Hormuzd Rassam ( ar, هرمز رسام; syr, ܗܪܡܙܕ ܪܣܐܡ; 182616 September 1910), was an Assyriologist and author.
He is known for making a number of important archaeological discoveries from 1877 to 1882, including the
clay tablets that contained the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh,'' the world's oldest notable literature. He is widely believed to be the first-known
Middle Eastern
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (European ...
and
Assyrian archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
from the Ottoman empire. Later in life, he emigrated to the
United Kingdom, where he was naturalized as a British citizen, settling in
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
. He represented the government as a
diplomat
A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...
, helping to free British diplomats from captivity in
Ethiopia.
Biography
Early life
Hormuzd Rassam was an ethnic
Assyrian, born in
Mosul in
Upper Mesopotamia (now modern northern
Iraq), then part of the
Ottoman Empire. His father was a member of the
Chaldean Catholic Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = Assyrian Church.png
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows Baghdad, Iraq
, abbreviation =
, type ...
. and his grandfather,
Anton Rassam, from Mosul, was archdeacon in the
Chaldean Catholic Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = Assyrian Church.png
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows Baghdad, Iraq
, abbreviation =
, type ...
. His mother Theresa was a daughter of
Isaak Halabee of
Aleppo
)), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black".
, motto =
, image_map =
, mapsize =
, map_caption =
, image_map1 =
...
, also then within the Ottoman Empire.
Hormuzd's brother was British Vice-Consul in
Mosul,
[Oates, 6] which was how he obtained his start with Layard.
Early archaeological career
At the age of 20 in 1846, Rassam was hired by British
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
Austen Henry Layard
Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...
as a paymaster at
Nimrud, a nearby ancient Assyrian excavation site. Layard, who was in Mosul on his first expedition (1845–47), was impressed by the hardworking Rassam and took him under his wing; they would remain friends for life. Layard provided an opportunity for Rassam to travel to
England and study at
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...
. He studied there for 18 months before accompanying Layard on his second expedition to Iraq (1849–51).
Layard left archeology to begin a political career. Rassam continued field work (1852–54) at
Nimrud and
Nineveh
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...
, where he made a number of important and independent discoveries. These included the clay tablets that would later be deciphered by
George Smith as the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh'', the world's oldest written narrative poem. The tablets' description of a
flood myth
A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these Mythology, myths and the ...
written 1000 years prior to the earliest record of the Biblical story of
Noah
Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...
, caused much debate at the time about the Biblical narrative of ancient history.
Diplomatic career
Rassam returned to
England. With the help of Layard, he began a new career in government with a posting to the British Consulate in
Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
, quickly rising to the post of First Political Resident and facilitating a number of agreements between the British and formerly hostile local community leaders. In 1866, an international crisis arose in
Ethiopia when British
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
were taken hostage by Emperor
Tewodros II
, spoken = ; ''djānhoi'', lit. ''"O steemedroyal"''
, alternative = ; ''getochu'', lit. ''"Our master"'' (pl.)
Tewodros II ( gez, ዳግማዊ ቴዎድሮስ, baptized as Gebre Kidan; 1818 – 13 April 1868) was Emperor of Ethiopi ...
. England decided to send Rassam as an ambassador with a message from
Queen Victoria in the hope of resolving the situation peacefully. After being delayed for about a year in
Massawa
Massawa ( ; ti, ምጽዋዕ, məṣṣəwaʿ; gez, ምጽዋ; ar, مصوع; it, Massaua; pt, Maçuá) is a port city in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, located on the Red Sea at the northern end of the Gulf of Zula beside the Dahlak ...
, Rassam at last received permission from the Emperor to enter his realm. Due to rebellions in
Tigray Province, Rassam was forced to follow a circuitous route taking him to
Kassala, then to
Metemma along the western shore of
Lake Tana
Lake Tana ( am, ጣና ሐይቅ, T’ana ḥāyik’i; previously Tsana) is the largest lake in Ethiopia and the source of the Blue Nile. Located in Amhara Region in the north-western Ethiopian Highlands, the lake is approximately long and wid ...
before finally meeting with Emperor Tewodros in northern
Gojjam. At first his effort seemed promising, as the Emperor established him at
Qorata, a village on the south-eastern shores of Lake Tana, and sent him numerous gifts. The emperor sent the British consul
Charles Duncan Cameron, the missionary
Henry Aaron Stern, and the other hostages to his encampment.
However, about this time
Charles Tilstone Beke, arrived at
Massawa
Massawa ( ; ti, ምጽዋዕ, məṣṣəwaʿ; gez, ምጽዋ; ar, مصوع; it, Massaua; pt, Maçuá) is a port city in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, located on the Red Sea at the northern end of the Gulf of Zula beside the Dahlak ...
, and forwarded letters from the hostages' families to Tewodros asking for their release. At the least Beke's actions only made Tewodros suspicious. Rassam, writing in his memoirs of the incident, is more direct: "I date the change in the King's conduct towards me, and the misfortunes which eventually befell the members of the Mission and the old captives, from this day." The monarch suddenly changed his mind, and made Rassam a prisoner as well. The British hostages were held for two years until English and Indian troops under
Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala in the 1868
British Expedition to Abyssinia resolved the standoff by defeating the warlord and his army. Rassam's reputation was damaged in newspaper accounts because he was unfairly portrayed as ineffectual in dealing with the emperor. This reflected Victorian prejudices of the time against "Orientals". However, Rassam did have supporters, both in the press and especially in government amongst both Liberal and Tory ministers. In 1869, the ''
London Quarterly Review
The ''Quarterly Review'' was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by London publishing house John Murray. It ceased publication in 1967. It was referred to as ''The London Quarterly Review'', as reprinted by Leonard Scott, ...
'' received Rassam's memoir of the Abyssinian crisis positively, acknowledged Rassam's qualifications for the mission and defended his actions under difficult circumstances:
Queen Victoria presented him with a purse of £5,000 for services rendered as her envoy in the crisis.
Rassam resumed his archaeological work, but did undertake other tasks for the British government in later years. During the
Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), he undertook a mission of inquiry to report on the condition of the
Christians,
Armenian and
Greek Christian communities of
Anatolia and
Armenia.
Later archaeological career
From 1877 to 1882, while undertaking four expeditions on behalf of the
British Museum, Rassam made some important discoveries. Numerous finds of significance were transported to the Museum, thanks to an agreement made with the Ottoman Sultan by Rassam's old colleague Austen Henry Layard, now Ambassador at Constantinople, allowing Rassam to return and continue their earlier excavations and to "pack and dispatch to England any antiquities
efound ... provided, however, there were no duplicates." A representative of the Sultan was instructed to be present at the dig to examine the objects as they were uncovered.
In Assyria his chief finds were the
Ashurnasirpal temple in Nimrud (
Calah), the cylinder of
Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal (Neo-Assyrian language, Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "Ashur (god), Ashur is the creator of the heir") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BCE to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king o ...
at
Nineveh
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...
, and two of the unique and historically important bronze strips from the
Balawat Gates. He identified the famous
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World listed by Hellenic culture. They were described as a remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of tre ...
with the mound known as ''Babil''. He excavated a palace of
Nebuchadnezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-kudurri-uṣur'', meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir"; Biblical Hebrew: ''Nəḇūḵaḏneʾṣṣar''), also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling ...
at
Borsippa
Borsippa ( Sumerian: BAD.SI.(A).AB.BAKI; Akkadian: ''Barsip'' and ''Til-Barsip'')The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. or Birs Nimrud (having been identified with Nimrod) is an archeologi ...
.
In March 1879 at the site of the
Esagila in Babylon, Rassam found the
Cyrus Cylinder, the famous declaration of
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...
that was issued in 539 BCE to commemorate the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
's conquest of
Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
.
At Abu Habba in 1881, Rassam discovered the temple of the sun at
Sippar. There he found a
Cylinder of Nabonidus and the stone tablet of
Nabu-apla-iddina of Babylon with its ritual
bas-relief and inscription. Besides these, he discovered some 50,000 clay tablets containing the temple accounts.
[Goodspeed, George Stephen (1902). Chapter 2, "The Excavations in Babylonia and Assyria"](_blank)
''A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians'', New York. Charles Scribner's Sons, Accessed April 4, 2011.
After 1882, Rassam lived mainly at
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
, England. He wrote about
Assyro-Babylonian exploration, the ancient Christian peoples of the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
, and current religious controversies in England.
Archaeological reputation
Rassam's discoveries attracted worldwide attention. The Italian Royal Academy of Sciences at
Turin awarded him the Brazza prize of 12,000 francs for the four years from 1879 to 1882. He was elected as a fellow of the
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...
, the Society of Biblical Archaeology, and the
Victoria Institute.
Sir Henry Rawlinson, the "Father of Assyriology", was a linguist who was a key figure in the deciphering of
cuneiform, also one of the trustees of the British Museum at the time of Rassam's later excavations. He had been British Consul in Baghdad at the time of Rassam's original excavations at Nineveh, and had been placed in charge of the British excavations in 1853.
Rawlinson alleged that he should receive the credit for the discovery of Ashurbanipal's palace himself. Rassam, he wrote, was just a "digger" who had overseen the work. In Rassam's defence, Layard wrote that he was, "one of the honestest and most straightforward fellows I ever knew, and one whose services have never been acknowledged".
Rassam believed that the credit for some of his other discoveries had been taken by senior British Museum staff. In 1893 Rassam had sued the British Museum keeper
E. A. Wallis Budge
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips ...
in the British courts for both slander and libel. Budge had written that Rassam had used "his relatives" to smuggle antiquities out of
Nineveh
Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...
and had only sent "rubbish" to the
British Museum. The elderly Rassam was upset by these accusations. When he challenged Budge in court, he received a partial apology that a later court considered "ungentlemanly". Rassam was fully supported by the courts.
Later archaeological evidence found in relation to artefacts such as the
Balawat Gates at
Dur-Sharrukin support Rassam's account of the dispute. By the end of his life, Rassam's reputation and achievements were once again receiving greater recognition, at least amidst his professional colleagues; in their obituary for Rassam, the Royal Geographical Society wrote: "The death of Mr Hormuzd Rassam... deprives the Royal Geographical Society of one of its older and more distinguished Fellows..."
However, a modern account of the archaeology says that Layard leaving Rassam in charge of his excavations when he left in 1851 was "not perhaps the wisest choice, since Rassam continued, even into the 1880s, an extensive and essentially unrecorded simultaneous looting of a large number of sites not only in Assyria but in Babylonia, at a times when other excavators were beginning to act more responsibly.
Published works
*''The British Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia'' (1869), memoir
*''Biblical Nationalities, Past and Present'', article in Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol.3, 8, pp. 358–385
*''The Garden of Eden and Biblical Sages'' (1895)
*''Asshur and the Land of Nimrod'' (1897).
Personal life
Rassam married
Anne Eliza Price, an Englishwoman. They had seven children together. His eldest daughter,
Theresa Rassam, born in 1871, became a professional singer who performed with the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. He died on September 8, 1910, and was buried in
Hove Cemetery. A number of personal effects relating to his career, including the chains he had worn in captivity in Ethiopia, were donated to
Hove Museum, and were on display there until the 1950s, according to the recollections of his great-grandson,
Cornelius Cavendish. Other items in the museum's possession relating to Rassam were at that time requested for the collections of the
British Museum.
He also had a daughter, Annie Ferida Rassam, born in 1878. She gave birth secretly at seven months of pregnancy, on September 10, 1914, to a little girl named Jeanne Ferida Rassam at the Vercingétorix clinic, 219 rue Vercingétorix, in the 14th arrondissement at Paris. The alleged father of Jeanne Ferida Rassam was Sir John Arnold Wallinger, delegate of the secret services. Jeanne Ferida Rassam was adopted by a French couple, Monsieur and Madame André Courthial. Annie Ferida Rassam returned to Brighton a few months later.
See also
*
List of Assyriologists
*
Chaldean Catholics
*
Cyrus Cylinder
*
Epic of Gilgamesh
*
Chaldean Catholic Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = Assyrian Church.png
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows Baghdad, Iraq
, abbreviation =
, type ...
Notes
References
Hormuzd Rassam, Assyrian Archaeologist 1826-1910*Rassam
''Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia''(1869) at
Google Books.
*
David Damrosch (2006). ''The Buried Book''. Chapters 3 and 4 are an essential revised biography of Rassam's life.
*Mogens T Larsen (1997), ''The Conquest of Assyria''. .
*Oates, D. and J. Oates, ''Nimrud, An Assyrian Imperial City Revealed'', 2001, London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq
full PDF (332 pages)
;Attribution
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rassam, Hormuzd
1826 births
1910 deaths
19th-century historians from the Ottoman Empire
19th-century archaeologists
Assyrians from the Ottoman Empire
Iraqi archaeologists
Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society
Chaldean Catholics
Iraqi Eastern Catholics
Iraqi Assyriologists
People associated with the British Museum
People from Mosul
People of the Abyssinian War
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
English Assyriologists
Sippar
Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to the United Kingdom
Assyriologists
Hanging Gardens of Babylon