Arthur’s return to Eng­land in 1872 marked a piv­otal moment in his life. After expe­ri­enc­ing the tri­umph of dis­cov­er­ing the Flood Tablet, his excite­ment quick­ly gave way to the dis­ap­point­ment of being called back home by his employ­ers. Despite his repeat­ed attempts to extend his stay by the Riv­er Tigris and con­tin­ue his work, he found him­self bound by duty to return to Lon­don. The night before his depar­ture, Arthur had a bit­ter­sweet moment with Leila, a local vil­lager, who, with a ges­ture of kind­ness, spilled water for good luck. Her words encour­aged him to return to this land of rich his­to­ry and cul­ture when the time was right. Arthur, deeply moved, marked a pome­gran­ate tree as a sym­bol of his promise to return, car­ry­ing the mem­o­ry of the land and its peo­ple with him.

Upon arriv­ing in Lon­don, Arthur was met with praise and admi­ra­tion for his dis­cov­ery. The media quick­ly turned him into a cel­e­brat­ed hero, and invi­ta­tions from schol­ars and dig­ni­taries poured in. Though the acco­lades were over­whelm­ing, Arthur strug­gled inter­nal­ly with the pub­lic recog­ni­tion. He had always been more at ease in the qui­et of his schol­ar­ly pur­suits, where his dis­cov­er­ies spoke for them­selves. Now, with his new­found fame, Arthur faced the weight of high expec­ta­tions and crit­i­cism alike. The accu­sa­tions from some of his crit­ics, claim­ing that he had fal­si­fied some of the arti­facts, only served to inten­si­fy his feel­ings of iso­la­tion. He began to feel out of place in this world of socialites and aca­d­e­mics, where every move seemed scru­ti­nized, and every word judged.

Mabel, his fiancée, was eager to use Arthur’s new fame to ele­vate their social stand­ing. She became fix­at­ed on plan­ning their wed­ding and acquir­ing the lux­u­ri­ous items that came with being asso­ci­at­ed with some­one of Arthur’s stature. How­ev­er, Arthur found him­self uneasy with this mate­ri­al­is­tic aspect of their life. Shop­ping sprees for ele­gant attire, once excit­ing, now felt suf­fo­cat­ing as he real­ized the cost of this new lifestyle. At a grand par­ty thrown by a wealthy count­ess, Arthur was struck by the way his archae­o­log­i­cal work had been com­mod­i­fied. The pre­cious arti­facts, which once held deep cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance, were now on dis­play as mere curios for the amuse­ment of the elite, their true val­ue over­looked. This encounter solid­i­fied his dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the way his dis­cov­er­ies were being treat­ed by the very soci­ety that had once cel­e­brat­ed them.

Dur­ing the din­ner at the countess’s par­ty, the con­ver­sa­tion turned to the peo­ple of the lands Arthur had stud­ied. As those around him casu­al­ly dis­cussed the inhab­i­tants of the regions he had vis­it­ed, Arthur felt com­pelled to defend the dig­ni­ty and human­i­ty of the Yazidis, a peo­ple whose strug­gles he had wit­nessed first­hand. The con­ver­sa­tion high­light­ed the stark con­trast between Arthur’s view of these cul­tures and that of his din­ner com­pan­ions, fur­ther iso­lat­ing him. It became clear to him that while he had a deep, per­son­al con­nec­tion to the places he stud­ied, most peo­ple around him saw these lands and their peo­ple as lit­tle more than curiosi­ties to be dis­cussed over din­ner. Arthur felt the weight of this dis­con­nec­tion, as it under­scored the inter­nal con­flict he was experiencing—his desire to hon­or these cul­tures clash­ing with the real­i­ty of his role in West­ern acad­e­mia.

After Arthur and Mabel mar­ried, the strains of their rela­tion­ship became increas­ing­ly appar­ent. Mabel’s desire for a life of lux­u­ry and the finan­cial pres­sures that came with it began to clash with Arthur’s pri­or­i­ties. While Arthur remained deeply absorbed in his work at the British Muse­um, Mabel urged him to seek a pro­mo­tion, point­ing out the finan­cial demands of their grow­ing fam­i­ly. This con­flict between them reflect­ed deep­er ten­sions: Arthur’s intel­lec­tu­al pur­suits ver­sus Mabel’s mate­r­i­al ambi­tions. Arthur con­tin­ued to immerse him­self in his research, but the mem­o­ries of his time in Mesopotamia, and the woman he had left behind there, haunt­ed him. He felt a sense of incom­plete­ness, as if his life was not tru­ly his own. Despite all his suc­cess and recog­ni­tion, he longed for the sim­plic­i­ty and authen­tic­i­ty of the past, the con­nec­tions he had made with peo­ple and places that felt more real to him than the world he now inhab­it­ed.