Capt. Gaston Cros as the late M. de Sarzec's successor, was
therefore received with general satisfaction. The fact that Capt. Cros
had already successfully carried out several difficult topographical
missions in the region of the Sahara was a sufficient guarantee that the
new diggings would be conducted on a systematic and exhaustive scale.

The new director of the French mission in Chaldaea arrived at Telloh in
January, 1903, and one of his first acts was to shift the site of the
mission's settlement from the bank of the Shatt el-Hai, where it had
always been established in the time of M. de Sarzec, to the mounds where
the actual digging took place. The Shatt el-Hai had been previously
chosen as the site of the settlement to ensure a constant supply of
water, and as it was more easily protected against attack by night.
But the fact that it was an hour's ride from the diggings caused an
unnecessary loss of time, and rendered the strict supervision of the
diggers a matter of considerable difficulty. During the first season's
work rough huts of reeds, surrounded by a wall of earth and a ditch,
served the new expedition for its encampment among the mounds of Telloh,
but last year these makeshift arrangements were superseded by a regular
house built out of the burnt bricks which are found in abundance on the
site. A reservoir has also been built, and caravans of asses bring water
in skins from the Shatt el-Hai to keep it filled with a constant supply
of water, while the excellent relations which Capt. Cros has established
with the Karagul Arabs, who occupy Telloh and its neighbourhood, have
proved to be the best kind of protection for the mission engaged in
scientific work upon the site.

The group of mounds and hillocks, known as Telloh, which marks the site
of the ancient Sumerian city of Shirpurla, is easily distinguished from
the flat surrounding desert. The mounds extend in a rough oval formation
running north and south, about two and a half miles long and one and a
quarter broad. In the early spring, when the desert is covered with a
light green verdure, the ruins are clearly marked out as a yellow spot
in the surrounding green, for vegetation does not grow upon them. In the
centre of this oval, which approximately marks the limits of the ancient
city and its suburbs, are four large tells or mounds running, roughly,
north and south, their sides descending steeply on the east, but with
their western slopes rising by ea