There was a wicked pasha in charge of Mosul. The city that was built on top of Nineveh.
He used to send his tax collectors out with orders to destroy and eat!
the people suffered greatly from his abuse. Layard found a small scrap of gold
and offered to the pasha all the precious metals that were found at the site.
Layard knew there would not be much treasure he was looking for the clay tablets
that held the language of the Assyrians. He wanted to preserve this and learn it for
posterity. The pasha became angry when there was not a lot of treasure to be found.
He was convinced the Layard was hiding treasure for himself. Layard was not. The treasure for
him was in the words that he was trying to preserve.
He stopped all excavation and accused Layard of disturbing the graves of moslems.
This is a very bad thing to do. It was found out later the graves that were disturbed were sham
ones. The pasha's officers lamented that their own people and horses had died while they disturbed
the real tombs of true believers to place the sham stones in Layards excavation site.
The central despot of Turkey finally found out about the bad deeds that were done
and removed the pasha. There was much public rejoicing that followed.