BRINGING HOME THE EXOTIC:
Claudius James Rich
Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan
(1836)
Claudius James Rich owed his career and his varied successes to his early life as a child prodigy. Born in
Dijon of English parents, he began bilingual and by age nine acquired not only the usual Latin and Greek,
but also Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and a little Chinese - all of it without teachers.
The only vehicle for such a youth was the East India Company. At age 16, Rich headed to Bombay by a
circuitous route through the Near East. He snuck into the Great Mosque in Damascus so successfully
disguised as a Mameluke that a local merchant offered him a daughter in marriage. While still in his early
twenties, Rich would instead wed Mary Mackintosh, daughter of a high-ranking Company officer, and
move to Baghdad as the first British Consul. The Consul's task was to maintain good trade relations with
the Ottoman Empire and to host English scholars, explorers, and merchants visiting Mesopotamia. He
overhauled the staffing conventions and the physical layout of the Residency to impress the Turks, with
great success. He used his freedom of movement and spare time to visit historic sites.
Rich's conversion to the infant science of archaeology took place in the ruins of ancient Babylon. Much
conflicting examination had been made there already. Unlike previous European visitors, Rich correctly
identified the remnant walls as the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and he retrieved a carved cylinder which
would prove a key to the translation of cuneiform script. One modern writer remarks that although
his stay lasted only ten days, he made enough findings to occupy scholars for ten years. His first book,
Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon in 1811 set off more than a century of competitive exploration
in the region and even inspired some lines in Byron's Don Juan (V, 62):
"But to resume, - should there be (what may not
Be in these days?) some infidels, who don't,
Because they can't, find out the very spot
Of that same Babel, or because they won't
(Though Claudius Rich, Esquire, some bricks has got,
And written lately two memoirs upon't,)...."
Although Rich made many new discoveries about ancient Babylon, the site itself had been known for
years. The same was not true of the city of Nineveh, which had been almost completely lost to history
following its destruction in 612 B.C. Many Europeans lumped Nineveh with Troy as a fable; another
archaeologist had been told that finding Aladdin's lamp was more likely than finding Nineveh. Rich's
unique skills at communicating with local residents, however, gave him the advantage, and in 1808 he
started sketching two suspicious mounds near Mosul after seeing workmen dig up a hewn stone there.
Eventually he proved that the mounds were full of broken clay inscriptions - and, even more striking,
that their language was the same as those at the Babylon site. He had unwittingly mapped out the scope
of the Assyrian empire. Between 1808 and 1820 Rich made four lengthy visits to Mosul and created a
cottage industry in excavated antiquities, renewing the colonized Mesopotamians' belief that their history
was vitally important.
In 1820 Rich and Mary took a long tour from Baghdad north to Sulimania, eastward to Sinna, west to
the Nineveh site, than down the Tigris on a local raft. Their journals provided the first standardized
knowledge of the region's geography.
Hooked on ruins, Rich traveled to Persia in 1820 to see those of Persepolis. His journal says, "As I rode
over the plain by the beautiful starlight, reflections innumerable on the great events that had happened
there crowded on my memory....At last the pointed summit began to detach itself from the line of the
mountains to which we were advancing. Mr. Tod pointed it out: ‘Under that lie the ruins.' At that
moment the moon rose with uncommon beauty behind it. Ages seemed at once to present themselves
to my fancy." Rich went on to the city of Shiraz, where in the fall of 1821 a cholera epidemic broke out.
Despite orders to flee, Rich stayed to exert his influence toward the shipment of medical supplies. He
died of cholera on October 4, aged thirty-four.
Rich's legacy consisted of 800 manuscripts in eight languages, plus a large collection of clay cylinders,
tablets, and other relics, later purchased by the British Museum. Mary Rich collected his records,
journals, letters, and diagrams and published them as
Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan. Between
them, these items made Rich the beau-ideal of the romantic young adventurer in antiquities and the
hero of almost every Near Eastern archaeologist into the twentieth century. An early disciple, Robert
Ker Porter, would write the monumental
Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, [and] Ancient Babylonia
in 1822. It closes with a touching dedication to Rich, "a man whose luminous mind, and prompt
benevolence, enlightened and smoothed the way of all travellers who came within the sphere of his
influence; while the faithful fulfilment of every duty as a diplomatic agent, fully equalled that of his
general philanthropy."
Further Reading:
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