2004: 198–201). Interested in antiquities, and knowing about the biblical past
of the area, he visited the site of ancient Babylon, a city frequently cited in the
Bible, and published two books on the information he gathered. In 1821, before
he left Mesopotamia, he visited, among other sites, the mounds of Kuyunjik
and Nebi Yunus, which together formed the site of Nineveh, near Mosul, in the
north of Mesopotamia. He also copied the stone-cut cuneiform inscriptions at
Persepolis in Iran, and this and Nineveh were published in 1836, more than ten
years after his untimely death (Larsen 1996: 9).
Regarding Iran, the foreign archaeologists visiting the area were mainly
British and Russians. British travellers included the Scottish diplomat Sir John
Malcolm (who visited the court in Tehran in 1800, 1808, and 1810) (1782–
1833), the diplomat James Morier (who stayed in Persia in 1808–9 and 1811–15)
(1780–1849), James Silk Buckingham (1816) (1786–1855) and James B. Fraser
(several journeys in 1821–34) (1783–1856). In 1817–20 the Russian Academy of
Fine Arts sponsored an expedition to Persia, headed by the British artist Robert
Ker Porter (1777–1842), who had been partly educated in Russia. He explored
Persepolis and other sites, which he illustrated in drawings. Russian interest in
Iran, connected to Russian imperialism (Nikitin 2004) (see also Chapter 9), was,
however, challenged by Britain. Throughout the nineteenth century, the reign-
ing house in Iran, the Qajar dynasty (1781–1925), was able to play oVthe
imperial powers and convert Iran into a buVer state between the neighbouring
Russian and British empires. The country had to adjust to the changes in the
Western world, with the reigns of Fath Ali Shah (r. 1797–1834) and Nasir al-Din
Shah (r. 1848–96) the most important ones in the process. During the rule of
Fath Ali Shah an original use of the past could be seen in the 1820s and 1830s in
the anachronistic creation of rock reliefs representing the Shah. These types of
representations had their origin in pre-Islamic Iran, when they expressed royal
power. The Shah had been acquainted with them through Persepolis during his
time, in 1794–7, as prince-governor of the region where the ruins are. Contacts
he established with some of the travellers (Morier, Ker Porter) may have made
him appreciate them in a more Western-like fashion (Luft 2001). Some also see
the revival of mural paintings mainly during his rule as an eVect of Western
inXuence (Diba 2001).
In Western Europe, after Rich’s death, his collection of antiquities was
bought by the British Museum. Due to lack of enthusiasm only a small sum
of money was paid for it. Despite the relative unimportance of the public
display, in the 1830s the antiquities gathered by Rich would be of paramount
importance for the future development of Mesopotamian archaeology. One of
the visitors to the museum was the German-born Jules Mohl (1806–76), an
Arabist who had decided to move to Paris, at the time the Mecca for European
Orientalist scholars (McGetchin 2003). Mohl had become one of the secretaries
140 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism