WAR IGNORED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 December 1940, Page 6

WAR IGNORED

AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN SYRIA, UNCOVERING AN ANCIENT CITY. Despite three warnings that Syria is not the best place for archaelogists with nations at war, states the “Christian Science Monitor,” the Theodore Marriner Memorial Expedition sponsored by the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is continuing its work in the Near East, Dr. John A. Wilson, Director of the Oriental Institute told an audience recently. The expedition, is working to uncover a 1500-year-old city of the Mittani. Here is hopes to find records of a triangular correspondence which would show how rulers of Mittani maintained an ancient balance of power between the Hittites in Anatolia and the Egyptians, Dr. Wilson explained. Former archaeologists have found letters of the Hittites and also of the Egyptians, but the missing link, namely, the third power of the day, Mitanni, is little known, he said.

“We know from the names of the rulers that these Indo-Europeans back in 1500 B.C. were very interesting,” declared Dr. Wilson, “and we want to find out more about them. It appears that they were prominent for about two centuries and then were absorbed. From the Indo-European Aryan standpoint, we have documented diplomatic history of that time, and now we are trying to find out more about that which is not documented up to the present.”

The Marriner Expedition is the only archaeological research group to leave the United States for the Near East since the war began, Dr. Wilson said. It is one of four in the Near East, however, the others being operated by other ■ institutions in Egypt, Iran, and Palestine.

Dr. Calvin McEwan, research associate of the Oriental Institute, was advised to go home by American authorities in Syria shortly after the expedition arrived three months ago, it was i reported. He is hoping, however, that f the expedition can continue its work ini spite of war conditions. ! Dr. McEwan reports that progress is being made in the excavations and that a sample shaft has revealed beneath the mound where they are digging that the 1500-year-old city of Mittani probably lies buried below the mound. The mound, where they are working in Syria, said Dr. Wilson, is surrounded by the remains of an ancient Roman wall.