by "Sargon the Later", who is referred to by Isaiah. The relics
discovered by Botta and his successor, Victor Place, are preserved in
the Louvre.

At Kalkhi and Nineveh Layard uncovered the palaces of some of the most
famous Assyrian Emperors, including the Biblical Shalmaneser and
Esarhaddon, and obtained the colossi, bas reliefs, and other treasures
of antiquity which formed the nucleus of the British Museum's
unrivalled Assyrian collection. He also conducted diggings at Babylon
and Niffer (Nippur). His work was continued by his assistant, Hormuzd
Rassam, a native Christian of Mosul, near Nineveh. Rassam studied for
a time at Oxford.

The discoveries made by Layard and Botta stimulated others to follow
their example. In the "fifties" Mr. W.K. Loftus engaged in excavations
at Larsa and Erech, where important discoveries were made of ancient
buildings, ornaments, tablets, sarcophagus graves, and pot burials,
while Mr. J.E. Taylor operated at Ur, the seat of the moon cult and
the birthplace of Abraham, and at Eridu, which is generally regarded
as the cradle of early Babylonian (Sumerian) civilization.

In 1854 Sir Henry Rawlinson superintended diggings at Birs Nimrud
(Borsippa, near Babylon), and excavated relics of the Biblical
Nebuchadrezzar. This notable archaeologist began his career in the
East as an officer in the Bombay army. He distinguished himself as a
political agent and diplomatist. While resident at Baghdad, he devoted
his leisure time to cuneiform studies. One of his remarkable feats was
the copying of the famous trilingual rock inscription of Darius the
Great on a mountain cliff at Behistun, in Persian Kurdistan. This work
was carried out at great personal risk, for the cliff is 1700 feet