MOON GODDESS.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1926, Page 4

MOON GODDESS.

UR OF THE CHALDEES. PHILADELPHIA, May 14. The chance discovery of great coffins of hammered and riveted copper, and the unearthing of the earliest female statue in all Mesopotamia, are among the achievements of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and the museum of the University of Pennsylvania, which lias over 200 men at work excavating Ur of the Chaldees, Iraq, one of the most famous sites of antiquity.

In the shrine of the Moon goddess, worshipped l,v the ancient Chaldeans, there was found a diorite statute of the goddess Bau, patroness of the pultry yard, and. in the report of C.

Leonard Woolley, leader of the expedition, iust received, it is declared that

this is the only female statue of early date ever found in Mesopotamia. Only the goddess’s nose is missing; other less fortunate statues and vessels had been smashed to hits upon the

brick floor of the temple Gig-Par-Azag. when that place of. worship was sacked and burned, probably during a rebellion against an ancient king of Babylon, the great Hammurabi. During January the Moon goddess, temple was laid bare by the exeav®. tors. This really magnificent struetuiW was built about 2220 8.C., and then re* built in fine burnt brick a hundred ai£ fifty years later by Ennnatum, son iq Ishii’.e-Dagan, king of Isin. This in the most imposing building at Ur, with iJ'tt single exception of the Ziggurat, coSrJf ing a very large area and laid out on a bold and spacious plan. One of its two temples is that of Nin-Gai. It has a court with wide gateways on three sides, brick-paved and thickly set with bases for statues or stelae, with water tanks and lustral stands, and it forms the central " feature. From it three massive doorways lead to the sanctuary, a small chamber entirely taken up by a high statue-base with a flight of steps on one side of it. Altars in the gateway recesses'.and in the chamber next to the sanctuary seem to show that these served as side chapels for the cult of lesser gods. The court is flanked by long rooms, store, or service chambers, and behind the sanctuary is the temple kitchen. Mr Woolley reports that this ancient kitchen and nil its furnishings are extremely well preserved. Near one wall is the well sunk through the brick floor. Made fast in the brick pave-

ments is a bronze ring to which the bucket-rope was secured, and against the wall stands the bitumen-lined brick tank for water. Agaiilst the other walls there are two cookingranges. 1 one with an open trough-fire-place for burning wood, a cup-five for charcoal, and a furnace whereon proh ably the great cauldron stood, th other an elaborate covered stove witl two fireplaces, circular flues and to; vents for the cooking pots, and a fligli of steps so that one might mount o' the top of the stove to lilt or si them

‘‘ On the floor we found the quern a ltd grinder-stone and the clay vessels left lying when the hist meal Iliad been cooked,” .Mr Woolley reports. Another curious feature of the temple is a small chamber lying in the centre of a maze of corridors symmetrical in plan. If had two doors at the south-east end of its longer sides, and at the other end there was a tall stela, of white limestone, .satiating upright with two other stelae of dark gypsum lying side by side at its foot, embedded in the bitumen, which here covered its brick floor. Each stone was inscribed with the name of jl.ur-Sin,, King of Ur, and his dedication of the temple. “One can only suppose that tms chamber was the shrine in which was celebrated the cult of the building’s defied founder,” .Mr. Woolley reports. “Certainly it is unique in Mesopotamian discoveries.”

Hut the worship of the Moon goddess. Nin-Gal, antedated even the foundations of the original building that Mr Woolley and his assistants unearthed. In more ancient ruins offerings to the same goddess were found. One of these is a lunar disk in alabaster, which bears on one face an inscription recording that it was dedicated hy the high priestess, the daughter of Sorgoh of Akkad, who reigned about 27(10 15.C'.. and on the other side a relief illustrating a sacrifice to the goddess in which the chief part is played by a priestess in flowing robes and mitre, who can scarcely be other than the princess herself. And ns it to show how conservative was Sumerian religion, we find the same scene reproduced on a limestone plaque, which dates from well before 3000 8.C., a complete arid admirable example of tire earliest art of the country. There are two registers; in the lower a naked priest pours his libation before the door of the shrine, behind him is the high priestess, robed and crowned, and belli ml her an attendant carrying a kid for the sacrifice, and a second bearing a wreath ; in the upper register a iron, naked but with long hair, prob- • lily (be king, pours libation before the seated Moon god. and three small, draped figures, perhaps his children, look on from behind.