Scientist of the Day - Hormuzd Rassam

A sculpted relief depicting Ashurbanipal killing a lion, ca 640 BCE, one of many reliefs from the North Palace of Nineveh, excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in 1853-54 and sent back to the British Museum, where an entire room is now devoted to their display (Wikimedia commons)

Hormuzd Rassam, an Assyrian archaeologist, died Sep. 16, 1910, at the age of about 84. In fact, Rassam was an Assyrian Assyriologist, the first of his kind. The study of the antiquities of the ancient Assyrians, at the ruins of Nineveh and Nimrud in the modern city of Mosul, had begun with the work of the Englishman Henry Rawlinson, who translated the cuneiform Behistun inscription, and who sponsored investigations by Austin Henry Layard, who led two expeditions to Mosul. One of the locals whom Layard hired as a clerk and procurer was Rassam, who showed an unusual aptitude not only for management, but for sniffing out antiquities. He worked for Layard during the excavations of 1845-47, and those of 1849-51, and when Layard left to enter politics, Rassam took over the excavations at Nineveh and Nimrud. Layard arranged for Rassam to study at Oxford for 18 months between the two expeditions.

Portrait of Hormuzd Rassam, studio photograph, 1854 (Wikimedia commons)

One of the sites discovered on the second expedition was the palace of Ashurbanipal, and its Library. It appears that Layard was more interested in the showy artifacts, such as the lamassu that guarded the palace gates (many of which he brought back to England; see our first post on Layard), and not so much in written documents, the many cuneiform tablets found in the Library. Rassam is generally credited with recognizing their importance, collecting some 15,000 of them, and sending them back to the British Museum (third image). Among them were the first known copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh (fourth image) and the Enuma Elish, which George Smith would later translate and publish, revealing creation stories (and tales of a great Flood) that predated the Old Testament by almost a millennium (see our recent post on Smith).

British Museum display of items from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, excavated and sent back to the Museum by Hormuzd Rassam, 1853-54 (Wikimedia commons)

The “Flood Tablet” of the Epic of Gilgamesh, found by Hormuzd Rassam in the Library of Ashurbanipal, 1853, later translated by George Smith, now in the British Museum (Wikimedia commons)

In 1854, Rassam found an inscribed 10-sided prismatic cylinder in Nineveh that records various military exploits of Ashurbanipal II. It is a handsome 3-dimensional object, on display at the British Museum, where is it called the Rassam Cylinder (fifth image). He also found, that same year, a nine-foot-tall object known as the White Obelisk, pictorially recording the exploits of Ashurnasirpal I, an earlier Assyrian king, also on display in the British Museum (sixth image).

“Rassam Cylinder” of Ashurbanipal, 643 BCE, found at Nineveh by Hormuzd Ramman, 1854, now on display at the British Museum (Wikimedia commons)

After leaving Nineveh in 1854, Rassam moved into diplomatic work for the next 20 years, serving on missions to Aden, and then Ethiopia, where the Emperor had the entire mission held hostage for two years, creating quite a diplomatic scandal. But in 1877, Layard, who had moved into foreign service, was appointed ambassador to Constantinople, and he was able to get permission for Rassam to reopen excavations at Nineveh and Babylon, where Rassam found further artifacts and cuneiform tablets, which were recovered and sent back, with permission of the Ottoman authorities, to the British Museum.

The White Obelisk, commemorating the exploits of Ashurnasirpal I, Assyrian emperor, ca 1040 BCE, found at Nineveh by Hormuzd Rassam, 1853, now on display in the British Museum (Wikimedia commons)

His most famous discovery of the latter part of his career was the Cyrus Cylinder, found in Babylon (seventh image). It recorded a proclamation of Cyrus the Great upon the occasion of his conquest of the city in 539 BC (marking the end of the Babylonian empire). The Cyrus Cylinder came back into prominence in 1971, when the Shah of Iran, celebrating the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire (and Iran), hailed the Cyrus Cylinder as containing the first espousal of human rights and freedom to choose one's own government. Most scholars of the ancient Near East don't see anything in Cyrus's proclamation that supports such an interpretation. But it is a document often referred to in modern Iranian political discourse, and although the cylinder was legally exported to England in 1879, one would assume there have been ongoing diplomatic efforts to return it to Iran.

One side of the Cyrus Cylinder, dating to 539 BCE, found by Hormuzd Rassam in Babylon, 1879, now on display in the British Museum (Wikimedia commons)

Although Layard always gave Rassam credit for his archaeological work, other senior British officials, such as Rawlinson, denigrated Rassam's accomplishments, probably for racial reasons, considering him a mere digger. He was also accused late in life of plundering sites for personal financial gain, although such accusations are seldom addressed to Layard, who became far wealthier than Rassam. Rassam married an Englishwoman and raised a family in Brighton and Hove, on the south coast of East Essex. He is buried in Hove cemetery.

Portrait of an older Hormuzd Rassam, Woodburytype, ca 1881, National Portrait Gallery, London (npg.og.uk)

Perhaps following Layard's lead, Rassam published several books on his archaeological adventures, beginning in 1879, but they do not seem to have been as popular as Layard's. We do not, unfortunately, have anything by Rassam in our collections.

William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.