FLAPPERS OF UR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 648, 27 April 1929, Page 32

FLAPPERS OF UR

EXPLORER’S DISCOVERIES SHEIKS WORE COLOURED WIGS Heavy laden with undisclosed facts of the life and fads and fancies of the oldest civilisation on earth, C. Leonard Woolley, archaeologist, arrived in New York after eight years passed in excavating the ancient town of Ur, on the barren plains of Mesopotamia, under the joint auspices of the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum.

Woolley revealed to interviewers that there were feminine beauties of Ur. This was the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham, which saw the rise and fall of a highly intellectual race—the Sumarians. They flourished between 4,000 and 8.C., when the barbaric Babylonians, who developed their bodies rather than their minds, wiped them out. The Sumarian sirens carried cockleshell compacts of preparations to enhance their beauty. They used white, black and green cosmetic on their faces and wore accordion-pleated skirts, the exaavators found. The men were dandies, too, shaving their heads and wearing bright hued wigs. The inhabitants of the town, nearly 6,000 years ago, had a sense of humour. Woolley said he found panels decorated with drawings of mules standing, on their hind legs drinking from goblets, while monkeys, upright, served as bar-tenders from behind flowing bowls. As for the colour of the Sumarians, the archaeologist said he had every reason to believe from their art that they were “just off white” —not ■white entirely, neither swarthy. They were great tradesmen, he said, and his excavators found books that they kept, along with receipts and vouchers. They were exporters and importers to their part of the world. Their only native products being grain and dates, they imported gold and jewels from great distances to adorn themselves after they had grown rich in business. Gold jewellery and lapis lazuli were found in the buried town. The excavations varied from 20ft to 50ft in depth, Woolley said. He and Mrs. W'oolley will go back to Mesopotamia in October to resume their work.