IRISH GOLD FOR GAZA

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1934, Page 5

IRISH GOLD FOR GAZA

TRADE IN ANCIENT WORLD. For the last 40 years the results of Sir Flinders Petrie’s discoveries in the Near East have been, on view to the general public in the annual exhibition at University College. This year the unexpected claims and restrictions in Jerusalem have prevented any objects from coming to England, and instead of a display of gold and bronze and alabaster, the possessions of people who were in Palestine before Abraham, there is only a series of photographs to show to the public the results of the most successful season’s digging on the Gaza site. Sir Flinders Petrie, in an interview with the London ‘Observer,’ was good’ enough to supplement the photographic record with an explanation of the outcome of the year’s discoveries. Our talk, so varied that it must be summarised in. oratio obliqua, ranged from one end of the ancient world to the other; from Ireland to the Caspian Sea; from the pattern on the carpet in a Hampstead room to treasures in Canterbury Cathedral and a fragment of pot built into a wall in front of Sir Arthur E'vans’s house in Crete. It is not only that after these forty years of persistent digging Sir Flinders Petrie has an eagle view across the whole front of attack on the secrets of the past; it is also, as he puts it, “that we are getting a new outlook on the ancient world. It is no longer a matter of looking at Persia, Egypt, Palestine in isolation from each other, but of seeking for their knowledge of their trade with one another, their influence on one another. It is a sort of international outlook on antiquity.” And this is the key to the importance of the site at Gaza. Here is an old capital on the cross-roads between the north and south'and the east and west routes. It is on the highway of traffic between Africa and Asia. It is old enough to afford evidence of many stages of civilisation. And what gives it from this point of view the final charm is that its Hyksos people were not to any great extent producers of their own ornaments, treasures, and durable goods. They imported them. That is why Gaza has so much to tell us about ancient commerce.

It is a story which needs a Flinders Petrie to read. His eye, so trained to analysing the meaning of patterns, sees a fragment of pottery in a wall in Crete, finds its twin in a shard found in Egypt among the remains of the First Dynasty, and so begins on a train of evidence of the wine trade between early Crete and Egypt.

PALACES BEFORE ABRAHAM In Gaza the late season was rich in such correlations. The excavators found two palaces dating before the Exodus resting on the foundations of three yet earlier palaces dating from before Abraham. Among the treasures found hereabouts the most interesting had their origin as far away as the Caspian regions and—lreland! The earliest of all came from Central Asia: a pottery wheel from a toy chariot. The Irish finds were mostly in the level dated at 1500 b.c. They are goldsmith’s work of that peculiarly Irish fabric, the four-bladed rod twisted spirally, of which one example has been found even in Troy. “Ireland,” Sir Flinders said, “Was one of the main sources of gold in ancient times. It was, of course, stream gold, which was once fairly common in many European countries till it was worked out. Even now 1 still don’t see why the Irish shouldn't take. heart of grace and try the experiment of quartz crushing, which might yield gold in commercial quantities.” That Irish gold probably went from Ireland to Gaul, thence to Spain, and then via Cyprus and Crete to Palestine. So here is one trade stream of ancient times. The counter stream most probably consisted of perishable goods. For their gold the Irish would

probably Import wine. There are goods from west, east, and north, but an almost .complete absence among Gaza finds of any object of Egyptian origin. There was much Egyptian trade in papyrus, and in raw materials. But the Egyptians seem neither to have imported nor exported the craftsman’s products. It is as if Egypt were surrounded by a high tariff wall. Here in Gaza, which is only just round the corner, it is almost as if Egypt had never been. Central Asia sent its top chariot, Ireland its torque gold, Northern Asia and Asia Minor its golden toggle pins, but

there is practically nothing Egyptian that remains. Ancient trade was far more widespread than we used to believe; but it had its limits and psychology sometimes outweighed geography. The new phase of archaeology, of which Sir Flinderh Petrie’s recent researches are so interesting examples, depends a good deal on a quick interchange of information from country to country and from one site to the next. Sir Flinders Petrie.sets the right example, and his book on the late season in Gaza is already in the Press. But in one of the most impor-

tant sites in the East, excavators have been ten years digging—and still no book. That is one of"the difficulties. But far'worse are the restrictions experienced in Mesopotamia and now in Palestine (they have already brought excavation almost to an end in Egypt) which make the uphill path of learning so much more stony than it need be. ,