KINGS OF 700 B.C.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1922, Page 5

KINGS OF 700 B.C.

AN ANCIENT CIVILISATION. New York, Dec. 19. The tombs of 20 kings and 55 queens who reigned in Ethiopia about 700 years B.C. have been unearthed, together with important evidence of a loet civilisation, by Professor G. A. Risner, of Harvard University, who has just returned here after ten years’ excavation work in the Sudan. At Kerma, in the Northern Sudan, the excavators uncovered the cemetery of an 'Egyptian garrison, in which soldiers were buried from about 1900 to 1600 B.C. The burial customs were apparently revolting, and in some cases the graves of Egyptian governors of the provinces were found to contain as many as two or three hundred persons, mostly women, who had been buried alive at the funeral in order that their spirits might accompany the spirit of the dead viceroy in the life after death. On the. other ' hand, the tortoiseshell handled swords, ostrich-feather fans, mirors, razors, knives, sandals, and innumerable other objects bear witness to a civilisation of remarkable quality.