FIVE THOUSAND YEARS AGO.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 208, 31 August 1918, Page 15

FIVE THOUSAND YEARS AGO.

NOTHING NEW fNDETI TIIE SUN. Translation of prehistoric tablets in the University of Pennsylvania museum has revealed that women mayors were regularly constituted public officials In Asia Minor SOOO years ago.

That prototypes of newspapermen, at that remote lime, true to more modern tra(lit ions of the profession, oc<*nsionn.lly bocame involved in litigations of the present day "libel suit" character, but generally were released "on bail." also is indicated in the newly deciphered writings.

The translations, which" concern at once powerful, well organised government and people of which dcjj rly nil trece tins boco lost through long forgotten centuries, have just been completed by Dr. A. 11. Sayee, of Oxford University, famous Oriental scholar. He copied the taulcts two years ago and took the copies to Kgypt, -where he finally was able to master their timeshrouded messages.

The tablets were the work of ITittitcs of Cappadocio, whose national boundaries fifty centuries ago extended from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and from the headqnarters of the Euphrates into what is now Persia. Each province was subdivided into cities, and these were supervised by a Mayor and a Prefectress, whose powers, the tablets indicate, were coordinated. In one instance, it appeared, the woman Mayor had an official status independent of the male Head of the "municipal" government.

An insight Into many other interesting and hitherto unknown phases of life in tbe ancient kingdom, whose lands comprised the present day Mesopotamian battle grounds, are afforded by Dr. Sayce's discoveries.