EXCAVATORS FIND CIVILISATION’S ORIGIN WAS PRIOR TO 4000 B.C.

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6864, 20 March 1929, Page 3

EXCAVATORS FIND CIVILISATION’S ORIGIN WAS PRIOR TO 4000 B.C.

CHICAGO, Feb. 6. Excavations in Mesopotamia reported by tho Field Museum-Oxford-Uni-versity joint expedition indicato that the world’s earliest civilisation was founded somo time before 4000 8.C., it is announced here by the Field Museum of Natural History. The expedition is n-ow in its sixth season of operations in the ancient city of Kish, which is thought to have been founded immediately after the great flood described in tho Bible. Weeks have been devoted to hydraulic excavations below tho modern waterlevel, reached last year, also virgin soil, according to the report of Professor Stephen Langden, director of the expedition. Through these operations the archaeologists h■ vc established a classification of the various periods from tho beginniug of civilisation upward to the Neo-Babylonian period, marked by the great temple of Nabunidus at the end of the sixth century. “This remarkably well preserved temple,’’ the report continues, “which in part still preserves tho cornice of its eastern walls, now stands on tho verge of a deep cavity. Fourteen metres below tho pavement of the temple, where the last King of Babylonia took refuge from the Medos, the ruins of plano-convex brick walls now appear inundated by the risen water level of Mesopotamia on the site said to have been, the place where Kish was ,founded immediately after tho flood. Apparently the water level has risen about nine feet since that time. “In this lowest stratum now below water level, the same monochrome and polychrome painted ware is being found ar at Jemdet Nasr. There is also the same deep red ware as at Jemdet Nasr, but also line black ware, and some beautifully made incised black pottery. “The civilisation at Jemdet Nasr could be dated at a minimum date 3,500 8.0. by tho pictograph inscriptions found there. So large is the number of these tablets and so certain the identification of tho signs* with the classical Sumerian signs that they can be largely translated and definitely read as Sumcrin. It is now clear that the proto-Sumerian people, who are the real founders of Kish and the primitive cities of central Mesopotamia arc really Elamites. “From the. depth of this stratum at Kush, now completely soaked with risen water of the whole country, it seems obvious that a date before 4000 B.C. must he assumed for the founding of the first proto-Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia. “From this point upward the field director of excavations, L. C'. Vatolin, and his assistants T. K. Penniman and Rene Vatolin, have been able to determine the ascending periods of history through 58 feet of debris with great precision, aided by inscribed tablets

from plain level upward. TJicre are seven stages of human history at this, -the most ancient great capital in Asia.”