UR OF THE CHALDEES

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 8 January 1930, Page 5

UR OF THE CHALDEES

ANCIENT RELICS UNEARTHED ERA NEW TO ARCHAEOLOGY FOURTH MILLENIUM B.C. United Press Association—Bj Electrio Telegraph Copyright.) LONDON, Jan. 6. Mr. Leonard Woolley, describing the continuation of the British Museum expedition’s excavations at Ur of the Chaldees, relates the discovery of drains which could date from the first dynasty at Ur, 3100 B.C.

“We have dug down 15 feet over th e whole area and the hollow adjacent to the Temenos Wall, which was built by Nebuchadnezzar in 000 8.C,” ho continues, “Already we have the ground plans of five distinct buildings superimposed one upon the other, each of which enjoyed a .fairly long life. The levels which ove have now reached must take us back to the early part of the fourth millennial before Christ. The buildings of the four later periods show a certain uniformity, but in the fifth level were entirely different houses, the ruins of which contain now types of clay vases. “This is niot yet the pro-Flood city, which lies deeper, but it is the work of a civilisation almost as old. These mails built of small mud bricks, are

I monuments of an era new to Mesopotamian archaeology.” Referrng to the excavations in the 'cemetery site, Mr. Woolley says he found fragments of clay jar-stoppers stamped with the seals of Messani Padda, the first king of the first dynasty of Ur. 'PR El VIDUS DISCOVERIES.

1 BACK TO NOAM. ' Mr. Woolley before leaving England on the eighth of the Joint Expeditions ; of the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsyl- ’ vunia to Mesopotamia last October, in an interview for the London “Sunday Tines” said: “Many of our discoveries hitherto have been almost, as great a surprise to Us as to the. layman. We had, to take the most obvious instance.

n,o. knowledge in advance that, we were uncovering a royal burial place, and had no idea of the presence of the gold ornaments, gold head-dresses, gold lyres, and golden bulls which form the most striking exhibits in our more recent displays at the British Museum. “Now, however, we have opened up simultaneously the relics of many successive civilisations. Wc have passed

back through the ruins of the buildings inhabited by Abraham and his contemporaries, and we arc getting back to eras which j r ou might, say stretch as far as Noah and even earlier. The very latest civilisation nvith which we shall bc dealing will be that contemporary with th e Great Wall of J the City, which wo hope very largely to clear. That brings us to about 2300 B.C. Then ive have more cemeteries to explore, and it is here in the tombs that we may find still more of the decorative work in precious jewels and metals. “While*.wc shall with luck increase our finds dating from these periods, the greatest increase of knowledge for which we hope should concern a period at least 500 years earlier than the goldwork. The cemetery civilisations were separated from this period by the Great Flood. On our last expedition we found just sufficient to prove the existence of pre-Flood buildings and a

pro-Flood civilisation, and the most interesting tokens of life which we came upon were the mud sealing from jars which bear the seal-impressions of an artistic nature. If iwe find seal-marks Wo are most likely to find writings, and wo may hope to find for the first time written records from before the age of Noah. “Perhaps I should explain this further. We have, of course, in other parts of the world, traces of civilisation from long before 4000 B.C. (which is the latest date for the great Euphatcg Flood), but no such traces, previous to our discovery, had turned up in the land which that Flood actually covered. We need not in any way accept the Biblical story of Noah as proven, but we can at least say that this story refers to a flood which is a historic event, of < which we now have definite proof. We should, in the near future, he able to know something of the life of Noah’s pre-deluge contemporaries, just as we do already of the contemporaries of Abraham.”

“How does the fate p.f the Iraq man. date affect your work ” Mr. Woolley was asked.

“Not at all, I think. The political affairs of Iraq do not influence the personal attitude of the Arabs to us, and we do not find ourselves unpopular either ns Englishmen or as excavators. Indeed, as the Museum at Bagdad receives a greater proportion of our finds than the two museums supporting us receive together, it would bo odd if they objected to our presence.”