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Mr. Taylor in Chaldaea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The very first reports on excavations at sites in southern Sumer appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1855 under the name of ‘J. E. Taylor, Esq.’ A typographer's misreading thus gave Taylor the wrong initials under which he is usually mentioned. His middle name was in fact George. It may, of course, seem surprising that the author himself did not bother to correct the error. One can only suppose that, postal communications being what they were at the time (see below, §6), he never had a chance of seeing his articles in proof.
Very little seems to be known of John George Taylor's life and career. According to information kindly supplied by Miss S. Johnson, India Office Records, he was the son of R. Taylor, “almost certainly Colonel R. Taylor”, Rawlinson's predecessor at Baghdad. If so, it is remarkable that the latter does not seem to mention the fact in his correspondence with the British Museum. What is certain is that J. G. Taylor was The Hon. East India Company's Agent and H.M. Vice-Consul at Basrah from 1851 to 1859. In 1853 he started his explorations of the “Chaldaean Marshes” for and on behalf of the British Museum under the very strict instructions and supervision of Rawlinson who, as The Hon. East India Company's Political Agent in Turkish Arabia and H.M. Consul-General at Baghdad, was then presiding over Mesopotamian archaeology with truly vice-regal grandeur and an almost proprietary interest.
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References
1 “Notes on the Ruins of Muqeyer”, JRAS 15 (1855), 260–276Google Scholar; “Notes on Abu Shahrein and Tel el Lahm”, ibid, 404–415.
2 Only Contenau, in the bibliography to his Manuel d'archéologie orientale, i, 498Google Scholar, and Parrot, in the bibliography to his Archéologie mésopotamienne, i, 107Google Scholar, give him his true initials, J. G., although the latter calls him J. E. in the body of the text (pp. 90 and 92; the former calls him simply “Taylor”). The correct initials appear in Taylor's later articles mentioned below, fn. 6.
3 Col. R. Taylor was the original owner of the “Taylor Cylinder” of Sennacherib (actually a prism, BM 91032 = 55–10–3, 1) and as such has often been confused with J. G. Taylor (cf., e.g., Parrot, , Arch. més., i, 93Google Scholar). A somewhat inaccurate account of the prism's history is given by Pallis, , The Antiquity of Iraq, 69 fGoogle Scholar. In a letter to Sir H. Ellis, dated 3.8.1854, Rawlinson writes:–“With regard to the annals of Sennacherib I do not think any satisfactory results can be obtained, that is any results worthy of being published by the Trustees for general information, until we obtain a complete copy of the inscription on Col. Taylor's cylinder. If Mrs Taylor will surrender this relic to the Museum at a fair price well and good. If not the inscription can be almost entirely recovered from the Paris cast.” (This is certainly the cast referred to by Pallis, loc. cit.). In June of the following year, Rawlinson was able to inform the Trustees that he had acquired the prism for £250. In modern terms, this would be about £1,500.
4 Taylor made two exploratory trips in January and February–March 1853 and carried out excavations from December 1853 to the end of February 1854 and from October to December of the same year.
5 See below, §§5, 8, 9, 11, 26 (“…adds another page to my knowledge of ancient Chaldaea”).
6 His travel notes appeared in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 35 (1865), 21 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and 38 (1868), 281 ff. See also the Society's Proceedings 9 (1863) 36 ffGoogle Scholar.
7 BM 118883 = 63–6–19, 1 (Ashurnasirpal II) and BM 118884 = 63–6–19, 2 (Shalmaneser III).
8 JRGS 35, 22 fGoogle Scholar.
9 Eleven years later, the Trustees ordered an inquiry to be made about the “tablet” which, as it appeared, “had not been received.” It is very likely, however, that it eventually did arrive, for in 1927 the Department of Greek & Roman Antiquities acquired from the Carchemish Exploration Fund a basalt stela (1927–12–14, 1) found at Selik and corresponding to Taylor's description (cf. Humann, & Puchstein, , Reisen in Kleinasien, Berlin 1890, 368Google Scholar). The Greek & Roman Department possesses also a companion stela (1914–2–14, 1) from neighbouring Samosata bequeathed in 1913 by Lynch, H. B. F., the author of Armenia, Travels and Studies, London 1901Google Scholar, and previously published by Yorke, V.W., JHS 18 (1898) 312 ffGoogle Scholar.
10 This is the site of the Lagashite city of Siraran (also read Nina); see Sollberger, . JCS 21 (1967), 284 fnGoogle Scholar. 45. Koldewey, who dug there in 1887, naturally used the (North-)German Sto transliterate the initial z in Zerghul, and that spelling has been almost universally adopted since (even official Iraqi documents spell the name in Arabic with initial sīn!).
11 See, e.g., Lidzbarski, , Florilegium de Vogüé, Paris 1908, 394 ff.Google Scholar; Yamauchi, , Mandaic Incantation Texts, AOS 49, New Haven 1967Google Scholar, 2 and 6 with fn. 6.
12 47°10′ E by 31°14′ N on Sheet No. H 38 F (2nd ed., 1942) of Map 3919 of the Geographical Section of the General Staff. The name of the site appears as Ishan abu Shajar on the map in Thesiger's The Marsh Arabs, Penguin, ed. (1967), 62 fGoogle Scholar.
13 The Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities possesses a number of these lead scrolls acquired on various occasions. Three (BM 102408–10) are registered, without any detail, as from “old coll.” and may well have been sent by Taylor.
14 Although Rawlinson's personal relations with members of the French team seem to have been courteous and even friendly, his letters abound in pointed remarks on the work of his French competitors which he obviously regarded with amused condescension. On 25th September, 1852, he wrote to Ellis about an extraordinary incident involving the French mission's artist, Félix Thomas (see Pillet, , Expédition…de Mésopotamie, 81 ff.Google Scholar; Gadd, , Stones of Assyria, 87Google Scholar). The letter is paraphrased in Rawlinson's, G.Memoir, 179 f.Google Scholar, but the relevant passage is worth quoting in extenso: “I take the earliest opportunity of acquainting you for the Information of the Trustees with a most unfortunate event which has lately occurred in this vicinity and which will I fear essentially interfere with the prosecution of any further excavations in Babylonia. The French commission as you are aware has been for some time engaged in operations at Babylon. All the members of the Commission are eccentric and excitable. The artist Mr. Felix Thomas I should have thought the steadiest of the party. This young man however lately chanced to find in the ruins some cinerary jars as are to be found in hundreds in every mound in the country, and he became so elated by this discovery that he actually lost his senses, and while laboring under this mental aberration he shot the Sheikh of the village which now occupies the site of Babylon, conceiving the man to have a design on his life. Monsr. Thomas has since been brought into Baghdad, and although he has occasionally lucid intervals it is feared he will become in the end a confirmed maniac. The wounded Arab is now lying at Hilleh with the ball in his lungs. I have sent out the medical officer of the Residency to attend him, but very faint hopes are entertained of his recovery. Should he die it will be considered by the Arabs a stroke of fate and they will be content with the payment of blood money but they will of course be very chary of any further connexion with us. It has always appeared to them a sort of insanity that Europeans should spend their money in digging up old stones and bricks, and the proceedings of the French Commission have tendered in every respect to confirm this impression. They make a distinction it is true between the phlegmatic English and the excitable French but ‘au fond” they think us all mad together, and I thus really apprehend difficulty in getting them in future to engage in our service.”
15 About £95.
16 The ruins of Tell en Nawāwiyas, a little to the South of En Nuwaiwis, about 70 km. due West of Ur as the crow flies. The mention here and elsewhere in the correspondence of both Abu Shahrein and Nuwaweis in the same context shows that Hall, , JEA 9 (1923) 178Google Scholar, fn. 3, was wrong to criticize Hilprecht for rejecting Peters's assumption that Shahrein “is identical with Nowawis”, in spite of Hall's having himself heard Abu Shahrein called Nowawis.
17 Yet five months earlier (see above, §3) Rawlinson was proposing to put Loftus in charge.
18 The former Sir Stratford Canning, H.M. Ambassador to the Sublime Porte.
19 Printed below, §10.
20 About £1,400.
21 Taylor's letter (dated “Mekeyer 14th January 1854”) is mainly about the four Nabonidus cylinders he discovered at the four corners of the ziqqurrat at Ur(cf. Gadd, , Hist. & Mon. of Ur, 234 f.Google Scholar), and also tells of his local difficulties: “The Dhefyr under Sultan-es-Suweyt have just had a tremendous thrashing from the combined forces of the Ajman, Beni Mussa and Beni Muteyr, his cousin Jaza-el-Bedhrai of the Dheraan branch of the Dhefyr has also been thrashed by the Ainiza, everyone tells me therefore I am in great peril, I think otherwise, however, and intend trying my luck backed by my force of labourers who are all armed with a musket and sword. When I am once entranched on the Nuwaweis I will defy their forces and benefit at the same time, as I fancy the deeper the trench, the greater security for my people, at all events I can stand a siege for two days, ample time to get succour from Semaweh and even Sook esh Shiukh.”
22 This “hurried communication” consists of six closely-written pages plus a two-page memo on the slabs selected for the Museum.
23 This is the first of the two articles published in JRAS 15: cf. fn. 1 above.
24 The artist on the Assyrian sites.
25 To judge by previous letters, however, the excavation did not start before November; cf.§§18, 21, 23 ff.
26 This is the second article in JRAS 15: cf. fn. 1 above.
27 Yet fragments from Zerghul (a brick and a cone) are listed in an inventory, dated “Maagill June 1855”, of objects sent to London on board the Christiana Cornell. The two Gudea cones from Zerghul, BM 30064 = 56–9–3, 1478 and BM 30067 = 56–9–3, 1481 (= 1R 5 XXIII 2) may well, as the date suggests, have been sent by Taylor.
28 A few years later Rawlinson had obviously changed his mind. In the memorandum to the Trustees of 5th November, 1870 (see above, p. 130), he recommended that equal amounts of £500 each be spent on large scale excavations in both Assyria and Babylonia. And in his letter to Birch (11th February, 1871; mentioned above, p. 130), he wrote: “I agree with him [Taylor] generally as far as Chaldaea is concerned, but I could not recommend that Assyria should be altogether neglected in favor of the Southern districts.”