In Abraham’s Time

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6519, 7 April 1931, Page 12

In Abraham’s Time

FARMERS HAD THEIR WORRIES. LONDON, March 25. The letters of a grain merchant living in Abraham’s time who had difficulties with his creditors, and also copybooks of Sumerian students learning to write were among the records recently excavated at Ur, says Mr Leonard Woolley in an article in the Times Mr Woolley, who is a director of the "joint expedition .of the British Museum and of the museums of the University of Pennsylvania to Mesopotamia, continues that a consistent picture of the city’s life is now obtainable from a group of 27 private houses, chapels, shops and warehouses, remarkably preserved, also clap tablets, letters and business documents lying on the floors. These, he states, require much further study, but one group reveals the business relations of a grain merchant with agents in foreign countries and records his purchase of property m the neighbourhood and the money ho borIt probably was owing to financial difficulties that his premises were cut down on one side, the courtyard having doors walled up. Rooms were transferred to a neighbour. Another taller building, apparently a school, is just insido the door. There uas found a mass of clay tablets piled up, among which are students school tablets. , - n i Graves beneath the houses yielded amulets and seals, and also revealed men buried with miniature sets of copper tools. One took to the grave a scale and weights ,and was possibly a jeweller,