The St. Johns herald., 1891-10-01
OLDER THAN SOLOMON
Ancient Tablets Exhumed in the
 Land of Egypt.
NTissives That Were Passed Between tho |. Kings of Jerusalem and Egypt Four Centuries Before the Birth
 of David. !.

The Smithsonian institution has just received information of the recent dis coverv at Telel-Amaria, in Upper Epvpt. of number of tablets relating to the history of Jerusalem and dating back six hundred years earlier than any records hitherto known. When 1t IS understood that these tablets of stone are letters passed between the King of Jerusalem and the Pharaoh of Egypt four hundred years before the birth ot David, who was the father of Solomon, some notion will be formed of their ex- treme interest. These letters were written, so Dr. Cyrus Adler told writ CT for the Washington Star, about the year 1900 B. C., and cast q great light upon the relations of Egypt at that ancient epoch. This of course was long before Jerusalem was captured by the Jews.
 At that time Palestine was fedora ton of independent cities, each of which. like Jerusalem, was governed by a ..prefect''-this word meaning literal lv liking of city" Nevertheless, these towns paid a tribute to the Pharoah, and it was in relation to this tribute that several of the letters found were addressed to the ruler of Egypt by the king of Jerusalem, Abdi-Taba. In them he tries to explain, with due re- spect, that he occupies more inde- pendent position than the other pre- fleets and ought to be treated according ly. For example, in one nissive he says:
 s'Behold, this city of Jerusalem neith- CT my father nor my mother has giveE unto me, but the call of a mighty King"
 This refers to the ancient custom in Palestine by which rulers were some times chosen in consequence of sup posed divine call and without any ref erence to hereditary law. Having been summoned to his throne by the Deity, Abdi-Taba argued that he should be treated more leniently with regard to tribute. In anotlcr of the letters he says:
 ''Bchold. neither my father nor my mother has appointed me to this place, but the mighty King has made me enter into the house of my fathers"
 That the mighty King" spoken of was the Deity is proved by the fact that to Him as authority is referred an oracle inscribed upon another tablet, which says that: ''As long as a ship sails upon the sea, so long will Mesopotamia and Babylonia conquer"
 The chief aim of the three other let ters written by Abdi-Taba is to ask the Pharaoh for military aid against the foreirn conquerors invading Palestine, and especially the district of Jerusalem. These warlil1e strangers he calls people of Habri-iu other words, they were Hebrews. It seems hardly probable that the Hebrews as a nation should have invaded Palestine at so early a date, and So it iS likely that these were some advanced tribes of Israel which settled down west of the Jordan and made incursions from time to time. In one of his letters on this subject Abdi- Taba says:
 ''The Habri people are conquering the cities of the King"-i. e., the cities tributary to the Pharaoh-''therefore the King may turn His face to His sub- iects and send troops. If the troops ar rive this year the countries of the King, my Lord, may be saved, but ii no troops arrive the countries of the King, my Lord, will exist no longer"
 This tremendous ''find'' at Tel-el, Amaria includes two hundred tablets, largely of Babylonian cuneiform script, which is thus discovered for the first time to have been in use at so early a period in Egypt and Palestine. Many of the other tablets are dispatches o1 about the same date from projects o1 other cities of Palestine to the Pharaoh Some of the inscriptions are in an un known language which no one has SC far been able to translate. It is funny to think that Solomon himself would have looked upon these tablets as re mote antiquities.
 TILE nlIEEM nE HAWAII