DESERT DISCOVERY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 585, 17 July 1933, Page 3

DESERT DISCOVERY

BURIED CIVILISATION PALACE 4000 YEARS OLD FOUND IN SYRIA. A SECRET SUPERSTITI 0 N. Dr. Baron Max von Oppenheim was early attracted to the study of Islam and of the East. As a young man he travelled in Morocco and India. He spent six month's in Cairo, living as a native in the bazaar and making friends with the religious sheiks. At various times he wandered for monthg in Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia, sharing the life of the nomads and the tents of the Bedouin. Even if we smile at the comprehensiyeness of his native hoast: "I h'ad eonie to love these people; I had a full knowledge of their soul, their speech, their customs. Everywhere I was welcomed with open arms," it is manifest that he must have had a considerable knowledge of several dialeets of colloquial Arabic, the gift of mixing with Moslems of many racial types( ,and a wholesome love of camp life, writes E. 0. Lorimer, in John o' London's Weekly. News of a Treasure. In 1896 he was attached to the Ger_ man diplomatic mission in Egypt, where he continued his studies, and 'n 1899 he undertook a journey throngh Mesopotamia from Damascus, ineidentally advising the authorities at home as to the best route for the Bagdad railway hetween Aleppo and Mosul. In crossing the desert by routes only used by the nomadic Bedouin he learned of a hill lying hetween the Euphratest and its eastern tribntary, the Khahnr, that had shown ihdications of containing the buried remains of some ancient cnlture. This was his first news of the Hill of the Citadel, with whieh his archaeo. logical work was to he so brilliantly associated. All whose interests in the earliest civilisation of man have been whetted by Mr. Leonard Woolley'fs excavations at Ur will he eagerly interested in the Oppenheim discoveries at Tell Halaf in the North-West of Mesopotamia. Having been hospitahly received hy the greatest of the local chiefs, Ibrahim Pasha, Baron Oppenheim made inquiries ahout local history and antiques. The village of Ras el Ain, at the "Spring Head" of the Khabur, was inhabited hy a tride of Mohammedan refugees from the Caucasus. A few years before his visit they had gone out to a small adjacent hill to bury one of their dead, and in digging the grave they had unearthed some stone statues of animals with human heads. Seized hy superstitious fear they hastily closed in the grave. Soon after this, however, cholera broke out amongst them,- drought and locusts played havoc with their crops, and they naturally attributed those misfortunes to the anger of the outraged spirits. A Daring Challenge. Oppenheim was not to he deterred from pursuing a clue so promising. He made a five days' march to Ras el Ain, during which he was eight times attacked hy robber bands, whom he succeeded in placating. Arrived at the headquarters of the Cheehen, he was hospitahly received and entertained, hut when he tried to lead the conversation to the subject of the huried statues he was met hy hlanlc denial. No promises of reward would tempt them to reveal a secret so perilous. The elders even swore on the Koran the non-existence of any such remains. A dramatie scene followed. The daring archae.olog-ist told them to their faces all he knew ahout the episode, and when they threateningly brandished their weapons he challenged them to cap their perjury by the murder of their guest who had just partaken of their salt. It was a hold stroke and met with the success it deserved. Next day they guided him to Tell Halaf, and he began a tentative exploratory digging. Even three days sufficed to reveal traces of a great temple-palace, a hasalt statue of a veiled goddess and several slabs. At the moment he had neither the outfit nor the necessary permit from the Turkish Government to pursue his discoveries, so he carefully covered the treasures in and vowed a vow to return. It was in 1911 before he was ahle to fulfil it. Armed from Constantinople with a license to excavate he enlisted a trusty band on his momentous undertaking, which he carried on in spite of many difficulties and interruptions until 1913. , The war then intervened, and it was 1927 before he was ahle to resume work, facilitated in every way by the French authorities entrusted with the Syrian mandate. A Four-ton Statue. As in all sinnilar sites, many strata of remains have to be reckoned with. Buildings of sun-dried brick easily fall into ruins and form foundations of later settlements; later, huilders unblushingly excavate huried statues or carvings and incoporate them in new palaces or temples, so that the archaeologist needs knowledge, slcill .and experience successfully to reconstruct, classify, and interpret the treasures that his spade reveals. Briefly to hint at a few of the memorials of old time that Baron Oppenheim has retrieved from Tel Halaf - thel include prehistoric, self-coloured pottery dating from three or four thousand year before Christ, heautiful painted pottery of a thousand years or so later, a wonderful series of over 150 hasalt slabs carved in relief from 3000 B.C. or earlier, many large statues in the round, one weighing no | less than four tons, and a unique temple-palace facade of about 2500 B.C., wiith three gigantic Ilittite or Subaraic Trinity of the Thunder God, Teshup, his Divine Consort, and their offspring, the great Sun-Gpd. These are elevated on pedestals of couchant bull, lioness, and lion respectively, and

each is surmounted hy a tall headdress on which caryatid-wise they supported the cross-beams of the roof. A Bewildering Yariety. The relief slahs were also of hasalt ■and were used to face and strengthen the walls, and to protect their surface from the weather. These carvings show a bewildering variety of warrioi's, hunters , wild animals, hoses, ostriches, eagles, deer, one elephant, one camel, chariots, demi-gods, sphinxes, griffins, and hyhrid heings, all executed with incredible vigour and primitive artistry. Here are the prototypes of the Assyrian animal clossi, of the Egpytian Sphinx and Winged Sun, and here the answer to many questions ahout the prehistoric eivili- | sation of the land of the Twq Rivers. |