Page - 13 -Scan 26 of 28
Printed: MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Printed: LIBERTY·EQUALITY·FRATERNITY FRENCH REPUBLIC
Printed: PARIS, ON
[illegible] these catastrophes were followed [illegible] by which the town was deserted by its inhabitants. The region of Malatya constitutes a seismic centre still today constantly threatened. Our own work was hampered by an earthquake that occurred a few weeks before our arrival and as a result of which the labour force of the whole region was mobilised by the public authorities.
Thus it is probable that some of the destructions recorded in the stratified layers of the hill do not bear witness to the capture of the town by enemy forces, as our predecessor admitted, but are the consequence of natural catastrophes, notably of earthquakes. The comparisons attempted by Delaporte between the levels of devastation encountered in the hill with certain striking episodes of Assyrian history need to be re-examined.
The reconstruction of the history of the site is complicated on the other hand, by the fact that the Tepe Arslan or Lions' Hill explored so far constitutes only a part of the ancient site.
Indeed, about 800 metres further south, there is a second hill called Ali Tepé, of equal dimensions. The two hills form the centre of an oasis with luxuriant vegetation fed by a powerful spring which gushes all year round, with a remarkable flow, from the foot of the mountains bounding Malatya to the south. As is the case of the present village of Orduzu whose farms are buried in the greenery of the oasis, the ancient site must have consisted of two quarters separated by a slight depression. They were gardens, this depression is dug by an ingenious system of channels
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain