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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 12, 1922)
( THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND,; NOVEMBER 12, 1923 Buried in Oblivion for 4000 Years, Ur of the Chaldees Js Now to Tell Philadelphia Explorers Secrets, of the Real Beginning of the Christian Religion By WittiamlA.McGarry ffs ? - SifQ sycy 7777 Miil-KEiMr y Ir'liKH iv'IWW W RHSS'tffl If IT Wr'S S asty furnished the reason for the depar- furnish an indelible record in the hot, dry jMMmZm'mM tmXu , SbTW JT Jm- V ture Abraham's t.me f.xfd roUShlv climat, of Mesopotamia of the races in- tgkMWMHK Anrf thare took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Aran, his son's son, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram, his son, and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldess, to go into the land of Chanaan and they came as far as Haran and dwelt there. And the Lord said to Abram: Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed. And he took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and alt the sub stance which they had gathered, and the souls which they had gotten in Haran and they went out to go into the land of Chanaan. Genesis. WHEN the events narrated in the foregoing verses from Genesis had transpired and Abraham with his people and his flocks had gone out of Ur of the Chaldees, a great silence settled over that famous city and the province surrounding it and bearing the same name. So far as history is concerned it was a forgotten city. For nearly 3000 years its name was not heard on the tongues of men save in solemn recitation of that simple narrative from the first book of the Old Testament. Then from the ruined palace of Assurbanipal in . Assyria and the buried archives of sacred Nippur came strange records carved in clay of its early greatness as the shrine of the moon god. Now a modern legion outnumbering the throngs of Thare and Abraham is jour neying back to Ur of the Chaldees to search for what records the patriarch and his people may have- left and to recover the world's first and oldest library of original works on history, religion, art, law, the sciences and narratives of the every-day affairs of men 5000 and per haps 10,000 years ago. It is the first really constructive invasion of Ur in near ly 4000 years. When its work is done it may yield a wholly new story of the in ception of the religious movement that prepared the world for Christianity, or it may corroborate the story in Genesis and furnish contemporary details to ex plain why Thare and Abraham left to wander into a strange land. Not even the valiant quests of the Cru ( saders toward the Holy Land -in the mid- cue ages nem iortn more promise than the expedition now started cn its way by the University museum of Philadelphia an; the British museum. At that time the cuneiform script that had been pa tiently evolved from the first rude picto graphs of earliest man into a definite form of writing had no meaning to the greatest living scholars. Today there are eight or ten men in the world who can translate the oldest of those signs on the tablets of the Sumarians. If there is a record of Abraham and his people in ,the ruins of Ur they will find it. From the religious point of view alone the expedi tion is the most important ever launched In the name of archeology. Ur is in southern Mesopotamia, about 160 miles from Bagdad. .Today it looks like nothing more than a huge, sandy mound rising from a flat and desolate plain, its surface broken at varying in tervals by other mounds and by ridges marking the courses of ancient canals. For 2000 or 2500 years, from the time Darius and his Persian hordes swept over the land, the place has been deserted ex cept for occasional tent settlements of Arabs. When Alexander yearned for more worlds to conquer, three centuries before Christ, it is quite likely that Ur was un occupied. Then the ruins of Its great tem ple, its stage tower or zikkurat and its sacrificial altars rose gaunt against the sky. A lot of dust can settle in two millen niums, and according to the accounts of archeologists who have been in Mesopo tamia in recent years there has been enough of it completely to bury all signs of the vast city the streets of which were once trod by Abraham. That the ruins are there is definitely known. Tentative exploring shafts have been sunk here and there over the wide expanse of the mound top, and each of them has yielded precious relics of " a lost people, the Sumerians. Although there has been no systematic excavation in, the ruins, the hill is so rich in record " that for twenty years it has been yielding a steady drib ble of clay tablets, seal cylinders, inscrip tions on stone, jewels, small statuary and other relics. It was the 'nformation obtained from BANKRUPT THEATRICAL TROUPE VICTIMS OFOLD SUNFLOWER STATE BLIZZARD AND DOWN WIRES . , . Booking in Lawrence Called Off Because Telegram Fails to Re ach Manager of Opera House Announcing Intention to Keep Engagements to Play in That City as Scheduled. ' - I N THE show business, at least the show business of the halcyon days, before the advent of moving pictures and million-dollar theaters in which to display them, it was proverbial among actors that bad luck invariably begot bad luck, says the Kansas City Star. In other words, when a theatrical troop began to , bump into a run of misfortune, the old adage that "it never rains but it pours," always was abundantly sustained. Noth ing short of a miracle could save the strolling players when they were headed for the breakers. The farce comedy, which had played to as small an audience as 60 paid ad missions in Laramie, Wyo., was known as "Brown's in Town," and the producing managers, starting with high hopes and little money out on the coast, had decid ed to work gradually to New York, where it was confidently expected this western made stage product would "knock 'em dead." The company manager, after a mis erable opening at the Broadway theater in Denver, held a council-of war with the actors, who were far back in their sal aries, and decided to cancel by telegraph all future dates. Lawrence, Kan., was the next jumj) an all day jump out of f A jar on which records of historical events have been inscribed. those contemporary records, and not the mere mention of the city's name in the Scriptures, that led the British Museum to arrange the joint expedition with the famgus Philadelphia institution. Six or seven years ago, when Dr. Stephen H. Langdon was curator of the Babylonian section at the university museum, he pre dicted to the writer that Ur of Chaldees was in all probability the storehouse of the world's earliest library. That predic tion was based on references to the great Moon God city in the psalms and liturgies of Nippur, the Calneh of the Bible, exca vated by university museum savants thirty years ago. Nippur was the shrine of Enlil, the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon. Ur, the city of the Moon God, may have been a thousand years older than Nippur. A, vast library of information concern ing the history of the peoples that in habited North and South Babylonia in early days has been compiled within the last twenty years. Prior to that time lit tle was known about it, the only histori- Denver, and when the manager of Bower sock's opera house received the telegram of cancellation he became frantic. "We have an advance sale of ? 400 for your engagement here Monday night," , telegraphed the Lawrence man, "and it is very urgent that you come." t Manager Is 'Convinced. Was it urgent? From whose stand; point? From the standpoint of the owner of "Brown's in Town" more than anyone else in the world, but the Lawrence man ager didn't realize that delicate point. "We must get to Lawrence," solilo quized the owner of "Brown's in Town," but how? ' He hadn't money to buy the trans portation after the dismal week in Den ver, and the unpaid actors were a source of great distress to the man who had hired them. But the case, was laid before Peter Mc Court, proprietor of Denver's Broadway theater, and Ae symbol of faith, hope and charity to the stranded troupers in the early days. Mr. McCourt came across with the necessary funds and a telegram was forwarded to Lawrence, notifying tjie manager there that "Brown's in Town" was on the way. Getting out of Colorado and entering cal references being in the works of the famous Greek, Herodotus. By far the most important part of that information has come from the Nippur tablets de ciphered at the university museum. As yet, 'not more than a slight inkling of what is known has filtered intd the his tories and the encyclopedias. The romance of that time is just being retored to modern readers. It is known now that after Thare and Abraham left Ur there came a long period of difficul ties. In fact, it is not hard to imagine that the impending collapse of the dyn asty furnished the reason for the depar ture. Abraham's time is fixed roughly by the Scriptures at 2200 B. C. In 2150 B. C., Ibi-Sin, last king of the dynasty of Uf, was overthrown and the kingdom was shifted to the ruler of another city.' The ancestors of Ibi-Sin were famous war riors, but he was apparently a weakling. This is shown by a tiny record found not long ago at the University museum. It is a seal cylinder, the inscription on which bhows that the king presented it to a banker high priest who had been dicker ing with his enemies. Finance played apparently as great a part in war then as now. Thereafter, and for a thousand to three thousand years before the time of Abra ham, Ur was familiar ground for the world conquerors whose names are being restored to history one by one. Sargon I, who left inscriptions on stone at Nippur in the temple of Enlil telling the proud tale of his victories, took the city by storm with 5400 men, threw down its wall and doubtless destroyed the temple and part of the stage tower. Slowly and patiently the Sumerians of Chaldee built them up again under Sargon and later rulers. Nip- upon the soil of Kansas, the Union Pa cific train upon which the hopeful actors were passengers, encountered a storm, which seemed to combine everything that was disagreeable. There was rain, snow, hail and wind. The train lost time, but ft traveled on. At Hays a man who boarded the train told the anxious players that Kansas had been in the grip of a great storm for two days. i The storm extended over the en tire area of the state, as far as the Kaw's mouth. The tram, jdue to arrive in Lawrence at noon Monday, continued to lose time, but the actors were hopeful when the Over land Limited, about six hours late, final ly pulled up in the North Lawrence sta tion. It was 7 o'clock, one hour prior to the ringing up of the curtain, when the eager members of the company started to plod across the bridge that spans the Kaw river. "There'll be no $800 gate," said the owner of the farce comedy, a bit cheer less, "but the $400 advance sale is still good." Manager Found Alone. , And through the snow they journeyed snow drifting to a depth of two and pur was rebuilt twenty-one times, and each level of occupation left its records plainly discernible in the ruins. Since Ur was older, it may have known even a greater number of occupations. It was the custom in those days after "a city had been destroyed to level off the ruins with little regard for what lay be neath them. A pavement then was laid over the ruins of the principal Buildings. It was made of sun-dried brick, on each of v which was stamped the name of the warrior who happened at that time to be king of all the land. Those pavements furnish an indelible record in the hot, dry climate of Mesopotamia of the races in A section of the excavations showing the ancient towns being uncovered by the scientists. habiting the cities in the earliest times. The tablets buried in the archives beneath each new pavement tell the intimate ' stories of the daily lives not only of the kings and leaders, but of the merchants and farmers, the property owners and slaves. Legal transactions, ranging from mar riage contracts to the sale or rental of dwellings, were recorded in the archives at Nippur, and many of the clay tablets contain the names of a half dozen wit nesses. Tablets found at or near the sur face or picked up in the few experimental shafts sunk at Ur show that that city used the same- system. The possibilities of new information are limitless. If Thare and Abraham owned property it is quite likely that they sold it before leaving Ur. The sale,. under the law, was recorded. It is only a question of whether the particular chamber in which it was filled was de stroyed or not. Lawyers are interested in the expedi tion because of the light it may throw on the beginning of all laws. Parallel para graphs from the Mosaic code and the much earlier code of Hammurabi show . unquestionably that the compilation made by Hammurabi, who ruled at Babylon about the time of Abraham, was used as a basis for tho work done by Moses, or both came from a common source. A code still earlier than that of Hammurabi has been discovered in the Nippur collection, but it is only fragmentary. Archaeolo gists find evidences that each city had its own ordinances, just as municipalities have today, and that eventually all were brought together in a code. Ur may have three feet and at the entrance of the Bowersock opera house, Lawrence's an cient temple of amusement, the players found a single gas lamp burning and a lone individual standing in the lobby. The lone individual was the manager of the opera house and there never was a more surprised person in the universe. "Well, we're here," said the leader of the traveling thespians, "and ready for business." "I see you're here," said the manager of the opera house, gloomily, '"but the jig's up." "What's the matter?" exclaimed the owner of "Brown's in Town." "I thought you had canceled," said the manager of Bowersock's. "But you got my telegram telling that we were on the way?" "I did not," said the local manager, "and, thinking you were headed else where, I called off the engagement and gave 'em their money back." Over at the telegraph office the in formation that commercial wires to Den ver had been down for 48 hours afforded little comfort to the owner of "Brown's in Town," but he got considerable satisfac tion outaof the threat that he intended to sue the telegraph officials for all the money in the world, and he was on the verge of forgetting his own immediate troubles when the leading comedian touched him on the shoulder and made this modest suggestion: "Just give me the price of a ticket to Kansas City, George, and I'll give you my share of the damages." Then it snowed some more.. beea tho first place for such a compila tiea, At present the earliest known story of Cjfi&tien, Paradise, the flood' and the fall ef man eemes from the Nippur collection, and is based en Sumerian legend. There a?a many indications that it came from w -"", still earlier versions, copies of which, it is hoped, will be found at Ur. Ethnolo gists are particularly interested in the ex pedition because of the light it may throw -on the origin of the Sumerians. The records obtained so far show that those people were nearly extinct by the time of Abraham. They were a non-Semitic race, and virtually all the great body of re ligious literature, some of which is re flected in present-day religions, came from Sumer. The entire country is now familiarly referred to as Babylonia. In the days of its early civilization, however, it was di vided nominally into two parts, Sumer in the south and Akkad in the north. The first settlements are said to have been in the south. 1 Ur is situated near the junc tion of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. For many years scientists had difficulty locating it because all the tablet refer ences place it on the coast of the Persian gulf. It was finally discovered that dur ing the centuries that have elapsed the rivers had pushed the shore line far out by carrying down tons of mud and sand. Records from the Nippur collection and all other information obtained about the Sumerians indicate that they were de cidedly non-Semitic. It is believed that they were a fair-haired race, probably of northern extraction. How they came Into the valleys and plains that were to be come the most fertile and productive the world has ever known is a mystery to which so far no key has been found. One of the hopes of the expedition is that it will yield legends by which may be traced , the course of migration that led to Meso potamia. The work, of course, will not be done in a single year. The University museum explorers spent 12 years at Nippur. Work is possible in that climate for not more than six months of the year. It will start October 15. Plans have been made to con tinue it, however, and the intention is to excavate to the first record of occupancy at Ur. Nippur never was completely re vealed for all of its races, primarily be cause of the difficulties under which the explorers worked and which have been eliminated for the present expedition. Chief of those is the matter of mechani cal equipment. When Dr. Clarence C. Fisher, curator of the museum's Egyptian section, started work at Beth Shean, in the shadow of Mount Gilboa, where Saul and his sons were slain, he obtained a large quantity of railroad equipment. The Mesopotamia expedition will have a com plete military railway, furnished by the British forces that have been operating in the country. They will have also a fleet of motor trucks from the same source, with which to maintain commu nications with the headquarters that will be established at Bagdad, 160 miles away. When the Ur excavations are started the University museum will be the most active institution of its kind in any coun try with six expeditions at work. One is in Alaska studying the customs of the Indians and making collections of their primitive arts for the museum. Dr. Will iam C. arabee is making a study of ' ancient civilizations and the customs and languages of little-known living tribes in Central America. Another expedition is excavating ruins of extinct races in Peru. Dr. Fisher is directing operations at Beth Shean in Palestine, and also at two sites in Egypt, Memphis and Thebes.