"HOME OF ABRAHAM."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19168, 6 November 1925, Page 13

"HOME OF ABRAHAM."

WORLD'S OLDEST TEMPLE.

THE ANCIENT CITY OF UR.

RESULTS OF EXCAVATIONS,

A fascinating story of the results of three years' excavations in the "Home of Abraham" was told recently in London by Mr. C. Leonard Wooliey, director of the joint expedition of the British Museum and the University of Philadelphia. In an address before a large audience he spoke of the wonderful discoveries that had heen made in the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldees. In order to continue their proportion of the cost, the British Museum are anxious to obtain financial help from all interested in the project. Mr. Wooliey first described the excavations carried on at Tell-el-Obeid, four miles from the city of Ur, where they found ruins of the oldest temple in the world, to which they could assign an approximate date. It was built by an important King of Ur, who reigned somewhere between 3500 and 3300 8.C., and was of brick covered with wooden panelling, raised upon a platform approached by a flight of stone steps. At the door stood statues of lions made of copper, and on each side of the door v/ere columns encrusted with mosaic in mother of pearl and red and black stones. Along the base of the walls were statues of bulls in metal, the oldest metal statues known to us by a thousand years, and so* well made that modern brass founders said they could not beat the work. Above this was a frieze with figures of white stone or shell, inlaid against the black background, representing cattle and farmyard scenes, with men milking cows and others straining and storing the milk. Sacredness of Birds.

Another frieze showed birds sacred to the goddess of the place. They actually found, he said, a small marble tablet which was the foundation stone of the building, and the inscription on it explained that the temple was built in honour of the goddess Nin-Kharsag. They knew before that this goddess was concerned with the creation of the world, according to the belief of the primitive people. They now found that she was the goddess of cattle and the farmyard. ! With these pastoral people life depended upon the live stock. Almost under the shadow of the Temple, Mr. Wooliey said, he found a cemetery of the same date, where people had been brought for burial from Ur. Round the bodies were placed the things they had needed in this life —foodstuffs in jars, weapons and tools in the case oi a man, and beads, rouge, and eye-paint in the case of a woman. It was clear that these people believed in a future life, and that the goddess who made and preserved them in this world was also prepared to bring them to a new birth in the world to come. Turning to the city of Ur, Mr. Wooliey said its main feature was the Ziggurat—the great tower upon which stood the most holy Temple of the city, dedicated to the Moon God. It was built about 2300 8.C., three centuries before the time of Abraham, who must have been familiar with it when he lived at Ur. Every ancient Sumerian town of importance had such a tower, the most famous being that of Babylon, which we knew to-day as the Tower of Babel. That at Ur was the best preserved of those that existed in Mesopotamia. It was 200 ft. long, 150 ft. wide, and still stood 70ft. high, made of solid brick set in bitumen instead of mortar. Shrines on the Hills. The Sumerians came from a hilly country in the Euphrates Valley. In their original home they were accustomed to put their "altars in shrines upon the hills. When they reached Mesopotamia they found no hills, and because their gods could not be properly worshipped in the plain they built with brick artificial hills, which they called the Mountains of God. There were still preserved the lower stages of this great building, and the three staircases which led to it. It was seen how effective these converging stairs would have been for any great religious function, and they could thus understand the dream of Jacob when he had a vision of a ladder set up to heaven and angels going up and down it. The dream was based on a memory of what he had learned from his grandfather of the wonderful tower up and down which the priests went to the house of God at Ur. The lecturer described the convent of which Belshazzar's sister was mother superior, where she kept a school and a museum; also the Temnle of the Moon God and his wife, which dated from the earliest time, but was remodelled by Nebuchadnezzar. Mr. Wooliey will leave London shortly to resume direction of the expedition.