After a lapse of twenty years, in the spring of 1840, Austen Henry Layard visited the ruins of Nineveh as iden tified by Rich. In 1842 Layard returned to Mosul without having made any excavations. Here he met P. C. Botta, the French consul, who had been interested in this work by the Orientalist Mohl, at that time professor in Paris. Layard, being without the means necessary to carry'on the excavations, strongly urged Botta to direct his attention to the work. Botta himself was without means at this time, but in 1843 he was enabled to begin, and he continued until 1845, during which time he laid bare the city walls of Khorsabad and discovered many valuable inscriptions. In 1849 he published his Monuments of Nineveh, by order of the French Government, in which are to be found 220 pages of inscriptions.