Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1931. SPADE-WORK IN JERICHO

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 68, 21 March 1931, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1931. SPADE-WORK IN JERICHO

An interesting report was supplied by cable on Monday of the progress made by Professor Carstang in the excavations which llie munificence of Sir Charles MarsUm lvii enabled him to undertake on the site of Jericho, and the find which lie has made may well prove to be of capital importance. Professor tiarstang ha«, we. ;ir<; tolil, discovered tin; necropolis of Jrriclio, the ancient burying place of the. people destroyed by Joshua more than 3000 years "ago. ". . . The necropolis lias iiot. been disturbed since interments woro mado 0000 years ago. Joshua, it must be admitted, did his work thoroughly. He was spared, according to the Biblical narrative, the trouble of a siege. A few marches round the walls, a few blasts from the trumpets, and Jericho was his. That her walls fell down at the sound of Joshua's trumpets is no exaggeration, but the sobered summary of all her history, says Sir George Adam Smith in what may perhaps be described as one of the very rare lapses from sobriety on the part of that distinguished scholar. But, if there is any room for doubt about the methods, the reSuit does not admit of question. Rahab, who had befriended the spies of the Israelites, was spared with all her kindred, but with this exception: They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and alt with tho edge of the sword. . . . And they burnt tho city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the houso of the Lord. The contrast between Joshua's entry into Jericho and Allenby's entry into Jerusalem might provide some disciple of Macaulay with a congenial exercise. Though the general effect of the archaeologist's spade in Palestine has been to confirm in a striking fashion the accuracy of the Scriptures, a very simple explanation of the mystery of Jericho's falling walls had been deduced from earlier excavations on the site, and is considered worthy of a non-committal mention in the last edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." It was, according to this theory, but an idle flourish of trumpets that Joshua's priests had performed, for the walls of Jericho had been lying flat for centuries before his arrival. It was, however, highly improbable that so important a strategical site should have remained unoccupied and unfortified during so long a period and one so conspicuously distinguished by Canaanite activities in oilier parts of the country. One of the first results of Dr. Carstang's investigations was to confirm the presumption that a conclusion based on the German excavations of 1907-8 was a fallacious inference from negative evidence, and by this time he has doubtless got all the strata of fortifications and all the fragments of pottery duly scheduled and dated. The confusion introduced by the less scientific methods of his predecessors has been one of his troubles, but it is very good news that neither this unwitting vandalism nor the deliberate sacrilege of robbers has marred the completeness of the great find which is now announced. Very high hopes arc raised by the statement which Sir Charles Marston has made on the subject, and which may he presumed to have the authority of Professor Garstang behind it. The discovery, says Sir Charles, is likely to be of the greatest historical importance as revealing the habits and customs of a mysterious race iuhabiting "the Cities of the Plains" for several centuries. It -has beeu suggested that they were tho degenerate descendants of the so-called Hyksos or Shepherd Kings, who ruled Egypt for many centuries, one of whom was the Pharaoh, when Joseph was Minister at the Egyptian Court. Sir Flinders Pctrie discovered traces of the people of the plain to tho east of South Palestine. We know little or nothing of "the Cities of the Plain," except for the wickedness which, has passed into a proverb, and if Sir Flinders Petrie is right in calling Jericho an Amorite city, then this city of the plain was founded by a people who, as we know them, were primarily a people of the hills. But there is nothing surprising in that, seeing that Jericho is at the foot of the Judaean hills, and on the other side the mountains of Moab are only a few miles away. It must of course" be remembered that both "Canaanite" and '"Amorite" are vague and overlapping terms, and that a large amount of mystery still surrounds the peoples that they represent. Dr. Garstang says that the Canaanites arc even more mysterious than the Hitlilcs— that great people which dominated Asia Minor and Syria for nearly a thousand years, recent research has revealed so much, yet has nevertheless left so much, including nearly the whole of their language and even of their alphabet, in the region of conjecture. But the mystery of the Hitliles, which Sir Charles Marston does not mention, is closely associated by eminent authorities, including Dr. Garstang himself and Sir Flinders Petrie, with the mystery of the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings of Egypt. The extraordinary range and variety of interest which the discovery of this unrifled necropolis in Jericho opens up will be best explained by the discoverer himself. Reviewing in or before 1924 the great progress made by excavation in Palestine during the first three years of the British administration, and the problems upon which its further progress might be expected to throw light, Dr. Garstang wrote as follows in the "Illustrated London News": — Tbfi Hittites are known to have accepted tlio v.waiago and alliance of the Amoritca—the powerful Semitic

people whose centre was the Lebanon; and texts of treaties recently discovered and deciphered allude to previous treaties to the same effect. A scries of great fortifications exists, the ramparts in all cases of beaten earlh, suggesting a relation between tho Hittito fortress ani capital of Bogliaz Keni in Asia Minor with that at Tell El Yahndiyeh, in the Delta of Egypt, to which Professor Petrie called attention. Intermediate point 3 :in; nc;u' Tlolll( '> in Syria, and at, Askalon (whero the foundations of the mediaeval ramparts of stone are greal ramps of beaten earth). Tho fortress of like kind in Central Syria has been examined by French jirchai'iilogiists and a Hittito monument has been found therein. The tendency OH this evidence is to support, tho theory that an Amorite invasion under Hittitc leadership will best explain- the Hyksos 00110111051 and domination of Egypt by tho "Shepherd Kings." But tiiese "camps" are comparable with those in the Merv Oasis in Turkestan, to which attention was directed some years ago, so that investigation of "these clues leads far afield. A range which extended all the way from Egypt into the heart of Asia might seem wide enough, but Professor Garstang proceeded in the same article to point out that the investigation of Palestine clues might carry the inquirer into another direction also. There were correlated problems to the west as well as to the north, south, and east, in Europe as well as Asia and Africa. Very possibly, he wrote, the inquiry will not attain its gunl before it has traced the Greek and Cretan migrations, and examined Greek legend afresh. So, too, with the Philistines and tho Caphtoriin; the investigation of their problem, on which the investigations of tho Palestine Exploration Fund at Askalon ana Gaza have thrown so much light, cannot bo completed without a comparison with discoveries abroad, extending to the Delta of Egypt, Crete, and the seaboard, of Asia Minor. It is evident, in short, that Palestine is the real mceting-placo of these ancient civilisations, and thnt a glorious period of investigation and discovery awaits archaeologists in this newly emancipated field. It will be eminently appropriate if the hopes thus expressed seven or eight years ago are to receive a brilliant fulfilment in the discovery which the writer himself has now made in Jericho.