268
 

Return to Hillah.    Native Views on Excavations

AND  ON  THE  TrADE  IN  AnTICAS.

When we returned to Hillah we went to our lodging
in the house of the Jew with whom we made an arrange¬
ment in the morning. After a short time natives dropped
in one by one, and seated themselves around the room
by the wall, and each produced antiquities from some
part of his dress. Late in the evening, when the other
dealers had departed, our host brought put a number of
most interesting objects, some of which he had acquired
quite recently. I bought several of them at very reason¬
able prices, among them being a basalt weight for two-
thirds of a mana and one shekel. On this valuable
object is a trilingual inscription in Persian, Susian, and
Median cuneiform, recording its weight and the name of
Darius Hystaspes (b.c. 520-485). It is now in the British
Museum.^ Our host and his friends had many of the
tablets of the last Babylonian Empire, which had come
from Ibrahim al-Khalil and Jumjumah, sites of the
Trustees' excavations, and I bought several large selec¬
tions from them. When the purchases were concluded we
sat and talked far into the night about excavations at
Babylon, and at places in the neighbourhood, and I
found that he was as anxious to question me as I was
to question him. He was wishfiil to learn something
more than he found in his Scriptures about the ancient
history of the country, but though books on the subject
were plentiful there were none written in any language
which he could read; and I found that he was ignorant
of the existence of the great histories written by Biladh¬
uri, Ibn al-Athir, Mas'udi, and others. When I asked
him about the excavations which the natives made at
Babylon his answer was to this effect:—

Native   merchants   in   Hillah   and   elsewhere,   and

* No. 91,117.    I published copies of the texts in Proc Soc. Bibl.
Arch., vol. X, p. 464 f.    Its weight is 2,573 grains.