Having excavated the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, and unearthed countless artifacts that had lain undisturbed for some 2,730 years, the British Museum then had to transport the treasures to England. They did this by floating them on wooden rafts, which were supported by inflated sheep- and goatskins, to Basra where the British navy were on hand to load them onto ships. In this watercolour, a raft carrying a statue of an ancient Assyrian winged bull is floated on the Tigris to Baghdad.