An indication of the richness of the site in antiquities was afforded
to the new mission before it had started regular excavation and while
it was yet engaged in levelling its encampment and surrounding it with a
wall and ditch. The spot selected for the camp was a small mound to the
south of the site of Telloh, and here, in the course of preparing the
site for the encampment and digging the ditch, objects were found at
a depth of less than a foot beneath the surface of the soil. These
included daggers, copper vases, seal-cylinders, rings of lapis and
cornelian, and pottery. M. de Sarzec had carried out his latest
diggings in the Tell of the Tablets, and here Capt. Cros continued
the excavations and came upon the remains of buildings and recovered
numerous objects, dating principally from the period of Gudea and
the kings of Ur. The finds included small terra-cotta figures, a
boundary-stone of Gamil-Sin, and a new statue of Gudea, to which we will
refer again presently.
In the Tell of the Fruit-house M. de Sarzec had already discovered
numbers of monuments dating from the earlier periods of Sumerian history
before the conquest and consolidation of Babylonia under Sargon of
Agade, and had excavated a primitive terrace built by the early king
Ur-Nina. Both on and around this large mound Capt.
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