Sir Austen Henry Layard was a British Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in Italy. He is best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Nineveh, where he uncovered a large proportion of the Assyrian palace reliefs known, and in 1851 the library of Ashurbanipal. Most of his discoveries are now in the British Museum. He made a large amount of money from his best-selling accounts of his excavations.
Laird Brothers to Her Majesty’s Foreign Office. Birkenhead, September 5, 1863. Sir: We have received your letter of the 4th instant, stating that Lord Russell has instructed you to request…
Mr. Adderly to Mr. Layard Thirty-five, Eutin Place, February 17, 1865. Dear Mr. Layard: I enclose a letter to the man in the federal army of whom I spoke to…