
and palaces of ancient Assyria. Within this same period (1852-1854)
another exploring expedition was sent out to Mesopotamia by the French
government, under the leadership of Fulgence Fresnel, in whose party
were the above-mentioned Thomas and the distinguished scholar Jules
Oppert. The objective point this time was Southern Mesopotamia, the
mounds of which had hitherto not been touched, many not even identified
as covering the remains of ancient cities. Much valuable work was done
by this expedition in its careful study of the site of the ancient
Babylon,--in the neighborhood of the modern village Hillah, some forty
miles south of Baghdad. Unfortunately, the antiquities recovered at this
place, and elsewhere, were lost through the sinking of the rafts as they
carried their precious burden down the Tigris. In the south again, the
English followed close upon the heels of the French. J. E. Taylor, in
1854, visited many of the huge mounds that were scattered throughout
Southern Mesopotamia in much larger numbers than in the north, while his
compatriot, William K. Loftus, a few years previous had begun
excavations, though on a small scale, at Warka, the site of the ancient
city of Erech. He also conducted some investigations at a mound Mugheir,
which acquired special interest as the supposed site of the famous
Ur,--the home of some of the Terahites before the migration to
Palestine. Of still greater significance were the examinations made by
Sir Henry Rawlinson, in 1854, of the only considerable ruins of ancient
Babylonia that remained above the surface,--the tower of Birs Nimrud,
which proved to be the famous seven-staged temple as described by
Herodotus. This temple was completed, as the foundation records showed,
by Nebuchadnezzar II., in the sixth century before this era; but the
beginnings of the structure belong to a much earlier period. Another
sanctuary erected by this same king was found near the tower. Subsequent
researches by Hormuzd Rassam made it certain that Borsippa, the ancient
name of the place where the t