ANCIENT FIND.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 January 1928, Page 3

ANCIENT FIND.

[“Sydney Sun” Cables.]

NEW YORK, Jan. 12

I* tirthcr details of the grave discovered in Ur of Chaldees shows that besides being rich in treasures, it is strewn with the bodies of musicians’ instruments and gold-decked women of the Harem, who accompanied their master in death. The body of the King himself was not found amongst the score of men and women constituting the household. The discoveries offer proof in that in the fourth milleniuin 8.C., there were practised in

Mesopotamia burial ceremonies, aboi which later tradition is silent, <

which the archaeologist hitherto knew nothing. Two grooms stood at the head of an ass in each chariot, still holding the reins, and thirdly by their side, piled against a clothes chest, the human bodies were huddled up, as if suddenly smitten by death. Thirteen more bodies were found near the chariot. two of these being of children. The others were apparently women. AJI. were dressed alike with an elaborate headdress and veils, from which Hung gold [pendants. Undoubtedly these belonged to the dead King’s Harem. In a rectangle stood large limestone blocks, probably forming an altar, on which the victims were sacrificed. The Royal grave illustrates the extraordinary degree of material civilisation that Mesopotamia enjoyed in the fourth milleniimi. ft seems to have been far in advance of contemporary Egypt, and shows that art was already old, stereotyped and even decadent.