Austen henry lanyard biography of martin luther

English archaeologist and politician (–)

Sir Austen Henry LayardGCB PC (; 5 March &#;&#; 5 July ) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat.

He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in Italy.

Austen henry lanyard biography of martin luther

He is best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Nineveh, where he uncovered a large proportion of the Assyrian palace reliefs known, and in the library of Ashurbanipal. Most of his finds are now in the British Museum. He made a large amount of money from his best-selling accounts of his excavations.

He had a political career between , when he was elected as a Member of Parliament, and , holding various junior ministerial positions. He was then made ambassador to Madrid, then Constantinople, living much of the time in a palazzo he bought in Venice.

During this period he built up a significant collection of paintings, which due to a legal loophole he had as