As far "as Agriculture is concerned, As.syria was not, owing to its more northern aspect, the rich corn-bearing land that Babylonia was; but all the more on this account efforts were made on the jiart of the kings, by the construction of canals and weirs, to increase the fertility of the soil. The water needed for the land, whicli was supplied in such abundance by the inountaiu streams, was in this way properly regulated and distributed.
HisiiiKV (IF Assvi:i.\. — Thanks entirely to the excavations of the ruins of the oUl cities, especially Nineveh and Kalakh, the history of Assyria from its earliest beginning.s, c. 2000 li.c, to the fall of Nineveh, can be set forth with great detail and exactness. The great number of inscriptions * which have been brought to light puts us in the position of being able to write an uninterrujited history of the Assyr. empire for many centuries. In these Discoveries the palm belongs witliout doubt to Englishmen — especially to Sir Austin Henry Layard (d. 1S9I) and Ilnrmnzd R.a.ssam.
It was Claudius James Uicli who lirst discovered the ruins of Nineveh, and drew the attention of investigators to this city, which is of such imi)ort- ance to antiquarians. After visiting Mo.sul three times (the first visit being paid in 1811), and super- ficially examining the rubbish-mound which is to be found on the opposite bank of the Tigris, he resolved in the year 1820 to make a thorough examination of it, the results of which were published sixteen years later (18.'5fl), in accordance with the terms of his will. The scanty remains of
* With reffni-ft to tho dfripfterment of these inscriptions, without which thev would n-innin ft dcnrl muss, see the nrticlt' on the subji^et in rtoniiiiel. trgsi-hic/iff B'fh, ti. As8tjr. Cf. Itio literature of the subject at the end of this article.
sculptures and inscribed stones brought by him to Europe formed the basis of the Assyrian collection in the British Museum, which has since become so splendid, and confirmed the conjecture made by Josepli liager in 1801, that the same cuneiform writing which hatl been found in Babylon at the end of the previous century was the foundation of the culture of the Assyrian world-empire. New paths of rich promise were thus pointed out to Oriental archaeology.
The excavations of the Frenchman P. E. BoUa, 184:1!— tu, at Khorsabad, a village five miles to the north of Nineveh, and, above all, of the Englisli- man Aristin Henry Lnyard at Nimroud, the site of ancient Kalakh (end of 1815 to miildle of 1847), and at Kouyunjik, ancient Nineveh (1849-51), brought to light a whole series of Assyr. palaces and a multitude of sculptures and inscriptions, after a slumber of 2500 years. It was Layard who urged Botta to persevere with his excavations, which at first were fruitless ; and some j-ears afterwards, when Layard himself commenced to excavate, he found in the consul, Hormuzd Uasgam, an indefatigable helper — a fact which was first clearly recognised and duly acknowledged some ten years later. At Khorsabad, Botta had the good fortune to lay bare the first Assyr. palace, which had been built by king Sargon (Is 20'), Dur-Sarrukin (castle of Sargon), the bas-reliefs and inscriptions of which now embellish the Louvre in Paris; while Layard, in Nimrouil and Kouyunjik, excavated no fewer than five great palaces, of which the antiquities were brought to the British Museum. By this stroke of good fortune the greater part of the famous clay tablets of the library of king Sardanapalus (Assurbanipal) now came to light.
Additions were made in the following years to these discoveries of Botta and Layard by the after-gleanings of Kassam. from 1851-.54, in Kou- yunjik, and of the French architect Mclor Place in Khorsabad. In 1854 Rassam excavated the North Palace of Assurbanipal, and by this stroke of fortune discovered a fresh portion of the library mentioned above.
During the next decades Assyr. excavation was at a standstill ; but, to make up for this, the first three volumes of the great work on As.syr. inscrip- tions, The Cuneiform fuseriptirms of Western Asia (18(51, 1860, 1870), were published during that period by Henry Rawlinson, Edwin Norris, and George Smith. This book was preceded by a volume of Assyr. inscriptions, edited by Layard, 1801, a work which, it nuist be admitted, wa.s not nearly so accurate as that of Rawlinson. To this period also belongs the ]ireliminary settle- ment of the grand iiroblem of decijiherment inaugu- rated by Rawlinson, Ilincks, and Oppert.
In the years 1873 and 1874 the excavations in Nineveh were resumed, the unfortunate George Smith, who died of fever in Aleppo on Aug. 19, 1875, making two journeys of investiga- tion, which produced rich results. Amongst many other finds, this enthusiastic and gifted young investigator discovered a number of clay tablets lielonging to the library of Assurbanipal, amongst them being the Bab. account of the Flood and other allied mythological texts (see B.MiYLo.viA). These discoveries won for him a celebrity and popularity such as few others have attained.
The work which had been resumed by Smith, and which was unfortunately cut short by his jiri'inature death, was continued by the veteran Hormuzd llassam in a further expedition in the years 1877-78, from which he came back with far richer spoil than even G. Smith's. Jlcntion must here be made of the discoveries of a temiile in Nimroud, the famous bronze gateway of Bala-