Note 38 — Chapter IV

Since the year 1903 the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft has been conducting excavations at Shergât, the site of Ashur, the old capital of Assyria on the middle Tigris. Monographs on some of the temples of the city and its system of fortification have already been published, and during the summer of 1913 the excavations were drawing to a close. The greater part of the palace and temple-area had been uncovered, and detailed plans had been made of all existing buildings; it only remained to trench still deeper to the virgin rock, in order to complete the digging. This process bad naturally been left till last, as it involved considerable destruction to the buildings already uncovered. It was in the course of the deeper trenching that the discoveries referred to in the text were made; for brief reports of them by Andrae, see the "Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft," No. 54 (June, 1914).