1802-1870

French Archaeologist and Diplomat

Paul Emile Botta was among the first archaeologists to study the ruins of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia. In 1843, he discovered the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II near what is now Khorsabad, Iraq.

Botta was born in Turin, Italy. His father, the Italian historian and physician Carl Botta, became a French citizen in 1814. Paul Botta also studied medicine, but then entered the French diplomatic corps.

Initially assigned to Alexandria, Egypt, Botta secured an appointment to the city of Mosul in Mesopotamia, then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Julius Mohl, a well-known scholar of Middle Eastern civilization, had convinced the French government that someone interested in archaeology would be right for the consulate post, and Botta fit the bill. He was the son of a historian, he spoke Arabic, and he was fascinated by the prospect of discovering...