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Ur of the Chaldees Cal Much-Controverted Chapter of the W WORLDEVENTS IN THE LIGHT SIVolume 5o, Number 31 Price xicl. OF PROPHECY Warburton, Victoria, August 5, 1935 DIGGING UP Ur of the Chaldees cal much-controverted chapter of the W. L. EMMERSON Old Testament vindicated NTIL the middle of last cen- his son Bel-shar-usur, for their zeal. tury no one had any idea A colossal statue of the Egyptian king At the three other corners of the U where Ur of the Chaldees, the Tutankhamen of the eighteenth dynasty. building identical cylinders were dis- ancient city of Abraham, stood, or, Ur of the Chaldees was in its golden age covered, as. well as a larger barrel for that matter, had any definite when Egypt was at a very low stage of cylfhder elsewhere on the site. culture. proof of its ever having existed. Some Wide World Photo These inscriptions were doubly placed it in Southern Babylonia near valuable, because not only did it look the Persian Gulf. Others believed as if the site of Ur had at last been that it was up in Northern Mesopo- identified, but they also settled the tamia or Syria. long controversy over the Belshazzar In 1849 W. K. Loftus, a geologist of Daniel 5, whose name had never attached to the British Commission, before been found in Babylonia, and sent out to settle the Turko-Persian whose existence was denied by the frontier dispute, gained permission to critics. do some excavating in the mounds It is strange that such momentous around Warka, about ninety-five discoveries should not have immedi- miles south-east of Babylon, and ately been followed up, but appar- found at the base of the ziggurat of ently lack of funds and difficulty of Tell Buweriye bricks stamped with securing permission to dig held up the name of Ur-Engur, king of Ur. further excavation for more than half These proved that Ur did really exist, a century. and at first it was thought that Actually it was the Great War Warka itself might be fhe site of the which brought one of the archxolo- city, but other inscriptions on the gists of the British Museum into the ziggurat proved it to be Erech, men- vicinity of Ur and again focused tioned in Gen. 1o: 10. attention on the site. A DOUBLY VALUABLE POST-WAR EXCAVATIONS DISCOVERY ALMOST immediately after the ces- HOWEVER, while Loftus was occu- sation of hostilities R: Campbell pied with his last expedition to Thompson began tentative excava- Warka, J. E. Taylor, the British tions which proved so promising that consul at Basra, was exploring some since 1922 joint expeditions from of the mounds farther to the south the British Museum and the Univer- for the British Museum. His atten- sity of Pennsylvania under the tion was particularly centred on one leadership of Professor Leonard called Tell el Maqayya, or the Woolley, have been sent out each "Mound of Pitch," where a great year. Some twelve seasons' work has two-storied building nearly 200 feet not only demonstrated the truth of long and 133 feet wide could be seen Taylor's claim, but has also thrown in places protruding above the sur- great light over the certain parts of face. an inscription of Nabonidus, the last early Bible history which previously Uncovering one corner, he found king of Babylon, stating that on this had practically no external evidence in a specially prepared niche an in- site he had rebuilt a temple to the in their support. scribed clay cylinder in perfect moon-god founded 2,000 years before The Bible states that centuries condition. It was sent to Sir Henry by Ur-Engur or Ur-Nammu, and pe- before Abraham the world had at- Rawlinson, who pronounced it to be titioning the deity to bless him and tained a high stage of civilisation [Registered at the G.P.O., Melbourne, for transmission by post as a newspaper.] SIGNS OF THE TIMES August 5, 193 5 EXTENSIVE TRADE AND tacked by many of the critics. M. COMMERCE Jastrow, for example, wrote:— GREAT copper pike heads up to "Nowhere is there a violent break two-and-a-half feet long were found, with the past, but only, and at most, together with gold, silver, and copper a gradual transition. If, therefore, adzes, axes, spears, and maces, arrow- the later culture is to be regarded as heads, fragments of bows, and shields Semitic—and on this point there is of wood with metal bosses, revealing substantial agreement — there is no the existence of an organised military substantial reason for denying this system which must have carried the predicate to the earliest."—Hastings's arms of Ur far beyond its city walls. Bible Dictionary, Vol. V, page 535. What is particularly significant Professor Woolley, however, has about these discoveries is that the definitely shown that there is a pro- district around Ur is almost entirely found difference between the culture devoid of wood; stone, metallic ore, which has left its remains in. the low- and precious stones. These must, est levels of Ur and the later Semitic therefore, have been brought great civilisation. Whereas the Semites are distances, and their presence indi- invariably depicted on the monu- cates extensive commerce and trade. •ments with abundant hair and long The copper and silver must have beards, the Sumerians, as they have come from Elam or the Caucasus, the been named, are shown with shaven gold from Elam, Syria, or Asia Minor, heads and faces. Their language, too, the limestone perhaps from the upper Euphrates valley, the alabaster and is entirely unrelated to the Semitic lapis lazuli from Persia or even from and clearly indicates their non- Central Asia. Semitic origin. Thus says Professor Woolley: "ETHIOPIANS" OF THE GREEKS "The contents of the tombs illustrate a very highly developed state of so- IT is, moreover, very significant ciety of an urban type, a society in that Dieulafoy and De Morgan have which the architect was familiar with found evidences of an aboriginal, all the basic principles of construc- dark-skinned people in Elam and tion known to us today. The artist, Persia who persisted long after the capable at times of a most vivid real- Sumerians of Babylonia had been ab- ism, followed for the most part sorbed. They were known even to A six-sided cylinder inscribed with the standards and conventions whose ex- the Greeks, who called them "Ethio- annals of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. cellence had been approved by many pians" to distinguish them- from the Archaeological discoveries at Nineveh, generations working before him; the fairer-skinned Aryan inhabitants of Babyldn, and now Ur of the Chaldees craftsman in metal possessed a the northern hills. According to the and other places have been proving the knowledge of metallurgy and a tech- Bible to be true. "Odyssey," Memnon, who came to nical skill which few ancient peoples the relief of Troy, was the son of the ever rivalled; the merchant carried on white woman Kassia and the black a far-flung trade and recorded his Tithonos, and was himself of swarthy transactions in writing; the army was which was brought to an end by di- complexion. He was credited with well organised and victorious, agri- leading an army of Susians and vine judgment in the form of a disas- culture prospered, and great wealth trous flood, after which a new civilisa- Ethiopians against Achilles, by whom gave scope to luxury."—"Ur of the he was slain. tion rapidly sprang up, centring in Chaldees," page 87. the Tigro-Euphrates Valley. Those Herodotus also speaks of "the who accepted the theory of religious Bible students find these discov- Ethiopians from the direction of the evolution did not, of course, accept eries entirely in line with the account sunrising," who, he says, were "in no this, and asserted that in the days of of the early history of mankind in the way different from the other Ethio- Abraham mankind was only just Scriptures, but evolutionists naturally pians, but in their language and in emerging' from primitive barbarism. find it rather difficult to fit this the nature of their hair only." At Ur, however, Leonard Woolley highly developed civilisation into Sir William Sykes declares that and his associates unearthed in the their scheme of development. even today the populations of Basha- lowest levels the tombs of kings and kird and Sarhad on the borders of nobles of Ur long before Abraham, TENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS Persian Baluchistan are noticeably testifying to an almost unbelievably IN another way also the Old Testa- swarthy. high level of culture. Architecturally ment account of the early civilisa- Dr. Hall, of the British Museum, they incorporated the column, the tion of Mesopotamia has been strik- believes that these dark-skinned arch vault, and the dome, types of ingly confirmed, to the chagrin of the Elamites and the Sumerians were of construction which were not known in destructive critics. It is stated in the the same stock; and while it is not the Western World until thousands of tenth chapter of Genesis that the yet proved that they were racially years later. Tigro-Euphrates valley was first connected with the Ethiopians, the Gold weapons, personal ornaments colonised by the descendants of Ham, fact that they seem to be non-Semitic such as earrings, amulets, and brace- whereas until recently only the so- and non-Aryan points in this direc- lets, were found in profusion, while called Semitic culture of the children tion, and we must wait for time again the art of the lapidary was repre- of Shem was known.
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