PEEP INTO THE PAST

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 177, 30 June 1925, Page 11

PEEP INTO THE PAST

ABRAHAM’S OLD HOME

MIGHTY WORKS OF YORE. / Over fifty years ago the British Musuem authorities caused the first spade to he put in the ground on the site of Ur of the Caldees in Mesopotamia. This place was tho home of Abraham, and it has been of intense interest to watch tile results of work in the city where Abraham was horn and spent his early years, the brick-paved streets where he walked, terraces and palaces that were as familiar to him as the Tower of London is to Englishmen’s own eyes.

The work of excavation at Ur has gone on intermittently,; but during late years with increasing enthusiasm; and now a discovery has been made that crowns the labours of half a century. The records of the builder of the Zigg'urat have been found. The remains of this huge staged tower, which was raised in honour of the God of the Moon some 4200 years ago, were laid bare during last winter. Even in ruin they show how giand were the ideals of the Mesopotamia!* builders. STORY PICTURES IN STONE. A little distance from the Zuggurat the excavators found the ruins of a comparatively modern temple to the wife of the Moon God, built about (JoU B.C. (and restored by Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus his grandson. Photographs were taken of the ruins, and then the spades got to work to dig deeper. Underneath the temple of the Moon God's lady were found 13 baked clay cones covered with Assyrian writing, lying just where they were put about 23 centuries ago. A few feet further down still the workmen came on some pieces of carved limestone. They were obviously part of the same whole, and in

growing excitement the experts of the party put them together. Then was discovered the most important revelation yet made of ancient Babylonia. The five fragments put tugether made a large stela, or carved slab, which was originally about 15ft deep and oft wide. On it are carved pictures and records of King Ur-Ejigur, who built to the Moon God the great Ziggurat. This slab is one of the finest of its kind iu existence. It is fortunate that the kinds of old thought enough of themselves to inscribe their names and doings in stone, for when explorers come on these relics of the far past it is like finding a text-book giving as an. historical record something that hitherto existed only as a legeinj. A TALE OF LONG AGO,

The pictures carved on the stone are scenes from the life of King Ur-Engur. He is seen, like a good ruler, causing canals to be dug to irrigate the ground; building the great staged tower which the god, visiting him in a dream, ordered him to erect; holding out to him the measuring reed and line of the architect. Rows of prisoners, soldiers beating drums 42 centuries ago, are also seen. The fragments of the stela, were lying in such a way as to make it appear that the limestone slab had been wilfully broken. Now all these hates and rivalries are forgotten, and out of the forgiving earth where they have lain forgotten comes this record of a king whose name had till now been a myth.