CITY 3200 YEARS OLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18446, 6 January 1922, Page 6

CITY 3200 YEARS OLD

Important developments are expected from the work of .excavation now being directed by Professor Garstang at the site of the ancient city of Aakclon, which is often mentioned in the Bible, This exploration, assisted by the Palestine Exploration 'Fund,' was stopped during the rainy season, and Professor Garstang returned to England. Ho has arrivxxi on the scene of operations again, and a "Daily Chronicle representative was informed by the secretary of the fund a few weeks ago that the. work is now in full swing. Askelon has a history extending from 1570. B.C. to 1270 A.D. Its ruins are a mystery. Akhenaton, one of the Pharaohs, reigned there about 1375 8.C., and Samson is said to have once slain 30 men of Askelon. “One excellent feature of the oxoavation work to-day.” said the secretary, “is the fact that all is now being done under British authority, and not supervised by the Turks. Previous exploration relies were largely confiscated for the Constantinople Museum, 'illat; is nil altered. Professor Garstang, who is director of the new department of antiquities in Palestine and director of the British School of Archaeology, is working •with a much freer hand/ Among discoveries already made arc two architectural statues, some pottery specimens,- and the remains of a gigantic statue, the foot, of which measured a little over a yard, and the debris of a marble shrine. There are also traces of the Oanaanites. One of the examinations now taking place is of a site galled the “Peace Pool,” and a search is being made for the necropolis of the Philistines. It is possible that light may bo thrown upon the hieroglyphic secret of the Phaestos Disk, an ufideeiphcred document, in stone, about which controversy has raged in antiquarian circles since Dr Pernier discovered it on the south coast of Crete in 1908. It is believed to have been of Philistine origin, and the latest theory is that it is the oldest script of music in the world.