IV
The next thing of importance that happened in our lives was my being taken to visit Dr and Mrs Campbell-Thompson for the week-end, so that I could be vetted before being allowed to go to Nineveh. Max was now practically fixed up to go and dig with them the following autumn and winter. The Woolleys were not pleased at his leaving Ur, but he was determined on the change.
C. T., as he was usually known, had certain tests which he applied to people. One of them was the cross-country scramble. When he had anyone like me staying, he would take them out on the wettest day possible over rough country, and notice what kind of shoes they wore, whether they were tireless, whether they were agreeable to burrowing through hedges, and forcing their way through woods. I was able to pass that test successfully, having done so much walking and exploring on Dartmoor. Rough country held no terrors for me. But I was glad it was not entirely over ploughed fields, which I think are very tiring.
The next test was to find if I was fussy about eating. C. T. soon discovered that I could eat anything, and that again pleased him. He also was fond of reading my detective stories, which prejudiced him in my favour. Having decided, presumably, that I would fit in well enough at Nineveh, things were fixed up. Max was to go there late in September, and I was to join him at the end of October.
My plan was to spend a few weeks writing and relaxing in Rhodes and then to sail to the port of Alexandretta, where I knew the British Consul. There I would hire a car to drive me to Aleppo. At Aleppo I would take the train to Nisibin on the Turkisha€“Iraqi frontier, and there would then be an eight-hour drive to Mosul.
It was a good plan, and agreed with Max, who would meet me at Mosula€“but arrangements in the Middle East seldom run true to plan. The sea can be very rough in the Mediterranean, and after we had put in at Mersin, the waves were rising high and I was lying groaning in my bunk. The Italian steward was full of compassion, and much upset by the fact that I no longer wished to eat anything. At intervals he would put his head in and tempt me with something on the current daya€?s menu. a€?I bring you lovely spaghetti. Very good, very nice rich tomato saucea€“you like it very much.a€a€?Oh,a€I groaned, the mere thought of hot greasy spaghetti with tomato sauce practically finishing me. He would return later. a€?I have something you like now. Vine leaves in olive oila€“rolled up in olive oil with rice. Very good.a€More groans from me. He did once bring me a bowl of soup, but the inch of grease on the top of it made me turn green once more.
As we were approaching Alexandretta I managed to get myself on my feet, dressed, packed, and then staggered out uncertainly on deck to revive myself with fresh air. As I stood there, feeling rather better in the cold sharp wind, I was told I was wanted in the Captaina€?s cabin. He broke the news to me that the steamer would not be able to put in to Alexandretta. a€?It is too rough,a€he said. a€?It is not easy there, you see, to land.a€This was serious indeed. It seemed that I could not even communicate with the Consul.
a€?What shall I do?a€I asked.
The Captain shrugged his shoulders. a€?You will have to go on to Beirut. There is nothing else for it.a€?
I was dismayed. Beirut was entirely in the wrong direction. However, it had to be endured.
a€?We do not charge you any more,a€the Captain said, encouragingly. a€?Since we are unable to land you there, we take you on to the next port.a€?
The sea had abated somewhat by the time we got to Beirut, but it was still rough. I was decanted into an excessively slow train which carried me to Aleppo. It took, as far as I can remember, all day and morea€“sixteen hours at least. There was no kind of lavatory on the train, and when you stopped at a station you never knew if there was a lavatory there or not. I had to endure the entire sixteen hours, but I was fortunately gifted in that direction.
Next day I took the Orient Express on to Tel Kochek, which was at that time the terminus of the Berlin-Baghdad railway. At Tel Kochek there was more bad luck. They had had such bad weather that the track to Mosul was washed away in two places, and the wadis were up. I had to spend two days at the rest-housea€“a primitive place, with absolutely nothing to do there. I wandered round a barbed-wire entanglement, walked a short distance into the desert, and the same distance back again. Meals were the same every time: fried eggs and tough chicken. I read the only book I had left; after that, I was reduced to thinking!
At last I arrived at the rest-house in Mosul. Word seemed mysteriously to have reached there, for Max was standing on the steps to greet me.
a€?Werena€?t you terribly worried,a€I asked, a€?when I didna€?t arrive three days ago?a€?
a€?Oh no, said Max, a€?It often happens.a€?
We drove off to the house that the Campbell-Thompsons had taken, near the big mound of Nineveh. It was a mile and a half out of Mosul, and altogether charminga€“one that I shall always think of with love and affection. It had a flat roof with a square tower room on one side of it, and a handsome marble porch. Max and I had the upstairs room. It was sparsely furnished, mainly with orange boxes, and had two camp-beds. All round the little house was a mass of rose bushes. They had lots of pink rose-buds on them when we arrived. Tomorrow morning, I thought, the roses will be fully out; how lovely they will look. But no, next morning they were rose-buds still. This phenomenon of nature I could not understanda€“a rose is surely not a night-blooming cereusa€“but the truth was that these were grown for making ottar of roses and men came at four oa€?clock in the morning to pick them as they opened. By daybreak, the next crop of buds was all that remained.
Maxa€?s work involved being able to ride a horse. I doubt much if he had often ridden at that time, but he insisted he could and before coming out had attended a riding-stable in London. He would have been more apprehensive if he had realised that C.T.a€?s passion in life was economya€“although in many ways a most generous man he paid his workmen the lowest wage possible. One of his economies was never to pay much for a horse, therefore any beast that he purchased was likely to have some unpleasant personal characteristic that remained hidden until its owner had managed to clinch the sale. It usually reared, bucked, shied, or did some trick or other. This one was no exception, and having to ride up a slippery, muddy path to the top of the mound every morning was somewhat of an ordeal, especially as Max did it with an appearance of the utmost insouciance. All went well, however, and he never fell off. That, indeed, would have been the supreme disgrace.
a€?Remember,a€C.T. said to him, before leaving England, a€?that to fall off your horse means that not a single workman will have a scrap of respect for you.a€?
The ritual started at 5 a.m. C.T. would mount to the roof, Max would join him, and, after consultation, would signal with a lamp to the night-watchman on top of the mound of Nineveh. This message conveyed whether the weather was such that work could proceed. Since it was now autumn and the rainy season, this was a matter of some anxiety; a great many of the workmen had to come from two or three miles away, and they looked for the beacon light on the mound to know whether to start from home or not. In due course Max and C.T. departed on their horses to ride up to the top of the mound.
Barbara Campbell-Thompson and I would walk up to the mound at about 8 a.m. where we had breakfast together: hard-boiled eggs, tea and native bread. In those October days it was very pleasant, though in another month it was chilly and we were then well wrapped up. The country round was lovely: the hills and mountains in the distance, the frowning Jebel Maqlub, sometimes the Kurdish mountains with snow on them. Looking the other way, you saw the river Tigris and the city of Mosul with its minarets. We would return to the house, and later would go up for a picnic lunch again.
I had one battle with C.T. He gave in to me with courtesy, but I think I went down in his estimation. All I wanted was to buy myself a table in the bazaar. I could keep my clothes in orange-boxes, I used orange-boxes to sit on, and I kept an orange-box by my bed, but what I had to have, if I was going to do my own work, was a solid table at which I could type-write, and under which I could get my knees. There was no question of C.T. paying for the tablea€“I was going to buy ita€“it was just that he looked down on me for being willing to spend money on something not absolutely necessary. But I insisted that it was absolutely necessary.
Writing books, I pointed out, was my work, and I had to have certain tools for it: a typewriter, a pencil, and a table at which I could sit. So C.T. gave way, but he was sad about it. I insisted also on having a solid table, not a mere affair of four legs and a top that rocked when you touched it, so the table cost ?￡10a€“an unheard-of sum. I think it took him quite a fortnight to forgive me for this luxurious extravagance. However, once I had my table, I was very happy, and C.T. used to inquire kindly after the progress of my work. The book in question was Lord Edgware Dies, and a skeleton which came to light in a grave on the mound was promptly christened Lord Edgware.
The point of coming to Nineveh, for Max, was to dig down a deep pit through the mound of Nineveh. C.T. was not nearly so enthusiastic, but they had agreed beforehand that Max should have a shot at this. In archaeology, pre-history had suddenly become the fashion. Nearly all excavations up to then had been of an historical nature, but now everyone was passionately interested in pre-historic civilisation, about which as yet so little was known.
They examined small, obscure mounds all over the country, picked up fragments of painted pottery wherever they went, labelling them, tying them up in bags, and examining the patternsa€“it was endlessly interesting. Although it was so olda€“it was new!
Since writing had not been invented when this pottery was made, the dating of it was exceptionally difficult. It was hard to tell whether one type of pottery preceded or followed another. Woolley, at Ur, had dug down to the Flood levels and below, and the exciting painted pottery of Tell a€?Ubaid was causing enormous speculation. Max was bitten with the bug as badly as anyonea€“and indeed the results of our deep pit in Nineveh were very exciting, because it soon became apparent that the enormous mound, ninety feet high, was three-quarters pre-historic, which had never been suspected before. Only the top levels were Assyrian.
The deep pit became rather frightening after a while, because they had to dig down ninety feet to virgin soil. It was just completed by the end of the season. C.T., who was a brave man, always made a point of going down himself with the workmen once a day. He hadna€?t a good head for heights, and it was agony to him. Max, had no trouble about heights, and was quite happy going up and down. The workmen like all Arabs were oblivious to any kind of vertigo. They rushed up and down the narrow spiral causeway, wet and slippery in the morning; throwing baskets to each other, carrying up the dirt, making playful pushes and passes at each other about an inch from the edge.
a€?Oh, my God!a€C.T. used to groan, and clasped his hands to his head, unable to look down at them. a€?Someone will be killed soon.a€But nobody was killed. They were as surefooted as mules.
On one of our rest days we decided to hire a car and go to find the great mound of Nimrud, which had last been dug by Layard, getting on for a hundred years before. Max had some difficulty in getting there, for the roads were very bad. Most of the way had to be across country, and the wadis and irrigation ditches were often impassable. But in the end we arrived and picnicked therea€“and oh, what a beautiful spot it was then. The Tigris was just a mile away, and on the great mound of the Acropolis, big stone Assyrian heads poked out of the soil. In one place there was the enormous wing of a great genie. It was a spectacular stretch of countrya€“peaceful, romantic, and impregnated with the past.
I remember Max saying, a€?This is where I would like to dig, but it would have to be on a very big scale. One would have to raise a lot of money but if I could, this is the mound I would choose, out of all the world.a€He sighed: a€?Oh well, I dona€?t suppose it will ever happen.a€?
Maxa€?s book lies before me now: Nimrud and its Remains. How glad I am that the wish of his heart has been fulfilled. Nimrud has woken from its hundred years sleep. Layard began the work, my husband finished it.
He discovered its further secrets: the great Fort Shalmaneser out at the boundary of the town; the other palaces on other parts of the mound. The story of Calah, the military capital of Assyria, has been laid bare. Historically, Nimrud is now known for what it was, and, in addition to this, some of the most beautiful objects ever made by craftsmena€“or artists, as I would rather call thema€“have been brought to the museums of the world. Delicate, exquisitely fashioned ivories: they are such beautiful things.
I had my part in cleaning many of them. I had my own favourite tools, just as any professional would: an orange stick, possibly a very fine knitting needlea€“one season a dentista€?s tool, which he lent, or rather gave mea€“and a jar of cosmetic face-cream, which I found more useful than anything else for gently coaxing the dirt out of the crevices without harming the friable ivory. In fact there was such a run on my face cream that there was nothing left for my poor old face after a couple of weeks!
How thrilling it was; the patience, the care that was needed; the delicacy of touch. And the most exciting day of alla€“one of the most exciting days of my lifea€“when the workmen came rushing into the house from their work clearing out an Assyrian well, and cried: a€?We have found a woman in the well! There is a woman in the well!a€And they brought in, on a piece of sacking, a great mass of mud.
I had the pleasure of gently washing the mud off in a large wash-basin. Little by little the head emerged, preserved by the sludge for about 2,500 years. There it wasa€“the biggest ivory head ever found: a soft, pale brownish colour, the hair black, the faintly coloured lips with the enigmatic smile of one of the maidens of the Akropolis. The Lady of the Wella€“the Mona Lisa, as the Iraqi Director of Antiquities insisted on calling hera€“she has her place now in the new museum at Baghdad: one of the most exciting things ever to be found.
There were many other ivories, some perhaps of even greater beauty than the head, if not so spectacular. The plaques of cows with turned heads suckling their calves; ivory ladies at the window, looking out, no doubt like Jezebel the wicked; two wonderful plaques of a negro being killed by a lioness. He lies there, in a golden loin-cloth, gold points in his hair, and his head lifted in what seems like ecstasy as the lioness stands over him for the kill. Behind them is the foliage of the garden: lapis, carnelian and gold form the flowers and foliage. How fortunate that two of these were found. One is now in the British Museum, the other in Baghdad.
One does feel proud to belong to the human race when one sees the wonderful things human beings have fashioned with their hands. They have been creatorsa€“they must share a little the holiness of the Creator, who made the world and all that was in it, and saw that it was good. But he left more to be made. He left the things to be fashioned by mena€?s hands. He left them to fashion them, to follow in his footsteps because they were made in his image, to see what they made, and see that it was good.
The pride of creation is an extraordinary thing. Even the carpenter who once fashioned a particularly hideous towel-rail of wood for one of our expedition houses had the creative spirit. When asked why he had put such enormous feet on it against orders, he said reproachfully: a€?I had to make it that way because it was so beautiful like that!a€Well, it seemed hideous to us, but it was beautiful to him, and he made it in the spirit of creation, because it was beautiful.
Men can be evila€“more evil than their animal brothers can ever bea€“but they can also rise to the heavens in the ecstasy of creation. The cathedrals of England stand as monuments to mana€?s worship of what is above himself. I like that Tudor rosea€“it is, I think, on one of the capitals of Kinga€?s College Chapel, Cambridgea€“where the stone-carver, against orders, put the Madonnaa€?s face in the centre of it, because, he thought the Tudor Kings were being worshipped too much, and that the Creator, the God for whom this place of worship was built, was not honoured enough.
This was to be Dr Campbell-Thompsona€?s final season. He was, of course, mainly an epigraphist himself, and to him the written word, the historical record, was far more interesting than the archaeological side of digging. Like all epigraphists, he was always hoping to find a hoard of tablets.
There had been so much excavation done on Nineveh, that it was difficult to make sense of all the buildings. For Max, the palace buildings were not particularly interesting: it was his deep pit in the pre-historic period that really interested him, because so little was known about it.
He had already formed the plan, which I found a very exciting one, of digging a small mound on his own in this part of the world. It would have to be small, since it would be difficult to raise much money, but he thought it could be done, and that it was enormously important that it should be done. So he had a special interest, as time went on, in the progress of the deep pit down towards virgin soil. By the time it was reached the base was a tiny patch of ground, only a few yards across. There had been a few sherdsa€“not many, owing to the small spacea€“and they were of a different period to those found higher up. From then on Nineveh was re-labelled from the bottom upwards: Ninevite 1, next to virgin soil, then Ninevite 2, Ninevite 3, Ninevite 4, and Ninevite 5. Ninevite 5 in which period the pottery was turned on a wheel, had beautiful pots with both painted and incised patterns. Vessels like chalices were particularly characteristic of it, and the decorations and paintings were vigorous and charming. Yet the pottery itselfa€“the texturea€“was of not nearly so fine a quality as that made possibly several thousand years earlier: the beautiful apricot-coloured delicate ware, almost like Greek pottery to handle, with its smooth glazed surface and its mainly geometric decorations, in particular a pattern of dots. It was, Max said, like the pottery found at Tell Halaf in Syria, but that had always been thought to be much later, and in any case this was of finer quality.
He got the workmen to bring him various bits of pottery from villages where they lived all within a radius of one to eight miles. On some mounds the pottery was mostly of late Ninevite 5 quality, and in addition to the painted variety there was another very beautiful type of incised pot, delicately worked. Then there was red ware, of an earlier period and grey ware, both plain and not painted.
Evidently one or two of the small pimples which covered the country all the way up to the mountains, had been abandoned early, before there was any question of pottery being made on the wheel: and this fine early pottery was hand-made. There was in particular a very small mound called Arpachiyaha€“it was only about four miles east of the great circle of Nineveh. On this little pimple there was hardly any trace of anything later than the fine painted sherds of Ninevite 2. Apparently that was its last main period of occupation.
Max was attracted by it. I egged him on, because I thought the pottery so beautiful that it would be tremendously exciting to find out something about it. It would be a gamble, said Max. It must be a very small village indeed and could hardly have been an important one, so it was doubtful what you would find. But still, the people who made that pottery must have lived there. Their occupation was perhaps primitive, but the pottery was not: it was of the finest quality. They could not have made it for the great city of Nineveh, nearby, like some local Swansea or Wedgwood, for Nineveh did not exist when they were moulding their clay. It would not exist for several thousand years to come. So what did they make it forSheer love of making something so beautiful?
Naturally, C.T. thought Max was mistaken in attaching so much importance to the pre-historic days, and to all this a€?modern fussa€about pottery. Historical records, he said, were the only things that mattered; man telling his own story, not in spoken words but in written ones. They were both right in a sense: C.T. because historical records were indeed uniquely revealing, and Max because to find out something new about the history of man one must use what he himself can tell you, in this case by what he made with his hands. And I was right too to notice that the pottery in this tiny hamlet was beautiful, and to mind about that. And I think I was right to be continually asking myself a€?Why?a€all the time, because to people like me, asking why is what makes life interesting.
I enjoyed my first experience of living on a dig enormously. I had liked Mosul; I had become deeply attached to both C.T. and Barbara; I had completed the final demise of Lord Edgware, and had tracked down his murderer successfully. On a visit to C.T. and his wife I had read them the whole manuscript aloud, and they had been very appreciative. I think they were the only people to whom I ever did read a manuscripta€“except, that is, my own family.
I could only half believe it, when, in February of the following year, Max and I were once again in Mosul, staying this time at the guest-house. Negotiations were under way for digging at our pimple of a mound, Arpachiyah; little Arpachiyah, that nobody as yet cared or knew about, but which was to become a name known throughout the archaeological world. Max had persuaded John Rose, who had been architect at Ur, to work with us. He was a friend of us both: a beautiful draughtsman, with a quiet way of talking, and a gentle humour that I found irresistible. John was undecided at first whether or not to join us: he did not want to return to Ur, certainly, but was doubtful whether to continue with archaeological work or return to the practice of architecture. However, as Max pointed out to him, it would not be a long expeditiona€“two months at the mosta€“and there probably wouldna€?t be much to do.
a€?In fact,a€he said persuasively, a€?you can consider it a holiday. Lovely time of year, lovely flowers, good climatea€“not dust-storms like at Ura€“mountains and hills. Youa€?ll enjoy it enormously. An absolute rest for you.a€John was convinced.
a€?Ita€?s a gamble, of course,a€said Max. It was an anxious time for him, because he was at the start of his career. He had taken upon himself to make this choice, and would stand or fall by its result.
Everything started unpropitiously. To begin with, the weather was awful. The rain poured down; it was almost impossible to go anywhere by car; and it proved incredibly difficult to find out who owned the land on which we proposed to dig. Questions of land-ownership in the Middle East are always fraught with difficulty. If far enough away from cities, the land is under the jurisdiction of a sheikh, and you make your arrangements, financial and otherwise, with him; with some backing from the Government to lend you authority. All land scheduled as a tella€“that is to say, which was occupied in antiquitya€“is the property of the Government, not the property of the land-owner. But I doubt if Arpachiyah, being such a small pimple on the surface of the ground, would have been so labelled, so we had to get in touch with the land owner.
It seemed simple. A vast cheerful man came along, and assured us he was the owner. But the next day we heard that he was nota€“that a second cousin of his wifea€?s was the actual owner. The day after that we heard that the land was not in fact the property of the second cousin of the wife, and that several other people were involved. On the third day of incessant rain, when everyone had behaved in an extremely difficult manner, Max threw himself down on the bed with a great groan. a€?What do you think?a€he said. a€?There are nineteen owners.a€?
a€?Nineteen owners of that tiny bit of land?a€I said incredulously. a€?So it seems.a€?
We got the whole tangle undone in the end. The real owner was founda€“she was a second cousin of somebodya€?s aunta€?s husbanda€?s cousina€?s aunt, who, being quite incapable of doing any business on her own, had to be represented by her husband and several other relatives. With the help of the Mutassarif of Mosul, the Department of Antiquities in Baghdad; the British Consul, and a few other assistants, the whole thing was settled, and a contract of extreme severity drawn up. Terrible penalties were to be exacted on either side if anyone failed to keep to their agreement. What pleased the land-ownera€?s husband most was the insertion of a clause which stated that, if in any way our work of excavation was interfered with, or the contract was voided, he would have to pay ?￡1000 down. He immediately went away and boasted of this to all his friends.
a€?It is a matter of such importance,a€he said proudly, a€?that unless I give all the assistance in my power, and keep all the promises I have made on my wifea€?s behalf, I shall lose ?￡1000.a€?
Everybody was enormously impressed.
a€??￡1000,a€they said. a€?It is possible he will lose ?￡1000! have you heard thatThey can extract from him ?￡1000 if anything goes wrong!a€?
I should say that if any penalty of a financial nature had been demanded from the good man, about ten dinars would have been all that he could have produced.
We rented a small house which was much like the one we had had with the C.T.a€?s. It was a little further from Mosul and nearer to Nineveh, but it had the same flat roof and a marble verandah, with Mosul marble windows of a slightly ecclesiastical nature, and marble sills on which pottery could be laid out. We had a cook and a house-boy; a large fierce dog to bark at the other dogs in the neighbourhood and anyone who approached the housea€“and in due course six puppies which belonged to the dog. We also had a small lorry and an Irishman called Gallagher as a driver. He had stayed behind here after the 1914 war, and had never taken himself home again.
He was an extraordinary person, was Gallagher. He told us wonderful tales sometimes. He had a saga about his discovery of a sturgeon on the shores of the Caspian, and how he and a friend had managed to bring it, packed with ice, across the mountains and down into Iran to sell it for a large price. It was like listening to the Odyssey or the Aenead, with innumerable adventures that happened on the way.
He gave us such useful information as the exact price of a mana€?s life. a€?Iraq is better than Iran,a€he said. a€?In Iran it costs you ?￡7, cash down, to kill a man. In Iraq only ?￡3.a€?
Gallagher had still remembrances of his wartime-service and he always drilled the dogs in the most military fashion. The six puppies had their names called out one at a time, and came up to the cook-house in order. Swiss Miss was Maxa€?s favourite, and she was always called first. All the puppies were excessively ugly, but they had the charm that puppies have all the world over. They used to come along to the verandah after tea and we used to de-tick them with great attention. They were always just as full of ticks the next day, but we did our best for them.
Gallagher also turned out to be an omnivorous reader. I used to have parcels of books sent out by my sister, every weeka€“and I passed them on to him in due course. He read quickly, and seemed to have no preference whatsoever as to what he read: biographies, fiction, love stories, thrillers, scientific works, almost anything. He was like a starving man who would say that any kind of food is the same: you dona€?t mind what it is, you just want food. He wanted food for his mind.
He once told us about his a€?Uncle Freda€?, a€?A crocodile got him in Burma,a€he said sadly. a€?I didna€?t know what to do about it really. However, we thought the best thing was to have the crocodile stuffed, so we did, and we got it sent home to his wife.a€?
He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact voice. At first I thought he was romancing, but finally I came to the conclusion that practically everything he told us was true. He was just the sort of man to whom extraordinary things happen.
It was an anxious time for us. As yet there was nothing to show whether Maxa€?s gamble was going to pay off. We uncovered only buildings of a poor and decrepit naturea€“not even really mud-brick: pis?walls, difficult to trace. There were charming sherds of pottery everywhere, and some lovely black obsidian knives with delicately knotched edges, but nothing as yet out of the ordinary in the way of finds.
John and Max bolstered each other up, murmuring that it was too soon to tell, and that before Dr Jordan, the German Director of Antiquities in Baghdad, arrived, we would at any rate get all our levels nicely measured up and labelled, so that the whole thing would show that digging had been done properly and scientifically.
And then, out of the blue, the great day came. Max rushed back to the house to fetch me from where I was busy, mending some of the pottery.
a€?A wonderful find,a€he said. a€?Wea€?ve found a burnt pottera€?s shop. You must come back with me. Ita€?s the most wonderful sight you have ever seen.a€?
And it was indeed; a crowning piece of luck. The pottera€?s shop was all there, under the soil. It had been abandoned when burnt, and the burning had preserved it. There were glorious dishes, vases, cups and plates, polychrome pottery, all shining in the suna€“scarlet and black and orangea€“a magnificent sight.
From then on, we were so frantically busy we didna€?t know how to cope. Vessel after vessel came up. They were smashed by the fall of the roofa€“but they were there, and could nearly all be reconstructed. Some of them were slightly charred, but the walls had fallen on top of them and preserved them, and there for about six thousand years they had lain untouched. One enormous burnished dish, in a lovely deep red with a petalled rosette centre and beautiful designs all round it, very geometrical, was in 76 pieces. Every piece was there, and was reassembled, and it is now a wonderful sight to see in the museum where it lies. There was another bowl I loved, with an all-over pattern rather like a Union Jack; it was in deep, soft, tangerine.
I was bursting with happiness. So was Max, and so, in his quieter way, was John. But, oh, how we worked, from then on until the end of the season!
I had done some homework that autumn, trying to learn to draw to scale. I had gone to the local secondary school, and had instruction there from a charming little man, who could not believe that I knew as little as I did.
a€?You dona€?t seem to have even heard of a right-angle,a€he said to me, disapprovingly. I admitted that that was true. I hadna€?t.
a€?It makes it hard to describe things,a€he said.
However, I learnt to measure and calculate, and work out things to two thirds of the actual size, or whatever it had to be. Now the time had come when I had to put what I had learnt to the test. There was far too much to be done unless we all pulled our weight. I took, of course, two or three times as long as either of the others but John had to have some assistance, and I was able to provide it.
Max had to be out on the dig all day, while John drew. He would stagger down to dinner at night, saying, a€?I think Ia€?m going blind. My eyes feel queer, and I am so dizzy I can hardly walk. I have been drawing without ceasing at top speed since eight oa€?clock this morning.a€?
a€?And wea€?ll all have to go on after dinner,a€said Max.
a€?And you are the man who told me,a€said John accusingly, a€?you are the man who said that this was going to be a holiday!a€?
To celebrate the end of the season we decided to organise a race for the men. This had never been done before. There were to be several splendid prizes and it was open to all the men to compete.
There was a great deal of talk about it. To begin with, some of the grave, older men questioned whether they might not lose dignity by competing in such an event. Dignity was always very important. To compete with younger men, possibly beardless boys, was not the sort of thing that a dignified man, a man of substance, ought to do. However, they all came round to it in the end, and we arranged the details. The course was to be about three miles, and they would cross the Khosr River just beyond the mound of Nineveh. Rules were drawn up carefully. The main rule was that there were to be no fouls; nobody was to throw anybody down, do any bumping or boring, crossing, or any such thing. Although we hardly expected that such a rule would be respected, we hoped that the worst excesses would be avoided.
The prizes were first, a cow and calf; second, a sheep; third, a goat. There were several smaller prizesa€“hens, sacks of flour, and from a hundred eggs down to ten. There was also, for everyone who completed the course, a handful of dates and as much halva as a man could hold clasped in his two hands. These prizes, I may say, cost us ?￡10. Those were the days, no doubt about it.
We called it the A.A.A.A.a€“the Arpachiyah Amateur Athletic Association. The river was in flood at the moment, and nobody could cross the bridge to attend, but the R.A.F. was invited to watch the race from the sky.
The day came, and it was a memorable sight. The first thing that happened, of course, was that everyone made a concerted rush forward when the starting pistol went, and most of them fell flat on their faces into the Khosr. Others disentangled themselves from the swarming mass and ran on. The foul play was not too bad; nobody actually knocked anybody down There had been a great deal of betting on the race, but none of the favourites was even placed or looked like being placed. Three dark horses wona€“and the applause was terrific. First was a strong and athletic man; seconda€“a most popular wina€“a very poor man, who always looked half-starved; and third was a young boy. That night there was immense rejoicing: the foremen danced, the men danced; and the man who had won the second prize of the sheep killed it immediately and feasted all his family and friends. It was a great day for the Arpachiyah Amateur Athletic Association.
We departed to cries of good will: a€?God bless you!a€?, a€?You will come againa€a€?God is very mercifula€and so on. We then went to Baghdad, where all our finds were waiting in the Museum, and there Max and John Rose unpacked them and the division took place. It was by then May, and in Baghdad it was 108 in the shade. The heat did not suit John, and he looked terribly ill each day. I was fortunate in that I was not part of the packing squad. I could stay in the house.
Times in Baghdad were gradually worsening politically and though we hoped to return next year, either to move on to another mound or to excavate Arpachiyah a little further, we were already doubtful whether it would be possible. After we left trouble arose over the shipping of the antiquities, and there was great difficulty in getting our cases out. Things were smoothed over at last, but it took many months, and for that reason it was declared inadvisable for us to come out and dig the following year. For some years practically no one excavated in Iraq any longer; everyone went to Syria. And so it was that the following year we too decided to choose a suitable site in Syria.
One last thing I remember which was like a portent of things to come. We had been having tea in Dr Jordana€?s house in Baghdad. He was a good pianist, and was sitting that day playing us Beethoven. He had a fine head, and I thought, looking at him, what a splendid man he was. He had seemed always gentle and considerate. Then there was a mention by someone, quite casually, of Jews. His face changed; changed in an extraordinary way that I had never noticed on anyonea€?s face before.
He said: a€?You do not understand. Our Jews are perhaps different from yours. They are a danger. They should be exterminated. Nothing else will really do but that.a€?
I stared at him unbelievingly. He meant it. It was the first time I had come across any hint of what was to come later from Germany. People who had travelled there were, I suppose, already realising it at that time, but for ordinary people, in 1932 and 1933, there was a complete lack of fore-knowledge.
On that day as we sat in Dr Jordana€?s sitting-room and he played the piano, I saw my first Nazia€“and I discovered later that his wife was an even fiercer Nazi than he was. They had a duty to perform there: not only to be Director of Antiquities or even to work for their country, but also to spy on their own German Ambassador. There are things in life that make one truly sad when one can make oneself believe them.