PALESTINE TREASURES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 740, 23 June 1923, Page 5

PALESTINE TREASURES.

FUND FOR EXCAVATIONS. LONDON, Juno 20. The Palestine Exploration Fund, assisted by tho Daily Telegraph, has arranged with tho Palestiuo Government for a fund to conduct important excavations in Ophol Hill, Jerusalem. Dr. R, G. Hogarth, at a meeting of the fund to-day, said it was impossible that the tombs of kings would be found and tho treasures of the time of David and Solomon revealed in the accumulations of rubbish, including the inscribed monument recording David's victories. Professor R. A. Stewart Macalister, who is in charge of the excavation, recalled that the Daily Telegraph financed Mr George Smith's expedition to Kununjik in 1873, which discovered tho Babylonian Cuneiform tablets relating <o Noah's Hood. The excavations at Jerusalem will begin in September on the. eastern hill to tho south of tho city wall, which scholars have long recognised" as the Jebusite fortress, afterwards known as the City of David. Professor Macalister recalled that Josephus states that. Simon 'Maccabeus demolished the Akra, which was a sort of citadel overtopping tho temple. The work of destruction took the townsfolk of Jerusalem three years to accomplish, working day and night. It might be possible to find remains of tho Akra, which Simon Maccabeus topped into tho adjacent valley. There were also problems to be solved raised by the records in the Tel-eh-Amara tablets. King Abdhikiba, who was an accomplished intriguer and diplomatist, might have left an archive chamber on the Ifill of David. —A. and N.Z, cable.