WORLD’S OLDEST HOMES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19505, 13 June 1925, Page 9

WORLD’S OLDEST HOMES.

WHERE MEN FIRST LIVED. MISTS OP THE PAST. INTERESTING RELICS. The discovery in South Africa of what d© believed to be the oldest remains yet found h&s interested others besides men of ecience. There is hardly a spot on the earths surface which is not the scene of energetic exploration, and many of them repay the busy searchers. Slowly and steadily the mist© that hide man’s past ore being rolled away. The work began with Layard, who, nearly 80 years ago, started digging on the site of ancient Nineveh. The discovery there in 1872 of an ancient tablet recording the Deluge stirred the whole world. Many people believe that civilisation nsefl in waves, and that many thousands of years ago the greater part of the Atlantic was dry land, inhabited by a race of people who, in some respects, had risen higher, than we ourselves liave risen. However that may be, digging on what is still dry land has proved that civilisation is much older than we used to think. Some years ago the University vania sent an expedition to the Euphrates valley. Digging down, the members foiind. a great temple and city belonging to King Ashurbanapal, who lived 600 B.c. Farther down they discovered relics of King Kadashman Turgu, who was a great monarch 80 years earlier. A third layer was then uncovered, showing the temple of Ur Gur, who reigned long before the days of Abraham. MENTIONED IN GENESIS. Digging still deeper the city of Sargon came to light. Sargon flourished about SSOO years before Christ was bom. Even so, the bottom had not been reached, for, breaking through the floor of Saigon’s temple, the explorers found themselves standing among' the ruins of Calush, which is mentioned in Genesis, and which was a home of civilised man fully 7000 years ago. Here they found an altar on which lay the ashes of sacrifice, and a keystone arch which had hitherto been supposed to be e. Roman invention. They found remains of a vast palace with a frontage of 600 ft. Most interesting of n*ll were tho relics of temple library, 18,000 tablets, each inscribed with stories of the life of that remote period. These ancient people had fireplaces in their houses and a good system of drainage. They ate from, dishes mad© of baked clay. Records were found of contracts, mortgage©, and bills of sale. The strangest find of all was a clay pot containing broken fragments of pottery, and upon it an inscription by th© priests who had collected them, telling that these were the remains of some ancient and forgotten folk, found while digging tho foundations for the temple. So even seventy centuries ago civilisation was already old. A FORGOTTEN CONTINENT. These discoveries do little to solve the problem' of where earliest man came into being. Occultists tell -us that the earliest home of our own ancestors was in th© Desert of Gobi. Central Asia. That country* they say was then much lower than it isnow, and into it ran an arm of the Arctic Ocean, on which the first great city was founded. • . .. . . On tho other hand, on© of the greatest authorities gives his opinion that the Caucasion race had its birthplace in Northern Africa. The modern idea is that each ol the great human races had a separate origin, rising slowly to manlike form Out of monkeylike ancestors. ~ _ .. In Ponape, an island in mid-Pacific, ruins* of amazing age and size have been <hscovered, Tho walls are 15ft thick, and there is every proof that many thousands of years -ago this island was part of a continent populated by civilised people.