Full Moon over Noah's Ark

by Rick Antonson

  I awoke the next morning. I was in London for two reasons. Later that morning I had a meeting scheduled with Dr. Jonathan Taylor, Assistant Keeper with the Middle East Department of the British Museum, set in place two months before I’d left home for Ararat. The second reason was that my wife, Janice, lived in the adorable town of Hale, and worked in nearby Manchester. I was to be on a northbound train later that day, unless I needed more time at the museum for research.

  I walked down Pall Mall and over to Bloomsbury, well in time for the opening of the museum’s doors. After taking a coffee in a shop across from the iron gates that led to the plaza, I walked through the courtyard, up the stairs and into the Great Court of the British Museum. I asked a security guard where I might find the good doctor, and was shown my name on a list of expected visitors.

  A woman wearing a black skirt, white blouse, and glasses that made her look rather smart greeted me. “Mr. Antonson, we’re pleased you are here. I understand from Dr. Taylor that you will have had quite a trip this past while. He’s interested to hear about it.”

  She led me down a hallway paneled with wood and through a door that looked to be made of metal. We went into a hushed office area with a wooden table and six chairs set beneath a high ceiling. “This is the Arched Room,” she informed me. “Dr. Taylor will be along soon.”

  What caught my attention were bookshelves on a second level above me. I sat down, rather in awe of the surroundings.

  “Rick! I’m Jonathan. Glad to meet you. Tell me, where did you go? Not to Nineveh, please.” He wore an open-collared shirt, no jacket, and light-gray denim pants—the rugged wear of a man daily engaged with antiquities. He carried four books under his left arm as we sat down.

  I recounted the trip, in brief—brevity not being my strength.

  Jonathan explained, “I have not been able to travel to Iraq, nor to Iran. Syria, yes.”

  I showed him the Cyrus Cylinder pen. “There will not be many of those about, even if you should find this one’s been made as a knock-off,” he observed. It was his business to know replicas and originals and he’d pegged that one properly—artifice, not art. As he cast a knowledgeable eye over the pen, I realized I’d brought a forgery into the home of ethical items. Sheepishly I reached for it.

  He smiled and said, “I have time this morning, and we can talk. Tell me how best I can help you.”

  I wondered what lay undiscovered today at Nineveh. “It would be helpful to hear of any plans that may be—even informally, under consideration for further work at the Library of Nineveh ruins, and if so, when.”

  He was shaking his head before I finished. To his own disappointment, but with the learned sense of practicality, he assured me nothing was afoot.

  In a 2004 report for the British Museum, Jeanette Fincke had written: “We do not know how many tablets are either still waiting in Nineveh to be discovered or have already perished and been lost forever.” Her observation was that invaders, first in 612 BCE, and then ongoing, may have destroyed what they found in Nineveh or, in the spirit of looting and the spoils of war, carried away any number of cuneiform tablets.

  Keeping in mind that the Nineveh site is large, any ongoing excavation opens new areas for misappropriation when authorities are not watching. The lack of a long-term plan for research has not helped. The ruins of Nineveh appear to have been more often ransacked over the centuries than they’ve been the subjects of methodical work. Vandalism at the site has been ongoing for centuries, looters digging holes for access, disregarding care for items too large to haul away or too difficult to sell.

  More innocently, yet no less disappointing for many visitors or even those posted in the region for work, irreplaceable souvenirs are easy to come by. Fincke commented that such finds “have since appeared in private collections or on the antiquities market.” It seemed remarkable to me that comparatively few stray tablets have appeared from outside the official excavations.

  The ancient gates of Nineveh are still visible today. Already, though, urban expansion of Mosul encroaches; modern needs for sewers and underground water pipes compete with preservationist pleas to leave the area untouched for further exploration.

  I mentioned to Jonathan that I’d read that the earliest excavations of the 1800s were not as organized and documented as one might have wished for them to be. He replied, “That was a time before the discipline of archaeology was invented. The field of study evolved through such early work. Modern excavators of artifacts would have undertaken a systematic grid to mark their finds according to where they were located. That’s a big part of interpreting what an object means. One might think such rigors of plotting the excavation may have moved the interpretation process along more quickly, but the opposite is true. Modern excavation is actually a much slower process, given the protocols.” He added, “One could be more methodical in hope of a more cohesive understanding. It takes immense patience.”

  I said, “I wanted to be where George Smith first held the Flood Tablet in his hands. I’d like to know your take on that story.”

  He told me I was that very moment in the building where Smith made his 1872 discovery. “He probably read as fast as he could translate the cuneiform. It revealed the story of a flood, as I’m sure you know.” I knew this but there was something about hearing it from him, at the British Museum, that was much more rewarding than coming across it in a book.

  When the “discovery” was made, Smith, already thought of as eccentric by his colleagues, leaped with excitement. “He shouted and moved about frantically, animated in a way no one had seen him behave. In the hot thrill of the moment he tore off his clothes, undressing right in front of them.”

  It is a story with but one corroborator on record. Notwithstanding that, it enlivened the reputation of a reserved researcher.

  The rare discovery didn’t stop there. The public reception and the inherent controversy sparked by confronting biblical timelines garnered great newspaper coverage, particularly in the Daily Telegraph. The public wanted more of this claim of a flood story that predated Noah’s. The newspaper’s publisher decided to send Smith, an inexperienced traveler, to Mosul as a headline-grabbing escapade in search of a missing fragment from the tablet.

  George Smith, the adventurer. Vybarr Cregan-Reid, author of Discovering Gilgamesh, wrote, “Had he not died so young, Smith could have gone on to become the Darwin of archaeology.” Portrait © Simon Carr.

  “Early in 1873, the Telegraph and George Smith embarked on a joint quest,” Jonathan said. “The paper would cover his expenses if he’d go to Nineveh and explore further, seeking to find additional revelations, but the priority job was finding the missing fragment of the flood story. The Telegraph would have an exclusive on the initial reports.”

  A 1971 article in Saudi Aramco World, written by Robert S. Strother, pondered the odds faced by Smith: “It seemed flatly impossible that his special fragment of clay could have escaped destruction in the violence that produced such a tangle of rubble, but Smith had the eye of a hawk and an indelible mental image of what he sought.”

  Strother’s article tells us what happened next. “Smith’s great stroke of good luck, surely one of the most remarkable in the history of science, came on May 14, 1873. As usual, he had put the day’s crop of cuneiform fragments in a sack and ridden back to the khan in Mosul where he and his horse were staying. Shortly after he sat down to examine them, he leaped out of his chair in joy. His million-to-one gamble had paid off. The fragment in his hand was the missing piece of the Deluge story, and it contained the 17 lost lines.” He had succeeded, as he wrote later, in filling in “the only place where there was a serious gap in the story.”

  The newspaper’s headline blared:

  “THE DAILY TELEGRAPH” ASSYRIAN EXPEDITION

  COMPLETE SUCCESS OF EXCAVATIONS

  THE MISSING PORTION OF THE DELUGE

  TABLET DISCOVERED.

  More tablets, sequential with what was already at the British Museum, were fou
nd. Importantly, dates and details about Babylonia’s ruling dynasties were portrayed in other fragments.

  Smith gave way to the editors’ demands, newspaper deadlines, and sales promotion, truncating his further research in Nineveh. He fed news headlines at home, and returned to England. The British Museum funded another journey in November of that same year. Smith’s full report was eventually published in 1875 in his book Assyrian Discoveries.

  Jonathan held out a copy of Smith’s book for me to examine. “There are several books you should know about.” He showed me Austen Layard’s Nineveh and Its Remains, in an edition with a musty smell that made me want to hug it. He passed over another hardcover book, saying, “This is one you will be able to get easily as it is recent.” I held The Buried Book by David Damrosch. Beside it lay a copy of Andrew George’s translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

  Jonathan got up. “I’ve to be upstairs for a brief meeting. I’ve just thought of two other books to retrieve while I’m up there. Spend time with these, and I’ll be back presently.”

  In his absence, I went through the books from cover to cover in a glancing fashion, but with great interest and care, taking out my notebook and jotting down their publication details. I flipped through the pages of The Buried Book, reading about the broken tablet story culminating with a disheartening end to George Smith’s work. Smith, media star and, in the minds of some, “the greatest of Assyriologists,” made a final journey to Mosul at the behest of the British Museum trustees in 1876.

  Ottoman officials wreaked havoc on his plans when he entered their jurisdiction, foisting delays on him. He did not near Nineveh until July, a season too hot for excavation work. Local officials were becoming skeptical of Britain’s true ambitions—were the British seeking gold? Were they establishing stronger ties around the national government?

  Smith knew he was entering an area restless with rumors and feuds, a region also plagued with health issues. He became sick with dysentery. Delirium took hold, and he was eventually forced to leave for England. The journey’s first leg was a 350-mile crossing on horseback to Aleppo.

  Sixty miles outside of Aleppo, in the village of Ikisji, Smith could no longer move and took refuge. Found there by an emissary of the British consul, he was transported by cart to Aleppo, where he died on August 19, 1876, at the age of thirty-six.

  The books Jonathan provided shone a light on the merging of science and story, myth and history, clay-chipped records and oral traditions. When he returned, I asked, “What portion of the Nineveh’s library holdings do you think they moved to London?”

  “We, too, would like to know the answer to your question.”

  In his book Libraries in the Ancient World, Lionel Casson wrote, “It has been estimated that Ashurbanipal’s library contained about 1,500 titles; since many existed in multiple copies the total number of tablets is much greater.” Fragments were tens of thousands.

  Jonathan put the current times of war and conflict into context for me. “Without further exploration of the site, jointly with Iraq, we will not be able to confirm the extent of its holdings nor of their status.”

  I wondered if there would ever be more opportunity in my lifetime for professional archeologists and conservators to work through the ruins of the Library of Nineveh.

  I assumed our meeting had come to an end. Instead, Jonathan asked me: “Would you like to see it?”

  “See …?”

  “The Flood Tablet.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Come with me.”

  We were up the stairs in what felt like a blink. Down a hallway and around a corner, we came to a door, a back entrance. Jonathan opened it to a room where the morning visitors had not yet made their presence felt. He walked over to a display case and stood there, letting my own eyes find the treasure.

  “The Flood Tablet?” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, Rick, the Flood Tablet.”

  Later that morning, at Foyles bookstore on Charing Cross Road, I purchased a copy of The Buried Book. I learned that a replica copy of Layard’s book was available through mail order. I was told where—down the street, around a corner, and four shops in—I might find a reproduction copy of Smith’s Assyrian Discoveries, which I did. Parceling the books into one bag, I went to a pub to celebrate. There was much food for thought.

  With the satisfaction of the visit with Dr. Taylor in mind, I sipped a beer and envisioned a full circle of travels I’d almost completed. However, that loop was still unfinished. The context for my attempt at understanding the region of Mount Ararat and beyond would remain sorely lacking until I traveled to Armenia.

  After lunch, during which I took care to avoid smudging the books, I boarded the 14:20 Virgin Train at London’s Euston station, and arrived at Manchester’s Piccadilly punctually at 16:49. The night before, once I was settled in at the club, Janice and I had talked on the phone for the first time in over a month. The Mayfield wine bar at Manchester’s station holds court on the balcony, and I was set to meet her there for a long-awaited reunion before catching the National Rail train home to Hale at 18:17, arriving 18:49.

  I’d reentered the world of schedules and precision.

  TWENTY

  MOTHER OF THE WORLD

  “I do not believe there has ever been a massacre in the history of the world so general and thorough as that which is now being perpetrated in this region or that a more fiendish, diabolical scheme has ever been conceived by the mind of man …”

  —Constantinople letter, from US Consul Leslie Davis to Henry Morgenthau, American ambassador to Turkey, July 24, 1915

  Three years after my visit to the British Museum, I again saw the massif Ararat, this time while I was on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany, about to land in Yerevan, Armenia. My vantage point was our aircraft’s southeast-facing window. In the distance was Lesser Ararat, and here, essentially at daylight’s end and to my utter joy, was an almost full moon commanding the sky over the mountains.

  I had the silly thought of pointing out to someone, anyone, onboard the plane, “I stood on top of that mountain,” but I came to my senses and kept the thought to myself.

  I remembered the five climbers who had stood there together in a single shared achievement. None of us would have completed the climb alone or without Kubi—at least I’d not have. Each one of the expedition members had shouldered me on—something I now understood: Goran’s nudging the group to do its best; Charlie believing the ability to summit was as much in the mind as in the legs; Patricia reminding us of our commitment; Ian’s confidence; Nico’s selflessness enabling our success.

  Out the plane’s window and over Ararat, it was still two nights before the complete full moon, and the thought of such a sighting had not even crossed my mind when preparing for this trip. But the image visible from the plane’s window was very close to the one I’d sought to capture (unsuccessfully so far). Other than the trinket I’d found at Ishak Pasha Palace, I’d not seen even a doctored image depicting that scene.

  The north face of Ararat (we had climbed from the south) can be seen from Armenia’s capital city, Yerevan, which is thirty-five miles away and less than twenty miles from the Armenia–Turkey border. The north is a more difficult ascent.

  From Armenia, the term “forbidden mountain” took on a new connotation. Despite the efforts of US president Woodrow Wilson in 1920, all of Mount Ararat is now vested within Turkey, and to the eastern flank of Lesser Ararat, following the Tehran Convention of 1932 between Iran and Turkey. Today, a border fence erected by Turkey makes Ararat a difficult mountain for Armenians to touch, though it defines their daily lives. They call it Masis. It has also been called “Mother of the World.”

  My son Brent, forty-four, was teaching English in Iraq, and had flown up to meet me in Yerevan for a few days. He’d arrived two years after my own journey to Iraq. His responsibilities were split between Erbil and Sulimaniyah, and he had met Taha’s family. I arrived at the hotel to find him drinking coffee in the loun
ge.

  “Dad!” It was heartwarming to hear that—it had been over a year since we’d seen one another. We jumped into a hug that caused commotion among other patrons, the piano man, and the waiters.

  “Where’s the best place for Armenian food?” I asked, not needing a response. “Let me drop the bags upstairs and we’ll go for dinner.”

  Five minutes later we were headed out onto the streets of downtown Yerevan. The billboard signs irked me; they were oversized and ubiquitous, and their intrusive placement disturbed the streetscape of charming architecture.

  Brent advised, “Up a block is Tumanian, a roundabout way to where we’re going, but it’s a pretty walk. It’s a stroll to the Opera House. We’ll walk back through Republic Square.”

  “Did you see the moon?” I asked. “It’ll be full in two nights. I have to find a photographer who can capture that.”

  Down a wide walkway was a joint Brent had been to the night before. Cold drinks arrived as we sat down. Brent recommended an Armenian pide; a cheese I didn’t recognize, local salami, and tomatoes, which arrived folded into a sleeve of grilled bread. We took mouthfuls while catching up on family news, friends, our work. That morphed into talk of what we wanted to do in Armenia.

  “Khor Virap,” Brent said, tucking in to a second pide. “You must be thinking of going there.” The photogenic monastery was partly restored, partly crumbling, a one-time place of imprisonment and the eventual site of a chapel. It is closely tied to the fact that Armenia became the world’s first “Christian nation” about 1900 years ago.