Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/171

 ference, a work that produces a startling effect upon the reader who looks at Plate 2. Little now remained but the task of collecting their treasures. The process of packing and superintending the removal of such weighty objects occupied the rest of their time, and when they left, at the end of March, they brought away three hundred and twenty-seven cases and forty-five tons of baggage. When the difficult journey to the coast was successfully overcome, they found a man-of-war ready to transport them safely back to France. They had acquired inestimable archæological riches, which are now to be seen among the precious collections of the Louvre. These remains of Achæmenian palaces, as they say, were not torn from some splendid ruin, but called back to life from the hidden embrace of the grave; and they were acquired at the peril of their lives. The Susian mission waged an almost hopeless battle and came off victorious. We fear, however, that a good deal of M. Dieulafoy's industry was misdirected. If a third plate were to be prepared, marking only the 'Restorations directes d'ai)res les fouilles,' and omitting the lines indicating the 'Restorations calculées ' and the 'Restitutions hypothétiques,' the reader would be surprised to see how little of the 'Acropole de Suse' remained. The great staircase ascending to the Apadana or Columnar Edifice seems to be also entirely without authority, and his most ingenious speculations are to a great extent completely overthrown by the excavations of his successor.