3-057-107 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Hormuzd Rassam, explorer and archaeologist, 1881. Rassam (1826-1910) was born in Mosul, in modern Iraq. In 1845-1847 he assisted the British archaeologist AH Layard in his first expedition to the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh. Rassam then studied at Oxford before being sent by the trustees of the British Museum to assist Layard on his second Assyrian expedition of 1849-1851. He subsequently continued work on various Assyrian sites, making numerous important discoveries. He is widely believed to be the first-known Middle Eastern and Assyrian archaeologist from the Ottoman empire. He is known for making a number of important archaeological discoveries from 1877 to 1882, including the clay tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest notable literature.