Arthur finds him­self immersed in the rem­nants of Nin­eveh in 1872, sur­round­ed by the decayed ruins of once-proud struc­tures now pil­laged and bro­ken by time and human inter­fer­ence. As he over­sees a team of thir­ty labor­ers, Arthur is deeply trou­bled by the gru­el­ing con­di­tions they face beneath the relent­less heat of the sun. Their labor, marked by the con­stant sound of shov­els dig­ging into the earth, is a rhythm that nev­er stops, remind­ing Arthur of the weight of their work and the dwin­dling resources that could soon pre­vent them from con­tin­u­ing. Dur­ing the heat of the day, when the sun’s rays grow unbear­able, he retreats to his tent, where, despite the oppres­sive envi­ron­ment, he remains deter­mined to study the ancient cuneiform tablets he has uncov­ered, believ­ing that these pieces of his­to­ry could unlock secrets that had been lost to time.

As he dives deep­er into his research, Arthur makes an unex­pect­ed discovery—the rem­nants of an ancient boat­yard, hid­den beneath the dry earth. This sur­pris­ing find sug­gests that what was once a bustling trade cen­ter, full of life and activ­i­ty, now lies in des­o­la­tion and aban­don­ment. Arthur is struck by the irony of it all—this area, once a thriv­ing hub, now suf­fers from the rav­ages of time and neglect. He reflects on the sig­nif­i­cance of this region, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ear­ly find­ings at Ashurbanipal’s palace, where tablets, impor­tant to the study of ancient civ­i­liza­tions, were over­shad­owed by the more visu­al­ly strik­ing stat­ues. These finds were neglect­ed because they lacked the imme­di­ate glam­our of sculp­tures, illus­trat­ing how cer­tain types of knowl­edge and her­itage were lost in the fren­zy to pre­serve and dis­play more glam­orous arti­facts.

Fur­ther explo­ration leads Arthur to learn that many of the arti­facts from pre­vi­ous exca­va­tions were care­less­ly han­dled and dam­aged due to the chaot­ic rush of archae­ol­o­gists eager to claim their finds. The intense rival­ry between the British and French exca­va­tion teams, each des­per­ate to secure Mesopotami­an trea­sures, only exac­er­bat­ed the sit­u­a­tion, with both sides hur­ried­ly attempt­ing to ship their dis­cov­er­ies back to Europe. This reck­less pur­suit of arti­facts cul­mi­nat­ed in a trag­ic inci­dent where an attack on a trans­port ship result­ed in the loss of price­less items, which sank into the Tigris Riv­er, for­ev­er lost to the depths. This heart­break­ing event empha­sizes the fragili­ty of his­tor­i­cal trea­sures and high­lights the dan­gers faced by those attempt­ing to retrieve them, mak­ing Arthur acute­ly aware of the poten­tial destruc­tion that can accom­pa­ny the pur­suit of ancient knowl­edge.

As Arthur reflects on these events, a sense of humil­i­ty and con­fu­sion wash­es over him. He becomes more aware of the fleet­ing nature of civ­i­liza­tions, real­iz­ing that no mat­ter how mighty or advanced they may have been, every soci­ety leaves behind a lega­cy of pain and bru­tal­i­ty, hid­den beneath its tri­umphs. These real­iza­tions become even more poignant dur­ing his vis­its to a near­by Yazi­di vil­lage, where Arthur, now deeply con­nect­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty, finds solace in the rela­tion­ships he builds with its peo­ple. He becomes par­tic­u­lar­ly drawn to Leila, a faqra, whose sto­ries and music cap­ti­vate him with their depth and emo­tion­al res­o­nance. These moments with Leila draw Arthur away from his schol­ar­ly pur­suits, pulling him into a world defined not by writ­ten texts but by the oral tra­di­tion that has kept the Yazi­di cul­ture alive for cen­turies. Through Leila’s tales of water, which are cen­tral to their cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, Arthur begins to see the pro­found con­nec­tion between the Yazidis and the land they inhab­it. These night­ly encoun­ters offer him more than just an intel­lec­tu­al curiosity—they allow him to feel a deep and spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to a cul­ture that, though dif­fer­ent from his own, shares sim­i­lar human strug­gles and aspi­ra­tions.

Arthur’s engage­ment with the Yazi­di com­mu­ni­ty and Leila’s sto­ries begins to change the way he views his own work. No longer focused sole­ly on the recov­ery of arti­facts for intel­lec­tu­al or schol­ar­ly gain, Arthur becomes more attuned to the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance behind these trea­sures and the liv­ing his­to­ry they rep­re­sent. His time with Leila and the Yazi­di vil­lagers shapes his per­spec­tive on archae­ol­o­gy, lead­ing him to con­sid­er not just what is lost in the past, but what con­tin­ues to thrive in the present. The con­nec­tions he forms with the peo­ple of the vil­lage enrich his under­stand­ing of both ancient and con­tem­po­rary life, offer­ing him a broad­er view of history’s cycli­cal nature.