THE EXCAVATIONS AT BABYLON

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1696, 31 August 1904, Page 82 (Supplement)

THE EXCAVATIONS AT BABYLON

(From the "Sunday Strand.”) Within the last two decades the excavator has been actively engaged uncovering a few cities in the land of Eden, the home of Abraham. The University of Pennsylvania is excavating Nippur, tho Biblical name of which is Culneh (Gen. x. 10); the French are excavating Tello, a city which flourished before Abraham was born; and the Germans are at work upon the temple and the “Tower of Babel,” in tho city of Babylon. The origin of these remarkable Babylonian legends which so closely resemble the Biblical accounts of the Creation, Eden, and the Deiugo belongs to this region. The Deluge story, for instance, as recorded by the Babylonians, is strikingly similar to tho Old Testament, even in minor details. Afcrachasis, the Babylonian Noah, is commended by the gods, after they had decreed a flood, to build a ship or ark; to pour pitch over the outside and the inside, anu to take the seed of life of every kind into the ship. When it was ready Atrachasis embarked with liis family, servants, possessions, cattle, and beasts of the field, and closed the door. The heavens rained destruction for six days and nights. . . . The ship grounded on a mountain of Nizir. After seven days a dove is sent forth, but it returns, as a resting-place it cannot find. A swallow is then sent forth, but it also returns. Lastly, a raven is let go, which does not turn back. Everything is then sent forth to the four points of the compass. An altar is erected and sacrifices offered. The gods smell the sweet savour, and gather like flies about the sacrificer, after .which it is decided that, instead of a deluge, wild beasts and famines shall diminish mankind be>cause of its sins. A number of the tablets containing these legends were written about the time of Abraham. While they are doubtless copies of inscriptions which belong to a much earlier age, they certainly have a common origin with the Biblical account. A number of very important building inscriptions from the ziggurrat Etemenanki (Tower of Babel) have been found. They illustrate the fact that the story in Genesis concerning its erection is in remarkable accord with what is known from the inscriptions of the ancients who lived in the plain of Sliinar. For instance, in Genesis, the builders said, "Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.” Nebuchadnezzar, in an inscription which is to be seen in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania, recording his restoration of the tower says that he puts his hand to work "to raise up the tower, that tho top may reach unto heaven,’’ and yet the tower in his day was not over 150 feet high. It is not only that the ancients, in tlieir exaggerated conceptions, used this expression to signify something lofty; but, as Professor Hilprechx lias slioivn, these towers were local representations of the mythical mountain where the gods were supposed to live. The land of the Pharaohs during the last 50 years has been a scene of great activity on the part of the excavator. Here are brought to light not only the great monuments of antiquity, but tho builders themselves who up tho monuments. In Babylonia, a basrelief picture of Amraphel, the contemporary of Abraham, was found, but in Egypt we are permitted to gaze upon the very features of the Pharaohs that knew not Joseph, that oppressed Israel, and the one that was forced to liberate them from their bondage. Every line in the Pentateuch which refers to Egypt has been shown through the excavations to be in remarkable accord with the tacts revealed.