BACK TO 3100 B.C.

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 865, 8 January 1930, Page 9

BACK TO 3100 B.C.

important discoveries at UR FLOOD-CITY LIES DEEPER 3’t mea Cable. LONDON, Monday. Mr. C. Leonard Woolley describes the continuation of the excavations at Ur of the Chaldees by the British Museum's expedition. He relates the discovery of drains which could date from the first dynasty at Ur in 3100 B.C. Mr. Woolley says:—“We have dug down 1!> feet over the whole area of a hollow adjacent to the Temenos Wall built by Nebuchadnezzar in the year 600 B.C. Already we have the ground plans of five distinct buldings superimposed one upon another, each of which enjoyed a fairly long life. “The levels which we have now reached must take us back to the early part of the fourth millenium before Christ. The buildings of the four later periods showed a certain uniformity,. but In the fifth level we have entirely different houses, the ruins of which contain new types of clay vases. “It is not yet the pre-Flood city. That lies deeper. But it is the work of a civilisation almost as old. "These walls were built of small mud bricks. They are monuments to an era new to Mesopotamian archaeology.'' Referring to excavations in the cemetery site, Mr. Woolley says he has found fragments of clay jar-stop-pers and stamped seals of Messani Padda, the first King of the first dynasty of Ur. It was revealed at a meeting of fellows and members of the Royal College of Surgeon,, held in London in November, that three large and important collections of human remains had been deposited in the museum of the college for investigation and report. Among these remains are some from the deepest and oldest graves discovered at Ur of the Chaldees, Irak, by Mr. Leonard Woolley. They are ever 5,i)00 years old. Ur was Abraham s birthplace. The remains are somewhat fragmentary and fragile, but by great care and patience Mr. "Ernest Smith nas succeeded in piecing the parts together.