Past Perfect: Excavating Nimrud

Many of the 19th century’s most significant archaeological discoveries were made by men who recorded their adventures for the general public. In this issue, Past Perfect presents one such narrative: Austen Layard’s dramatic account of the removal of a winged bull from Nimrud. In the early, swaggering days of European archaeology, excavators were often adventurers, tunneling through mounds and ruins, in pursuit of ancient treasures. At the age of 22, the Englishman Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) set off for the East in search of exotica; in the end, he helped develop the fledgling field of Assyriology. Layard began digging […]