THE CITY OF ABRAHAM

Shannon News, 7 April 1926, Page 2

THE CITY OF ABRAHAM

ANCIENT RELICS UN EARTHED. CASKETS OF TREASURES. KING AS A HOD CARRIER. An intresting account or recent dis-, coveries at Ur, the birthplace or Abraham, is given by lthe Dally Chronicle. The treasures brought to light include relics of the royal art and advanced literature of Ur about 4200 years ago, within 100 year’s of the time assigned by Ussher to Noah s Deluge. Other carvings found are estimated to be close on 5000 years old, dating from- years when Methu'salah was supposed to have been a comparatively young man. Four brick boxes containing undisturbed the objects deposited at the time of the founding of the Palace or King Dungi. who reigned 2250 8.C.., have been excavated at Ur of the Chaldees—the city of that pastoral •prince of old, the patriarch Abraham. These include copper statuettes of Dungi carrying on his head the basket of mortar for the laying of . the h.rst brick,' and sione tablets inscribed wiicli the dedication of the worK. “If was a dramatic moment when .he cover was lifted off the first box,” .rites Mr. C. Leonard Woolley, leader of the excavation's, in a report issued recently by the British Museum authorities. The litftlo figure, its metal turned to a vivid green, was seen standing upright in one corner of the box, with the tablet laid at its feet. Close to this, was found, loose in !the rubble, a broken figure of the same xing, carved in black diorite.” Head of the Moon, Goddess. Not far off was the mos(t beautiful example of Sumerian sculpture yet found —the head of the Moon Goddess, exquisitly carved in white marble, its eyes inlaid with lapis lazuli and shell. This is described as a mosc life-like piece of work, the contours of the face are full and soft, the hair a faithful rendering of an elaborately waved coiffure; a piece which is regarded as proving that the* artists or the Third Dpnasty had achieved a skill worthy of the great empire ruled by (clieir kings. “The season’s work at Ur started on October 28 last,’ ’writes Mr. Woolley, “au4 tite first month’s digging proved most successful. The programme-was that we should excavate a large

mound under which I expected to find the palace of Dungi, son of the builder of 'the great Ziggurate, but we scarcely started work when we came upon tombs and drains set so thickly together that I had to: move the best part of my men on to the next mound. That we were correoft In expecting to find the remains of Dungi here was proved by the welcome discovery, in, a broken stretch of rritia brick -wall, of the four brick boxes. “The graves which made so difficult our search for the building's were in themselves interesting. Against the side of one we found the gravedlgi gers’ tools, dropped accidently—-hoes or adzes, like those uteed by the modern Egyptian peasant, but of bronze instead of iron. Schoolboy Exercises. “Inside another, the grave of an assessor in the law courts, was a little set of tablets recording his last busii ness (transactions. Among other things, he had just added a single room to his town house, and had brought the necessary plot of land for the modest equivalent of 17s 6<3. “The neighbouring; mound proved no less fertile. We traced out the inner face of the great wall built by King Nebuchadnezzer round :the old buildings of the Sacred Area' of Ur, and found its south-west gate, and men, going deeper inside the wall, laid bare some houses. These secin to have been inhabited about 693 8.C., when some one dropped on the floor . lot of inscribed clay tablets, some or ■ contained schoolboys’ exercises and grammars and some religious hymns and prayers. “But it was beneath the floor of the house that our best discoveries were made, for here, as it appears, there had been thrown ou£ some 'of the contents of a very ancient shrine. Here we found pots of'archaic forms, beads in gold and silver, lapis lazuli and cornelian, and a pair of rams carved in white gypsum, probably the supports for the throne of a god, which must date from at least 3000 B.C. “We Called it ‘Noah’s Arlc.’ ” “A litltlCi plaque of alabaster, carved on both sides, though only half of . the original work and though almost grotesquely primitive in its carving, raised our interest to a high piten.” continues Mr, Woolley. “The. scene represented is - a boat made of reeds tied- together, with its stern rising high in the air—or this may be the early artist’s convention for showing the guffah, that coracle-like craft which one can see any day on the Tigris at Bagdad; amidships there is a deck-cabin with an arched roof.

“On one iside of the plaque a man is seen standing at the stern of a boat a naked figure whose head is. unluckily missing, while in (he eaoin is a pig. On the other sun- r he pig’s place is taken by a goose and two fish are hanging against the stern by a string. Here is a genre piece illustrating life of the march-dwellers, in this case a ]frehi£}toric folk, later In Babylonian history the -People of the too strong; avo[ called it Noah’s Ark Sea, to-day the Marsh Arabs. Btit the temptation to ;-ee more in it than this was 100 strong; we, called it Noah’s Ark as soon as it .was found and, as the earliest representation pt Noah’s Ark, the boat of Utanapishtim it will take its place among the treas-s-urcs of Ur.”