Paul-Émile Botta (6 December 1802 – 29 March 1870) was an Italian-born French scientist who served as Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) from 1842, and who discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Dur-Sharrukin.

The Heros under Captain Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly (1790–1849) left Le Havre April 8, 1826, and sailed south through the Atlantic Ocean, stopping in Rio de Janeiro and around Cape Horn.

Mohl, of the French Asiatic Society, had read Claudius Rich's Memoirs and Narrative, concluding Mosul held possibilities for excavation.

Botta's skills as a naturalist, historian, languages and diplomatic service made him an obvious choice to lead such an investigation.

Arriving in 1842, Botta first bought antiquities, bricks and clay fragments, and then initially investigating the Nabi Yunus mound before he faced opposition.

Botta sent a dispatch to Mohl stating, "I believe myself to be the first who has discovered sculptures which with some reason can be referred to the period when Nineveh was flourishing."

Botta uncovered chambers, halls, and corridors, walls of bas-relief Assyrian scenes and gods, plus doorways flanked by winged bulls with human heads[5][6][7] The French government, highly gratified at the surprising success of its consul, supplied him with ample means for further research as well as the artist Eugène Flandin to document Botta's discoveries.