Who were the Assyriologists and what did they find?

Assyriology is the study of the history, language, and culture of ancient Mesopotamia, which includes not only Assyria but also Sumer, Akkad, and Babylonia.

This area primarily covers present-day Iraq and parts of Syria and Turkey.

It is a relatively young field, only coming into its own in the 19th century. Since then, however, it has made great strides in our understanding of one of the most ancient civilizations of the ancient world.

The region of Mesopotamia has an incredibly long history.

The Sumerians were among the earliest to establish cities in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE and would flourish until 2334 BCE.

They are credited with the invention of cuneiform writing, which is considered one of the earliest writing systems in the world.

The Sumerians were eventually replaced by the Babylonians, who ruled from about 1894 BCE until they were conquered by the Assyrians in the early first millennium BCE.

However, the Assyrians dominated Mesopotamia intermittently over the next few centuries.

Then, the Assyrian Empire also fell in 612 BCE to a military coalition of Babylonians and Medes. 

This gave birth to the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626-539 BCE), which also fell in the Persian conquest of 539 BCE.

As a result, the field of Assyriology is interested in the 3000-year history of all of these empires: Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the Persians.

Perhaps the most influential of the early scholars who expressed a distinct interest in Assyriology was Austen Henry Layard.

He was an English archaeologist who made some of the first significant discoveries in Mesopotamia.

He began his career as a government diplomat in the Middle East, but he became interested in archaeology after seeing the ruins of Nineveh and Nimrud during a trip to Baghdad.

Nineveh had been the grand capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and was one of the largest cities in the world during its peak in the 7th century BCE.

Layard was amazed by the ruins of its impressive ancient walls, even though much of the city still remained unexplored.

So, in 1845, he resigned from his diplomatic post and began excavating at the site of Nimrud.

He chose this site because the ancient Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, who reigned from 883 to 859 BCE, established Nimrud as his capital city.

Within its walls, he built an elaborate palace decorated with detailed bas-reliefs depicting his military campaigns and hunts.

While Layard was not the first archaeologist to work in Mesopotamia, he was the first to really make significant discoveries.

He quickly uncovered a wealth of material, including sculptures, reliefs, and inscriptions, which he published to the world.

Encouraged by his finds, he worked on the sites of Nineveh and Babylon as well.

Layard made two significant finds at Nimrud. The first was the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud.

The second was the vast library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, which contained thousands of cuneiform tablets, including the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Layard's discoveries caused a sensation in the archaeological world, and they sparked a renewed interest in ancient Assyria.

However, it is important to remember that he didn't do the work alone. In fact, his excavations relied upon local workers, many of whom were unskilled.

This led to some problems, as Layard was not always able to control the excavations properly.

In addition, he was often forced to work in difficult conditions, with little money and few resources.

Nevertheless, Layard's excavations were highly successful.

At the same time that Layard was beginning his archaeological career, Paul Emile Botta was already an established figure.

Botta a French archaeologist who worked in Mesopotamia in the 1840s and 1850s.

He was the first archaeologist to really use scientific methods in his work. As a result, Botta was also the first to realize that Mesopotamian civilization was much older than had been previously thought.

Botta's work at Khorsabad began in 1843, two years before Layard started at Nimrud.

Khorsabad, also known as Dur-Sharrukin, was the Assyrian capital built by King Sargon II from around 710 BCE.

It also featured a grand palace and city walls which were adorned with massive reliefs.

Botta's greatest discovery was when he first uncovered the palace of Sargon II.

Botta's discoveries helped to fill in many gaps in the modern understanding of Assyrian history and culture.

Importantly, Botta's work was very different from Layard's. While he used local workers, he also employed a team of French experts.

This allowed him to carry out his excavations in a much more controlled and scientific manner.

Ultimately, Botta's work laid the foundation for modern archaeological methods.

Archaeology as a discipline was still in its infancy, and practices that would be considered standard today (like meticulous documentation and stratigraphic excavation) were not yet universally adopted.

Regardless, some of his most famous methods of scientific excavation include the use of stratigraphy and the recording of finds by context.

The third and final figure was the English Assyriologist, George Smith. He worked at the British Museum in the 1860s and 1870s.

He is best known for his ground-breaking English translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which would turn out to be one of the most important ancient texts from the region.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally dated to around 2100 BCE, is one of the earliest known literary works from Mesopotamia.

Written in the form of a long poem, it tells the adventures of the legendary King Gilgamesh of Uruk and his quest for immortality.

After Layard had discovered the ancient tablets containing this story, they had been sent to the British Museum in London for further study and preservation.

However, because very few people could read ancient Akkadian, the importance of its text was not immediately evident.

However, it was in the British Museum that Smith discovered them in storage. He carefully read through the inscriptions and produced the first ever translation.

When he published it, the story caused a sensation in the academic world, as it helped to shed light on a previously unknown aspect of Mesopotamian culture.

Following the success of his translation, he undertook two archaeological journeys to the ancient city of Nineveh, where he discovered further cuneiform tablets.

These ones were not stories or poems that he had translated up to that point, but were fragmentary records of the order and length of the Babylonian royal dynasties

However, Smith's discoveries were very important to the field of Assyriologists and have helped to further our understanding of ancient Mesopotamian civilization.