AN ARABIC POMPEII.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1012, 30 December 1910, Page 5

AN ARABIC POMPEII.

EXCAVATIONS IN SPAIN, (By Telegraph—Press Association Copyright) Madrid, December 28. The Spanish Government has in hand tho wort of excavating Abd-al-Rahman's city of Azzahra, in Andalusia, which was abandoned after its sack by, Mudarite9 and Berbers in 1000. It is described as tho Arabic Pompeii. ' Abd-al-Rahman was the sole survivor of the Ommcyad dynasty, which held the Caliphate of the Moslem Empire for a hundredyears, until August,' 750 A.D. The whole of. the members of the family were slain, with the exception, of this one youth, who escaped to Spain, and was acccpted as sovereign by the Arab tribes then ruling that country. There he laid the foundations of a new dynasty, and. established the magnificent court of Cordova. The Caliphs of Cordova reigned' in splendour for the. following three centuries. The Caliphs of ; Spain, says jFree- ' man, must be allowed one of the'highest places among Mahometan dynasties. In the duration of their house and in tho abundance of able nrinces which it produced, they yield only to 1 the Ottoman Sultans, while they rise incomparably above them in every, other estimable quality.. The most splendid period of .the Saracen Empire in Spain was during the tenth century. , 1 ...