Artistic Splendour of Assyria Revealed

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

Artistic Splendour of Assyria Revealed

JERUSALEM, March 6. A glance at recent archaeological reports from Syria, Irak, Persia, not to mention Palestine, shows activity in all fields, where findings of varying importance are always being uncovered. In Persia, objects dating from the ninth century have been found at Hessine and Kakawand. Some of tin* finds have been deposited in the Persian Museum, and a special committee has been appointed to examine them. The University of Pennsylvania Archaeological Expedition operating in Irak under the direction of Dr. Ephraim A. Speiser, has uncovered what is believed to be a summer palace of. Sennacherib, King of Assyria in the eighth century 8.C., at Tel Bilal in northern Mesopotamia. Father Shammas, a Chaldean priest, and an archaeologist, recently found what he believes to bo the original site of Alexandretta, where a son of Alexander of Maccdon was born in the fourth century B.C. The site is intact. Walls rise from the ground, there are cisterns, sepulchral caves, sarcophagi and magnificent mosaics. Father Shammas, without any help from the Syrian Government, has carried on the work at his own expense, with the aid of ono or two collaborators. * One of Father Shammas’s greatest} difficulties is the absence of governmental protection against vandalism. Tho owner of the Alexandretta site, not being able to extract money from the excavator, proceeded to destroy som?, of the finest relics. A mosaic of re-' markable workmanship was completely destroyed and further damage was prevented only by the intervention of the deputy representing the district in Parliament.