INTERESTING DISCOVERY.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12467, 17 February 1909, Page 4

INTERESTING DISCOVERY.

Professor Sayce, who recently returned to Khartoum after some time spent, in investigations in the /district made the following statement. to Renter's correspondent : "An interesting discovery of ' early. Christian ■ remains has' recently beeiimade at . Wad^elHadad, on- the Blue Nile, a few miles north of Sennar, while the foundations of ] a : rest house .for the Irrigation Department^we're being dug. A nuni-ber/of-..graves ,-werfe found containing skeletdh.s, /with feet to the east,, and found the hea4 of eachwas a quantity of pottery,, qbnsisting of bowls and iars,/all in a good state of preservation.*" 'The bowls rare for/ the most - part .of dark claj'j aud decorated with what are known as Nubian patterns; " On one of them is a Coptic processional cross and* tie same emblem is scratched, inside the lips of the. jar/ where it is associated with two other Christian emblems, tho fish and the palm branch. On the neck' of one of the-jarsis a : mason's mark, and an- . other of the ' jar's, which are : of red 1 ware, has a spput as well as a _handle., A cbmnaiisOn of the pottery with that foiind 7ovi, -the Nubian sites between the first "and second .cataracts makes it probable that, it should be dated in . the seventh" or eighth century a.d. '. Phe potterv has been sent to the Knar- ] toum Museum.: The phief- interest j in the discovery/lies in the.fapt that it is the first: time -that Christian re- - mains have/ljeens met with so far • south, and we may therefore look for- ■ n-ard to the discovery of other early | Dhristiaii: remains in. the neighbouriood of the Blue- Nile. At present , rery little is known or tlie liis-fcory of . ■Jhristianity in these, regions, and we , must look to excavation to, throw ught , upon it. A (juartor. of an hour's wak from, the graves are; two mounds caU- | ad by the natives Beyt-el-Anak, The , Eouse of Anak," (or .pre Mahometan } people), vihich doubtless- mark the site of -an early-Christian church or ] monastery. • Excavations would- pre- : bab'ly bring 'to 'light early Christian i inscriptions." -v ; . •; (