Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/204

i74 A History of Art in Chald.ka and Assyria. In the course of this study, and especially in the case of the older civilization, we shall encounter many gaps. The monuments are few, and, even of those that we have, many are not a little embarrassing. They are often uninscribed and we are then without even the help afforded by the language and the style of the character in fixing a date. Fortunately this is not always the case ; there are often indications that enable us to form certain groups, and, if not to assign absolute dates, at least to determine their relative places in a chronological series. Of all these groups the best established and almost the only ones that can be used as the heads of series are those whose elements have been furnished by the explorations undertaken by M. de Sarzec, French vice-consul at Bassorah, at Tello, upon the site of a town which we shall follow the majority of Assyriologists in calling Sirtella. We have written the history of these excavations elsewhere ; we have explained how greatly they do honour to the artistic spirit, the perseverance, and the energy of M. de Sarzec; 1 we have given the history of the negotiations and of the vote in Parliament which led to the acquisition by the Louvre of all the objects discovered. It will be sufficient to say here that the works began in the winter of 1876 and came to an end in 1S81, and that the purchase of M. de Sarzec's collection took place in the latter year, under the administration of M. Jules Ferry. The name of Tello, which has become famous so suddenly, is to be found on no map of Asia to which we have access. The place thus designated by the Arabs in consequence of the numerous mounds, or tells, that are sprinkled about, is situated quite in the desert, on the left bank of the Shat-el-Haï, above Châtra and below Said- Hassan, which are on the other side of the channel, and about an hour and a quarter's march to the east. 2 1 G. Perrot, Les Fouilles de M. de Sarzec en Chaldée, in the Revue des deux Mondes, for October 1, 1882. A methodical account of the whole enterprise will be found in a forthcoming work, which will bear for title : Découvertes en Chaldée, par M. E. de Sarzec, ouvrage publie par les soins de la conservation des antiquités orientales au Musée du Louvre. Its quarto size will make it a more convenient work than those of Botta and Place. The illustrations will be produced by the Dujardin heliogravure process. 2 Said-Hassan and Châtra, of which we have made use to give some approximate idea as to where Tello is situated, are marked upon the map given by Loftus {Travels and Researches, &c).