FIVE CIVILISATIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19199, 16 June 1924, Page 10

FIVE CIVILISATIONS.

HAUL’ LINDS IN HOLY LAND. REVELATIONS AT BETH SHE AN. As a repository of ancient secrets the Holy Land is challenging Egypt for a share of world attention, for excavations at Beth Shoan, 50 miles north of Jerusalem, have exposed live layers bf earth, each of which contains traces of a separate civilisation, slates the New York limes. .Five civilisations. one upon the other, have been laid hare to the eyes of the arch Biologists as a result of the work done in the last two years by the University of Pennsylvania unit, under the direction of J)r Clarence S. Fisher. . “there is .every reason to believe t.iat we shall be able to go back ns far as the Slone ,Age,” «ays Dr Fisher, who has returned to America from Palestine. ' i.ayer by layer we shall trace each civilisation. The hill where we have been digging occupies a peculiar position; it overlooks trie whole surrounding country, and from earliest times was used as a habitation and a stronghold. Conqueror conqueror planted his armies there. Past the hill the road where went all the travel from Syria and Mesopotamia to Egypt, following the River Joidan south towards Suez and the Nile. There is no other place that I know of where so many peoples, so many civilisations, paused at one time or another us passed through this Palestine gateway.” Commanding the Valley of Armageddon, the hill-site now giving up its hidden relics of Arabic, Byzantine, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian occupation has long been a position against which hammered the forces of East and West. Here the Pharaohs of Egypt three thousands years ago garnered the fruits of their toiling Syrian vassals; here a thousand years later Davm. the Psalm singer, vanquished the armies of Saul, and here in 1918, Allonhy’s Britons routed the Turkish forces. The silo of Beth Shean or Beisan. as the modern village is called, once formed part of the private property of the Sultan. Under the Law of Antiquities, passed in 1920. this region was opened up by the British Administration to arohaiological units, and it was at this that the University of Pennsylvania sent its staff of workers under Dr Fisher, to explore it. Dr Fisher brought back, with other relics to be placed in the new wing of the Philadelphia Museum, a stele of Raineses the Great, found in one of the rooms of the Egyption fortress fust unearthed at Beth •Shean. This, in his opinion, is a most important find, as the writing on the eightfoot stone gives new data concerning the journeys of Kamesos and his son Merenpuh from Egypt to their Syrian possessions. On tlic Ramesean stele are the words, ‘T used the Asiatics on the building of my city.” “These words,” {says Dr Fisher, ‘refer to the city this Pharaoh built in Egypt, and are, I believe, the first reference to the Israelites found on any Egyptian document. “To steles, one of Seti I, the other of Ramaaes, were found side by side on heavy stone foundations in the Egyptian fortress that we are now excavating. The shape of the room had been changed co make a place for the Ramesean monument, which was evidently erected at a ■much later date. Both steles were about Bft high, and lay on ‘ their sides when found. The writing on the Seti stele was the usual laudatory eulogy to the great king, without reference to specific achievement, and the stone was similar to the other Seti ones found in Syria last year. These monuments were only placed to mark successful conquest or brave deeds, and whore they are found it is certain some important event took place. “The fortress shows marks of heavy fighting. Great conflict went on there. It is quite likely that hero Saul and his armv weve defeated by David, although we have not yet found definite proof of it. It was the logical place for the armies to meet ” ft was before 1913 that Dr Fisher, studying the ground through the Near East for an excavating site that might throw the most light on early civilisation, was attracted by the hill north of Jerusalem. “ Wo were unable to start work until 1921, when Great Britain received a mandate over Palestine. The whole region hud been owned by the Turks. In our two years of work we have found on flu's one site the remains of Arabic, Byzantine, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian influences. A shaft sunk 35ft the first year gives us some idea of what the hill will yield as it is levelled off. At the bottom of the shaft we found a Hy-ksos grave, containing the skeleton of a young woman. Sinpe the Egyptians drove this people out of Egypt end up into Syria as early as 2000 8.C., there should be other historical data about this period. “Under the upper layers of the hill where we found remains of the Crusaders of the Arabic period and of the Grecian, we came upon a Byzantine church of the sixth century, built over an earlier one of basilica style of the fourth century. Some of the mosaic floors were in fairly good lopair. These arc being brought hack to bo placed on exhibition at the museum. A marble slab of Grecian design, dated nbost 505 a.d., bears the name of a man who built a wall around ‘ the inner city.’ But there is nothing further to tell us about this city. All the fragments arc incomplete, vet they throw some light on the life of that time, and from them we hope to build up a good picture of it. “ Below the church was a stratum of small mud houses, built probably by the Scythians, nomads from the north, who had no culture or civilisation. These people have left nothing important behind them. Under the Scvthian bouses we found the TCgvptian fortress, with its warmarked bricks.”