Of all these groups the best established and almost the only ones that can be used as the heads of series are those whose elements have been furnished by the explorations undertaken by M. de Sarzec, French vice-consul at Bassorah, at Tello, upon the site of a town which we shall follow the majority of Assyriologists in calling Sirtella. We have written the history of these excavations elsewhere; we have explained how greatly they do honour to the artistic spirit, the perseverance, and the energy of M. de Sarzec;[199] we have given the history of the negotiations and of the vote in Parliament which led to the acquisition by the Louvre of all the objects discovered. It will be sufficient to say here that the works began in the winter of 1876 and came to an end in 1881, and that the purchase of M. de Sarzec’s collection took place in the latter year, under the administration of M. Jules Ferry. The name of Tello, which has become famous so suddenly, is to be found on no map of Asia to which we have access. The place thus designated by the Arabs in consequence of the numerous mounds, or _tells_, that are sprinkled about, is situated quite in the desert, on the left bank of the Shat-el-Haï, above Chatra and below Saïd-Hassan, which are on the other side of the channel, and about an hour and a quarter’s march to the east.[200] This site seems to have been inhabited down to the very last days of antiquity, so that monuments have been found there of all ages; for the moment, however, we are only concerned with those that belong to the early Chaldæan monarchy. Among these there are some that date from the very beginning of Chaldæan civilization. This we know not only from their style; arguments based on such evidence alone might leave room for doubt; some might even contend that the development of art did not proceed equally over the whole of that extensive country; it might be asserted that here and there it was in a far less advanced state than at other centres. The age of these monuments is fixed by much less debateable signs, namely, by the character of the symbols of which their inscribed texts are composed (see Vol I., Fig. 2, and below, Fig. 92). [Illustration: FIG. 92.--Inscription engraved on one of the seated Chaldæan statues. Louvre.]