Photograph by Messrs.
Mansell & Co.
The announcement which was made in 1902, that the French government had
appointed Capt. Gaston Cros as the late M. de Sarzec's successor, was
therefore received with general satisfaction. The fact that Capt. Cros
had already successfully carried out several difficult topographical
missions in the region of the Sahara was a sufficient guarantee that the
new diggings would be conducted on a systematic and exhaustive scale.
The new director of the French mission in Chaldaea arrived at Telloh in
January, 1903, and one of his first acts was to shift the site of the
mission's settlement from the bank of the Shatt el-Hai, where it had
always been established in the time of M. de Sarzec, to the mounds where
the actual digging took place. The Shatt el-Hai had been previously
chosen as the site of the settlement to ensure a constant supply of
water, and as it was more easily protected against attack by night.
But the fact that it was an hour's ride from the diggings caused an
unnecessary loss of time, and rendered the strict supervision of the
diggers a matter of considerable difficulty. During the first season's
work rough huts of reeds, surrounded by a wall of earth and a ditch,
served the new expedition for its encampment among the mounds of Telloh,
but last year these makeshift arrangements were superseded by a regular
house built out of the burnt bricks which are found in abundance on the
site.
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