WHERE GREAT CITIES ARE BURIED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 80

WHERE GREAT CITIES ARE BURIED.

' A VOYAGE OF WOXDEE DOWN THE TIGRIS. Mr David Fraser has been making a most interesting journey down the Tigris, ) and tells his story in the pages of the ', Times of India. He passed down one of J the grert highways of history, by ruins of ; mighty cities, j — To Nimrud and Asshur. — • " About 25 miles below Mosul lie the i inns of ancaejit Nimrud, where Layard discovered the vast palaces of Saigon, * fsurnasirpal. Shalrranezer. Esarpaddon, aad other worthies who in Assyrian times . hastised the Jews for the good of their morals. Not far from Nimrud is the uLice where the Ten Thousand crossed the Zab, an important tributary of the Tigris. At Shergat, a few hours further down -tream, are the mounds of ancient Asshur, w here a German archaeological expedition has been settled for seven years, making extensive and scientific excavations. Every inch of the ground is classic and redolent of Chaldean, Assyrian, and Parthian Greek among the more ancient civilisations, and of Roman, Per.-ian, and Aiab among the later. "At Shergat I plucked up courage and paid the Germans a visit, being iecei\ed with much kindness and courtesy by the three young enthusiasts who are conducting the excavations. They have built an excellent house, convenient in every respect for ro&idence, storage of archaeological j valuables, and for scientific work. They ' make meteorological observations study i the country and people, and generally make use "of their opportunities in the thorough and business-like manner characteristic of German enterprise. — Relics of the Assyrian Conqueror. — " Thp point on which the Germans j have centred their aa-chseological activity ! -is one of great interest, for it has turned ' out that the mounds cover the remains jof Asshur, the larliest capital of that Assyrian Empire that sprang from the | loins of Babylon, and eventually brought ' its progenitor to the ground. A long j cylinder of Tiglath Pilesen- I, the great > Assyrian conqueror, is one of the principal ! finds. The moands are of greater height than those of Nineveh, and were long known to travellers, though the nature of their contents was not divined. But a slight change in the course of the Tigris resulted in the cutting of a new bank by I ths riveL* and the exposure of ancient I quays and walls constructed of the well- ' known hard-burnt bricks of the Babylonian and Assyrian periods. — A Buried City. — j "I -was taken over all the excavations, • which consist of a tunnel into the in- , terior of one projecting mound, and the ; entire removal of the debris overlaying an ! area of several acies. The latter process I has resulted in the laying bare of the i foundations, floors, and lower walls of I many houses of the old city. These are • in perfect preservation in many case.-, and • show the exact arrangements of moms 1 and frequently the purposes to which they J were devoted" Every hou«e had its place } for the dead, the poorer a scooped out hollow fitted with a Hd, the richer sub- | terranea.ii chambers entered by heavy S wooden doors. Winding lane& between ! the houses, tiny channels of naming water, ! stables for liorses, sanitary a cooni2iiod.it ion. | and a host of other matters having their modern equivalents weie observable. The j excavations seemed to bring before one ! the domestic life of these ancient people. ! the fact that they were human and not i monsti-i as their history sometimes suggests, and gave to one's conceptions of them a reality that all the winged bulls tnd baked inscriptions of the museums can never give. The builders of Asshur had an advantage over the Babylonians, for they were able to employ stone where the ethers were forced to use brick. But the brick crops up at many pointe, showing how strjiur was the Babylonian inJ fluenre and how" difficult it must have bten ' for the early Ai-fiyrians to depart from cst ibhf-hcd custom. — The Libour of Excavation. — " The Libour entailed in th-ese excavat ions is tiemendoui. and would have been impossible ot accomplishment were it not ' for the employment of light railway- and patent trucks which carry away the debris ! — eajlv instalment of the' Baghdad Railway, quoth* my -guide. with a hunuious i glance at my Britith countenance. A ■ great den I ha« b"en done nt Sliertrat, but theie still remains woik tiiat will take 1 ninny year 1 ' to complete. Peihnps with the "islo\v but sure progiess of enlightenment in Turk-cy a day may com" when ' the autlioiities will view with more favour ; the process of research. Tie iccent ' establishment of a Museum of Antiquities at Coi and the piomulgation of an li«'lf fmb'ddinti the removal from the count ly of antiquarian tieaj-urea sug- ' {test*- thi t 'thi 1 - desjrabk- interest ib being pwakenti'l — litigation in Bal>\ lonia — "' Xc.t Sumara we prr-sed the ancient coast line that maths the bou;id^\ of ; Mesopotamia propel, an 1 enlcied upon (he i immen^ phin of alluvium which constituted the weilth of Babvlonin. Tl.e wl, <xc?pt when temporarily mined by the ncciinHi I Rtion of watei and salt, equals the ' richest to be found in any part of tho world. Here nourished the ancient inign- : tion system that Exceeded in magnitude ' anything existing in the piesent day, and which by the scienje of its methods and the perfection of its arrangements excites • the admiration of the modern experts who have studied it. Of all the millions of

" acres that were once densely populated , and highly cultivated there is now not 1 ! per <.ent. inhabited. Only along the banks of the two great rivers and beside what remrms of the ancient canals is there a narrow strip of cultivation, which abundant irrigation renders prolific in the highest degree. —To Baghdad.— '"Hereafter both sides of the Tigris were i thickly occupied by erections designed to ! hoist the water from the river to the level lof the surrounding land. The system is ! simple, consisting of a projecting framework supporting axles. On these axles run ropes <itt ich-ed to great bags of skin, l which are dipped in the stream, hoisted up, and lelieved of their load of water, which theieupon runs down a canal to do its work in the fields. The motive power is furnished by horses, donkeys, and cattle, which march up an I down a j slope, harnessed to the ropes that hoist I the laden skins in the manner well-known in some parts of India. | "At last the voyage is over, and we float past the gilded dome and minarets of the mosque at Kasiman, between groves of date-palms and orange trees to Baghdad itself with its "... shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens, green and old."