Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/97

Layard Tradition had always pointed to the mounds opposite the modern town of Mosul as marking the site of the ancient city of Nineveh (see, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 683), and Layard was not the first to examine or explore them. In 1820 and 1821 Claudius James Rich had begun the investigation, and had identified the mounds of Kuyunjik and Nebi-Yunus with Nineveh. Botta, however, was the first to undertake systematic excavations at Kuyunjik. During three months in 1842 he opened trenches in the mound, but as he did not meet with encouraging results he transferred his operations to Khorsabad, the site of Dûr Sharrukin, the city of Sargon II. The fine sculptures which he there dug up led him to form the erroneous belief that Khorsabad, and not Kuyunjik, was the site of Nineveh, and Layard fell into a similar error when he opened the mound at Nimrûd and wrongly identified it with Nineveh. It was not until the inscriptions found later on at Kuyunjik had been deciphered by Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson [q. v.] and others that Rich's view was once again acknowledged to be correct. Nimrûd was afterwards identified as the site of the Assyrian city of Calah. The large mound of Nimrûd, to which Layard, influenced by Botta's want of success at Kuyunjik, turned his attention, lies near the village of that name on the left bank of the Tigris, about twenty miles south-east of Mosul. He continued to dig there until the summer of 1846, uncovering what were subsequently identified as parts of the palaces of Ashurnașir-pal, Esarhaddon, and Shalmaneser II, which were situated respectively in the north-west and south-west corners and in the centre of the mound. Layard made periodical reports of his progress to Canning, who in May procured from the Turkish government a letter authorising the continuation of the excavations and the removal of such objects as might be discovered. Layard therefore had the bas-reliefs sawn in half to lighten their weight, and the sculptured portions were floated down the Tigris to Basra for transport to England. Meanwhile Canning perceived that his own means would not suffice to carry out the excavations with success, and it was in consequence of his representations to Sir Robert Peel, the prime minister (see Life of Canning, ii. 149 f.), that operations were continued by the trustees of the British Museum. The sultan had made a personal gift to Canning of the antiquities which had hitherto been found ; these Canning generously presented to the nation, and the trustees of the museum availed themselves of his advice with regard to the future conduct of the excavations.

At the beginning of November 1846 work was resumed at Nimrûd on a more extensive scale for the British Museum, and Layard also superintended excavations at Kal'at Skerķât (the site of the city of Ashur), and for a few weeks in the following spring at Kuyunjik. In June 1847 Layard left Mosul for England, where he prepared an ac-count of the excavations with the assistance of Samuel Birch [q. v. Suppl.] of the British Museum. The work was entitled 'Nineveh and its Remains' (1848-9), for Layard incorrectly believed that Nimrûd was within the precincts of Nineveh. The book made a great sensation, and in recognition of his discoveries Layard received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford on 5 July 1848. It is a curious fact, however, that, like Botta's 'Monuments de Ninive,' the book had in reality little to do with Nineveh or its remains.

On 5 April 1849 Layard was appointed an attaché to the embassy at Constantinople, whither he returned ; and in October of that year he again superintended excavations for the trustees of the British Museum, a grant of 3,000l. having been placed at their disposal by the treasury for this purpose. For more than a year work was carried on, and palaces of Sennacherib and A shur-bani-pal at Kuyunjik and a palace of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon at Nebi-Yunus were partly uncovered. In the spring of 1851 Layard returned to England, and the excavations were continued by Rawlinson, then consul general, and the political agent of the East India Company at Baghdad. Layard published an account of his second series of excavations in his work 'Nineveh and Babylon,' which appeared in 1853. Layard's discoveries brought him very wide reputation. He was presented with the freedom of the city of London in 1853, and in 1855 he was elected lord rector of Aberdeen University.

He did not return to Mesopotamia after 1851. Thenceforth he devoted himself to politics, in which his main interests were confined to the affairs of Eastern Europe. On 7 July 1852 he was returned as a liberal for Aylesbury, and from 12 Feb. to 18 Aug. held the post of under-secretary for foreign affairs under Lord Palmerston. He represented Aylesbury until 1857, but while he held the seat he was absent from England for some time. In 1853 he visited at Constantinople Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (Sir Stratford Canning), his former patron, and, proceeding to the Black Sea in the