Mr. Hormuzd Remain, who was a companion of Sir Austen
Layard's earliest discoveries in the Euphrates and Tigris valleys, has succeeded in obtaining from the Porto a most extensive fir- man for the exploration of the whole of Mesopotamia, Assyrian and Babylonian. Mr. Ramon will resume his explorations in the Nineveh district, at Koyuujik, in the palaces of Sardanapalua, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, and at Nimroud. The excavations in the mound of Nebby-Yunus, close by Koyunjik, if carried out, may lead to the discovery of "some accounts, however meagre, of Sennacherib's second campaign against Hezekiah," from the Assyrian point of view, as this is the site of that king's later palace. In Babylonia, Mr. Rassatn will make it a special point to discover the site of the royal "Record Office," which has been kept secret by the Arab and Jewish dealers, through whom we have obtained so many of the tablets, "representing every branch of commercial and fiscal transaction," found therein, and now in the British Museum. "The mounds of Tel Ibrahim, the site of the city of Kutha, the great sacred university of Babylon, whence Assurbuipal obtained the originals of the Creation tablets," are also within the scope of the new firman. Mr. Rassam has also obtained a special firman for the exploration of north-eastern Syria, and Carchemish, on the Euphrates, the capital of the ancient Hittite kingdom. This is altogether new ground.
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