Treasure Seekers: Edge of the Orient
- Year:
- 2001
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It was the birthplace of civilization,
now a barren and exotic landscape,
alluring in its mystery.
For thousands of years,
the Middle East
had guarded its secrets.
But by the 19th century
it had become a battleground
for competing empires
eager for political control
and archeological treasure.
It was a time when archeology
was intertwined with espionage.
When politics was called
"The Great Game".
Into this arena stepped
two remarkable Britons
a young adventurer named
Austin Henry Layard,
who uncovered the treasures of
a fabulous lost civilization,
and a brilliant politician
named Gertrude Bell,
the "brains" behind
Lawrence of Arabia.
Both would follow their dreams into
the desert
changing it forever.
In the spring of 1840,
an intrepid young Englishman found
his way to the ancient land
between the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers, now part of Iraq.
He was on his way towards India
to make his fortune.
this desert that caught hold of him
and wouldn't let him go.
More than 2,000 years ago,
this land:
Babylonia and Assyria.Their cities were fabled
for their opulence.
Their power rivaled
only by each other.
The Assyrians were
fearsome warriors.
Eight centuries before Christ,
they had marched on the Israelites.
City after city fell before them.
Even Jerusalem was under siege.
Thousands of captives were taken,
immortalized as the
Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
And all this was written
in the Bible.
But now almost all traces of these
great civilizations had disappeared.
There was nothing here but desert
as far as the eye could see.
Yet in this wasteland, Austin Henry
Layard saw the chance
of a lifetime.
In the decade to come,
of this barren desert,
and reveal the truth
in a Bible story.
When he saw the mounds and saw
this area, he saw opportunity.
He saw opportunity for fame,
and he was looking as a way
to make his name and his life.
From his earliest childhood,
Most of his youth was spent
in Florence
where he fell in love with
that ancient city's history and art.
Formal schooling was not for him,
but he knew almost every painting in
the galleries and
churches of the city.
The rest of his time he spent
dreaming, lost in stories of adventure.
His favorite was a book only recently
translated into English.
The work in which I took the
greatest delight was the Arabian Nights.
My imagination became
so much excited by it,
little else.
The Arabian Nights have had no little
influence upon my life and career.
To them, I attribute that love of
travel and adventure,
which took me to the East.
Ever since Napoleon rediscovered
the wonders of Egypt
at the turn of the century,
Europeans had been captivated by
the exoticism of the East.
From the time he was a boy,
Austin Henry Layard
fell under its spell.
a lawyer of him.
Layard hated the law, but he stuck it
out and passed his exams at 22.
Casting about, he learned of a
possible job in Ceylon,
a British colony
halfway around the world.
It was the chance
he had been waiting for.
to accompany him
in the overland route
through the Ottoman Empire.
In 1839, this was a journey
well off the beaten track,
which could take more than a year.
The two men wore Turkish dress
to assure safe passage,
and lived out of their saddlebags.
They made their way down into Turkey,
This was my first glimpse
of Eastern life.
The booths in the covered alleys
of the bazaar;
through the crowd;
the dim and mysterious light
of the place.
I felt myself in a new world,
since my earliest childhood.
reached the desert,
he was living
his deepest fantasy.
You know how sometimes you go to
a place, and it is you,
and you just fit,
and you feel comfortable?
I don't think Layard,
at that stage in his life,
was comfortable in
Victorian England.
But when he got to Petra,
in particular, where he was robbed
and had a terrible time,
he felt at home
because he felt a kinship
with these people
who were very volatile and friendly
and outgoing like he was.
Petra also satisfied Layard's
fascination with history.
The city's fading grandeur
carved from solid rock.
But there were other
even more ancient ruins,
and these proved
more intriguing still.
One day on his way through
the Tigris and Euphrates valley,
something extraordinary
rising out of the flat desert plain.
I saw for the first time the great
Mound of Nimrud against
the clear sky.
The impression it made upon me was
one never to be forgotten.
Layard vowed that
some day he would return
to investigate the mysterious mound.
In the meantime,
lost all interest
in continuing on to Ceylon.
For a year, he lived with
the Baktiari nomads in Persia,
whose way of life had not changed
for 3,000 years.
And it was I think one reason
he became the archeologist he did.
He learned how to
improvise on the spot;
he learned how to
adjust circumstances,
how to live in discomfort;
and above all,
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