REMARKABLE ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1067, 29 April 1882, Page 4

REMARKABLE ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.

fca irssertt speech Mr Rassam, the well-known Assyrian explorer, announced some remarkable discoveries of antediluvian records, made by him in the neighbourhood of Bagdad. He said: In March last I went out to the East, for the purpose of finding the old cities which lie buried there. As 1 was journeying on one occasion in pursuit of this object, 1 met with an Arab, who told me that he knew-of an old ruined city, the remains of which were to be found within five hours of Bagdad. 1 accompanied him, and as we were travelling along the route pointed out by the Arab we came, at a -distance of four hours’ journeying, upon an old ruin that 1 had never seen

before, a ruin of great magnitude—so large, indeed, that it must be about three miles in circumference. I set to work and excavated. The result was that after digging for four days we came upon the top of some walls. This induced us to persevere with increased ard our, mid we soon found that we had come upon an enormous building, in which we began to find inscriptions. 1 mav here say that I am not an Assyrian reader. lam only a discoverer of Assyrian relics, which I send to the British Museum, where those who have made Assyriology a study inspect the inscriptions 1 find. We first of all discovered four rooms, and then came upon a fifth. They were what I should call generally of the Assyrian or Babylonian order, and paved with bricks or stones. But the fifth room was paved with asphalte, the discovery of which brought to my mind Solomon’s saying—“ There is nothing new under the sun.” Previous to this 1 had always thought that asphalte was a modern invention. Singular as this discovery was we dug through the asphalte, and in a short time we were rewarded by coming upon a coffer, on which we found inscriptions. From this coffer we took two cylinders. They were covered with inscriptions, which arc supposed to be the most important records of the oldest city in the world, founded, as historians tell us, by Noah after the Deluge, and wh ie, according to tradition, Noah burieu the antediluvian records. Well, I had to come home, but I left some workmen continuing the operations at that spot, and I have ascertained that they have found, after digging a few days more, that in one of the rooms there was a channel, and inside that channel there were records inscribed on nearly ten thousand tablets. (Applause.) These tablets are all coining to England, but we cannot, of course, as yet say what they contain. They’ may contain something of even greater value than anything that has hitherto been discovered in the course of our Eastern researches. It may be, indeed, that we shall really find on them the antediluvian records of which I have spoken. When I return again I shall be happy to give you further information as to this interesting discovery after I have been out there again. 1 hope to be going out in another month, and then I trust I shall be able to make still further advances on what we have already discovered. (Cheers.)