This desert is a graveyard of mighty nations.

TCD MS 10516 folio 89 recto

TCD MS 10516 folio 89 recto

[12th October 1916] tain guns in position on the temple of the moon.

Continued from previous Geological notes:
It needs but the most cursory observation to detect the origin of the occasional mounds that are seen in a journey across this desert. They are low and smooth-backed, rising gently from the level plain. Their surface is covered with loose dust and on them lie fragments of pottery, brick and pieces of dessicated  pitch. These mounds are artificial; beneath the covering of wind-swept sands and decaying rubbish are walls and streets and houses that once went to build a Chaldean city.
For this desert is a graveyard of mighty nations. It carries our mind back through Arab civilization to the royal pride of Babylon, further back