Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/66

EXCAVATION OF THE RUINS OF ANCIENT NIPPUR IN BABYLONIA These ruins were excavated by the University of Pennsylvania Expedition in three campaigns between 1889 and 1900. This view shows the work of excavation going on. The earth (once sun-dried brick) is taken out in baskets and carried away by a long line of native laborers, who empty their baskets at the far end of an ever-growing bank of excavated earth. The ruinous buildings, once entirely covered, are slowly exposed, and among them often clay tablets or objects of pottery, stone, or metal. Thus are recov- ered the records and antiquities of ancient Babylonia. They lie at different levels, the oldest things nearer the bottom and the later ones higher up. The view to the horizon gives a good idea of the flat Babylonian plain. Only two generations ago the monuments and records of Babylonia and Assyria preserved in Europe could all be contained in a show case only a few feet square. Since 1840, however, archaeological excavation, as we call such digging, has recovered great quantities of antiquities and records. Such work is now slowly recovering for us the story of the ancient world. (Drawn from a photograph furnished by courtesy of the University Museum, Philadelphia)