The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-11
BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS.
,pprR HOLDS KEY TO THE BEGIN
NINGs OF HISTORY.

vears Old Telling of LugalzaSSisi,
.be First World ConquerOr-Exca-
cations Where n Depth of Ten
Feet Marks Centuries.
From Ainslee's Magazine.
colreb. or Ancient Kippur, where ex-
oovations by the University of Pennsylva-
,io are now being made, lies at the bot
top, Of a great sand dune in Mesopotamta
that is. ancient Babylonia. and to-day
Nav 19OO-a party of Psychologists is delv-
inc through the debris of 1000 years for
the records that were made contempora
r,aous TO old-time reckoning of the deluge.
From the marshy plain surrounding Cal
neb the sand dune looks little like the
kew 10 the beginnings of history. Stand
ing amid a ciump of Arab mud huts
where the horses are st5ll of native
strain. and the men still use matchlocks
inlaid with Arabesques, one might fight
a mighty whirlwind of the desert stagger-
ing across the wastes picking up sand I'M
iii II could carry no more and collapsing,
finally. on the site of the ancient city.
But in that huge mound are tunnels lead
ing in and down, and deep riffs and pits
and projecting walls of ancient cities, and
platforms of baked clay, and stone stair
ways up which to-day hundreds of Arab
porters are carrying baskets of sand.
From the summit of the pile one can look
afsr off to the sun just cleaning above the
horizon of the twentieth century, and
then walk slowly down toward the begin
nings of civilization. Walk as slowly as
YOU may, and at the first dozen steps of
descent you have passed the level of the
Cnristan era. The baked clay to the right
of YOU was placed there by Ashurbanapal
king more than 600 years before Christ. A
few steps further and at your feet are the
markings of Kadashman-Turgu 400 b. C.
Down again, further, and you are walking
on a platform laid in the time of Ur-Gur
centuries before Abraham, the founder
of the Jewish nation was born. Down,
still further down, only few feet, and
you are standing on the temple plat
form laid by Sargon I. and Narm Sin,
$500 B. C.-Sargon whose existence even
Biblical scholars have said was mythical
Sargon, whose name, nevertheless, is
stamped in every brick. Finally, through
hole broken In this platform, you may
look down past thirty feet of debris to
the site of ancient Nippur or Calneh and
see the fragments of arches, sacrificial
urns and affairs built at least 4,5OO B. C.
The Septuagint, written $50 B. c., places
the creation of the world at about $500;
and with this in mind, it is difficult in the
nineteenth century to gaze upon these
evidences of mans handiwork and realize
that the workmen lived more than 1000
years ago. And yet this is by no means
the strangest feature, for the records of
these worknen show that they lived not
within comparatively few generations of
the beginning of the world, but that they
we're part of a civilization as highly de-
veloped as that of the Greeks; that men
carried on the business of life in man
ner and with ambitions and desires not
very different from those of our time,
and that, most remarkable of all this
time, and that, most remarkable of all,
this stale of affairs had then been going
on for many thousands of years. Evil
oence of all this is found stamped on the
tablets and vases which are being I'M
earthed to-day from the ruins of Calneh.
1t is wonderful story, which probably
has a more important bearing on the be-
ginning and end of human life than any
thing else recently discovered.
Prof. Hilprecht has been constantly find
ing fragments of tablets, of vases of
urns of sarcophagi etc, each fragment
Inscribed with some enlightenihg fact or
perhaps with some puzzling statement,
the meaning of which was not ascertained
until LATER. He was able, at times, to cor
roborate many historical statements con-
corning kings before Christ, and at 9TH
ers to fill completely many gaps in The
long line of succession until they traced
back to the days OF Ur-Gur, $500 B. c.,
Narim Sin and his father, Sargon l., $500
- G., ana to fifteen kings who lived pre-
Yious to Sargon. 1t was in the temple area
mat the fragmentary evidence of these
rulers was found. The temple was the
Temple of Bel or Inlil around which the
religion of Nippur had conferred 1t is Gu
nous however. that in The three or four
strata marked by the successive platforms
of the temple everything was in sucn a
fragmentary condition. 1t was some time
before the Investigators succeeded in
learning that this damage was the result
OF a raid by the Elimites, who came down
from the north about 22OO B. g, and sack
&c Nippur. They Carried away to Elm
every article of value which they could
take. What they could not take they
bfcke into pieces and scattered. The proof
OF this Is that some of the spoil of this
ancient raid is to-day being dug up on the
Site Of old Susa.
The First Worlds COnqueror.
Among the. fragments of pre-Sargonic
times is one which told of a king, Enshag-
shur-ana, and his achievements in de-
iehdlng kengi from the enmty of the
city OF Kish The significance of this and
other fragments of similar character, how
ever, was never realized so much as when
NNAo COudleu WIN IndL great ma
winch revealed the existence of one of the
greatest men of ancient time-King Lugal-
Iagglsi the conqueror of the world. The
fragments were found in the sanctuary
OF the temple. The fragments were parts
OF vases scattered and broken, sometimes
INTO the very smallest of pieces. But when
properly placed together they revealed the
longest inscription yet deciphered con-
corning the fourth and fifth millenniums
IS Z. The deciphering of this inscription
must must nave been stupendous task. Prof
Hilprecht says:
Inc text was restored by myself from
eIghty-eight fragments of sixty-four diff
Ierent vases under the most trying cir
cuInstances. The work was just as much
mathematical task as 1t was palace
tlaphlcal and pathological problem. On
Iho OASIS of photographed evidence
4 selected $50 pieces out of a
Ueap OF 600 fragments and par
ICES, Then succeeded in plae-
Ius nVe fragments together, whereby
obtained the beginning and ends of each
SOlIihn. Then followed the tedi-
Jus work of arranging the little frag-
nlents and determining their exact posi-