sier undulations from the plain. These
four principal tells are known as the "Palace Tell," the "Tell of the
Fruit-house," the "Tell of the Tablets," and the "Great Tell," and,
rising as they do in the centre of the site, they mark the position of
the temples and the other principal buildings of the city.

An indication of the richness of the site in antiquities was afforded
to the new mission before it had started regular excavation and while
it was yet engaged in levelling its encampment and surrounding it with a
wall and ditch. The spot selected for the camp was a small mound to the
south of the site of Telloh, and here, in the course of preparing the
site for the encampment and digging the ditch, objects were found at
a depth of less than a foot beneath the surface of the soil. These
included daggers, copper vases, seal-cylinders, rings of lapis and
cornelian, and pottery. M. de Sarzec had carried out his latest
diggings in the Tell of the Tablets, and here Capt. Cros continued
the excavations and came upon the remains of buildings and recovered
numerous objects, dating principally from the period of Gudea and
the kings of Ur. The finds included small terra-cotta figures, a
boundary-stone of Gamil-Sin, and a new statue of Gudea, to which we will
refer again presently.

In the Tell of the Fruit-house M. de Sarzec had already discovered
numbers of monuments dating from the earlier periods of Sumerian history
before the conquest and consolidation of Babylonia under Sargon of
Agade, and had excavated a primitive terrace built by the early king
Ur-Nina. Both on and around this large mound Capt. Cros cut an extensive
series of trenches, and in digging to the north of the mound he found a
number of objects, including an alabaster tablet of Ente-mena which had
been blackened by fire. At the foot of the tell he found a copper helmet
like those represented on the famous Stele of Vultures discovered by
M. de Sarzec, and among the tablets here recovered was one with an
inscription of the time of Urukagina, which records the complete
destruction of the city of Shirpurla during his reign, and will be
described in greater detail later on in this chapter. On the mound
itself a considerable area was uncovered with remains of buildings
still in place, the use of which appears to have been of an industrial
character. They included flights of steps, canals with raised banks,
and basins for storing water. Not far off are the previously