FLAPPERS-B.C.

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 933, 28 March 1930, Page 13

FLAPPERS-B.C.

Fashions of Ancient Chaldea RECENT EXCAVATIONS An official report is issued concerning the joiut exploration, by the British Museum and Philadelphia University, o£ the sites under Ur of the Chaldees in Iraq. Rich finds of gold objects iu the dateless cemetery had already been reported. One grave found had been plundered. Another yielded a gold-mounted electrum dagger, gold chains and beads and a wig with gold ear-rings and frontlet.

Several bodies of attendants were found about the principal coffin, mak ing it evident that the burial was of a member of the royal house, though not of the first importance. Another grave, of a woman, yielded a head-dress with gold filigree pend ants.

But the most interesting of the works under Mr. Leonard Woolley has been the clearance of levels below the cemetery.

Here, pottery, tablets, seal-impres-sions and characteristic writing and painting were found, in continuous sequence, from a period which must go back far toward the beginning of the fourth millenium 8.C., it not earlier—say, 8,000 years ago. On a separate site in the town, a vertical cutting has been made, revealing eight different layers of buildings.

In the most ancient layers pottery was found of a kind similar to the earliest hitherto known. There is also a statuette of a wild boar in steatite, which must rank with the earliest known specimens of sculpture. Seal-impressions (more than 500 in number) will be of great importance for the history of primitive art and writing in Mesopotamia.