Revealing The Past

Northland Age, Volume 27, Issue 43, 2 November 1927, Page 3

Revealing The Past

Excavations In Paiestin« Interesting Discoveries. While attention is being (directed towards Palestine by reason of the Zionist movement of modern times. Professor Sir Flinders Petrie, the noted archaeologist, has been revealing its history centuries before thp Christian era. Excavations at previously unexplored ground at Gerar, vne qvles south of Gaza, have resulted in an interesting collection of antiquities and the uncovering of buried cities of the earliest days of civilisation. There is a record in the Bibie that on account of tamine in his own land Isaac went to the try of tne King of the Philistines ana settled >n Gear. The story of his suucertuge to save his comely wife, Rebekih, from the attentions of “the men of the place’, is familiar to Bible students, and it ,s at the spot where Isaac dwelt that Protessor Petrie has made Most Important Discoveries. By digging down through thirty teet of ruins he recognised six successive towns of 1500 10400 B.C; and below these w-’re found camp remains of the Hyksos age when the Shepherd K.ngs from Asia first invaded Egypt and held it in thrall for close upon fivti centuries. This discovery at Gerar will be of value to the archaeological world in fixing dates, for while it is known from tablets found in Egypt that the district around Gaza was under Egyptian influence and only for short and scattered periods in the T%ids of the Israelites, the scientific importance of the discoveries is the association of Egyptian and Palestinian remains. Pro-

bably further investigations will reveal more extensive records of the past, for it was at this spot that the old trade routes from Egypt Arabia, and Petra to SyTia met and the border fortress protecting it withstood Alexander the Great for five months. The discoveries include treasures of Palestine people, side by side with Egyptian amulets and scarabs, and a jar handle stamped with the cartouche of Raineses I[ shows that representatives of the King stayed at Gerar, probably during some military campaign. A collection of gold ear-rings is confidently fixed by the explorers as belonging to the twelfth century 8.C., for they were distinctive of the Ishmaelites at the time when Gideon fought them, and arc referred to in the Bibie records in the words : “For they are golden ear-rings because they were Ishmaelites.” In addition to pottery, characteristically Palestinian and Egyptian, there was found in a waste heap a collection of Assyrian fragments which probably belonged to a distinguished Assyrian visitor, who would carry his own utensils with him. Bronze nails nearly a foot long give some indication of the massive timbers used in the buildings of that early period, and a collection ot weights, nearly two hundred, representing those used by Babylonians, Greeks, Assyrians, Egyptians and Phoenicians, are striking evidence of the importance of Gerar as a trade centre. Cosmetic tools exactly Uke those used by the women of Egypt form part of the collection, aud there is some satisfaction to be gained from the fact that in one part of the world, at least,

Fashions do not change for anklets discovered are similar to those worn by the Bedouin people to-day. The work of Professor

Petrie has been facilitated by the improved conditions in this part ot Palestine, for although he was miles away from civilisation in the Bedawi country, he enjoyed the utmost security, and for the first time, in work of this kind, some of these nomadic, plundering people were employed, and proved themselves excellent workers. The excavations have shown that Gerar was a city of importance in a great wheatgrowing country, judged by discovery of a huge granary capable of storing corn for an army of 100,000 for three months, the abundance of iron and flint sickles, and the Bible record that “Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year an hundredfold:” It was probably on account of their export trade in corn that the people objected to Isaac settling there with his flocks, herds, and great store ot servants. From the antiquities ur.eartned by Professor Petrie, Gerar must have been an important centre for metal work, for not only weapons, but hoes and other implements of agriculture, the product of the city in its own furnaces, have been discovered in the excavations. Past and present are being brought close to gether in this work of Bri.ain’s gisatest archaeolist, and there is an added touch of romance in tire idea that hom a window ot this long-buried city the Philistine looked into the Bedawi tent of Isaac and Rebekah as told in Biblical history.