Of Consuls and Steamers: Material Foundations of Colonial Archaeology in Late Ottoman Iraq

In January, 1877, Ernest de Sarzec, a man of tall stature and expressive features, then about forty years old, combining an active mind and sharp intellect with a pronounced taste for art and archaeology, and through his previous service in Egypt and Abyssinia well-versed in Oriental manners and to a certain degree familiar with the life of the desert, was transferred to Basra as vice-consul of France.¹

Thus begins the philologist Hermann Hilprecht's account of the French excavations at Tello in southern Iraq (Fig. 1). According to Hilprecht, archaeological research in the nineteenth century was predominantly indebted to the individual, heroic efforts of such diplomats, who put their "pronounced taste for art and archaeology" to good use in the free time which they carved out of their dull consular duties.

The modern discipline of Mesopotamian archaeology was indeed initiated by excavations led by European consul-archaeologists. However, such narratives of individual glory fail to explain the dramatic shift that took place over the course of the century from small-scale, sporadic explorations to largescale, systematic excavations. Therefore, I argue for focusing on the material foundations that sustained archaeological campaigns through an intricate web of relationships controlling land, people, and technologies. One of my dissertation's chapters addresses such material foundations which were already in place at the time of Sarzec's arrival, and in this highly condensed contribution,² I highlight a technological development located at the center of politics,

Figure 1.

Map of Iraq, with selected archaeological sites. Created by Erhan Tamur, with data from Natural Earth and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO AQUASTAT Major Rivers of the World).

commerce, and archaeology: the introduction of steamship services in late Ottoman Iraq.

Steamers and Archaeological Exploration

The first surveys on the Euphrates and Tigris for steam navigation were carried out by the British in the 1830s, who had hoped to find an effective route to India. It quickly became clear that the Euphrates and the section of the Tigris between Mosul and Baghdad were not readily navigable by steamers. Although the British firm Lynch & Co. obtained permission in 1841 to operate armed steamers, high maintenance costs soon led British authorities to propose their withdrawal to India. Henry C. Rawlinson, the British Resident in Baghdad and the renowned Assyriologist who supported Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam's excavations at Nineveh and Nimrud then intervened, stressing the steamers' importance for the British Government's geopolitical ambitions.³ In fact, archaeological exploration was already on the earliest British

Figure 2.

Map of Assyria by Felix J. Jones, with the author's annotations and close-ups. From Vestiges of Assyria (Calcutta: John Walker, 1855), sheet 3.

river surveys' agenda in Iraq,⁴ and in 1844, Rawlinson himself, with Felix Jones, captain of the consulate steamer Nitocris, embarked on a journey to the Iranian border within the context of the Turco-Persian Boundary Commission.⁵ The account of their trip reads more like an exploratory tour of sites and monuments than a purely diplomatic mission. Moreover, in April 1846, Rawlinson sent Jones upstream to the unnavigable part of the Tigris, clearly to help transport the finds unearthed by the new British excavations at Nimrud.⁶ Although this attempt failed, Jones's steamer proved to be invaluable not only in rescuing stranded rafts filled with antiquities but also in conducting numerous archaeological surveys, one of which produced, upon Layard's request, a detailed map of the Assyrian sites (Fig. 2).⁷ Jones would later succeed Rawlinson as the Interim Political Agent in Baghdad so that "as far as antiquities are concerned the change will make no difference."⁸

Indeed, steamers were often treated as priceless assets giving governments an edge in their fierce competition for collecting. When a suitable vessel was

Figure 3.

The British Residency in Baghdad, with the consulate steamer in...