UR OF THE CHALDEES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 79, 13 January 1928, Page 5

UR OF THE CHALDEES.

ANOTHER TOMB DISCOVERED. RICH OFFERINGS TO THE DEAD. .Per Press Association—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 8.45 a.m.) LONDON, January 12. A second tomb, dated 3400 8.C., has been discovered at Ur of the Chaldees. It contains treasure more remarkable than that of the Princess recently discovered, says a British Museum official. The offerings to the dead include golden vessels, toilet sets, saws, axes, spears, a gaming-board with men, and lapis dice inlaid with gold, beside scores of silver cups and vases, many nested within others in groups of five. There ate the remains of a* chai-iot, the wood of which has disappeared, decorated golden heads of lions and bull 3 with lapis manes, silver panther heads, a polo surmoimted by a realisticallysculptured electrum figure. The bodies of the asse3 by which it was pulled lay beside the pole, the harness being of copper and silver. There were also the remains of a 12-stringed harp ornamented with gold. BURIAL CEREMONIES REVEALED. CIVILISATION ABOVE EGYPT’S. (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) NEW YORK, January 12. Further details of the grave discovered in Ur of the Chaldees shows that besides being rich in treasures, it is strewn with the bodies of musicians, servants, and gold-deolted women of the harem, who accompanied their master in death. The body of the King himself was not found among those of the score of men and women constituting his household. The discoveries offer proof that in the fourth millennium (8.C.) there were practised in Mesopotamia burial ceremonies about which later tradition is silent and about which archaeologists hitherto knew nothing. Two grooms stood at the head of the ass in each charot, still holding the reins. A third lay by their side. Piled against the clothes chest, where human bodies were huddled up as if suddenly smitten, by death, 13 more bodies were found near the chariot, two of these being those of children and others apparently those of women. All were dressed alike, with elaborate headdress and veils from which hung gold pendants. Undoubtedly these belonged to the dead King’s harem. In a rectangle stood large limestone blocks, probably forming the altar on which the victims were sacrificed. The Royal grave illustrates the extraordinary degree of material civilisation Mesopotamia enjoyed in the fourth millennium It seoms to have been far in advance of contemportry Egypt, and shows that art was already old, sterotyped, and even decadent.