The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-11-12
ANCIENT CITY UNCOVERED.
striking Discovery on the Road to
Jerusalem.

striking Discovery on the Road to
Jerusalem.
! London Cable in New York Sun.
The quarterly statement of the Pal
| estine exploration fund has a paper
| by Prof MacAlister which marks al
most q new departure in Palestine
archaeology. 1t describes excavations
at Tellejazari on the right of the road
from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The site was
identified as Gezer, the Canaanite city,
the King and people of which were
slain by Joshua.
The excavation revealed four Sc
ries of ancient walls and four layers
of strata, which, putting aside the
buildings of later date, mark the site
of the city as occupied by four diff
ferent sets of inhabitants. The first
and second layers were not always dis
tinguishable. There were three un-
known monoliths fourteen feet high
with smaller ones between, and under
an adjoining pavement were Jars con-
tanning the charred bones of infants,
which would seem to indicate that 1t
was a place of sacrifice, where chill
dren passed through the fire.
Two caves were discovered. One
dating from the first or second city
was 10 by 8 yards and was covered
with layer, sometimes a foot deep,
of human ashes and bones, which 'of-
ten had been imperfectly consumed.
Prof. MacAlister believes that the cave
itself was a crematory and that a later
race, probably that of the third city,
used 1t for the inhumation of bodies,
which were deposited in a crouching
posture all over the floor.
The other cave, which was bell
shaped, had been used as cist by the
occupants of the fourth and latest city,
but it contained six skeletons. Five
persons had been buried. The sixth
was the upper half of a girl who had
been cut in two with a saw, indicating
that she had been a human sacrifice.
The idea was confirmed by the find
ing of the decapitated heads of two
girls of about the same age at the
mouth of the cave.
The bones and the pottery relics dis
covered make 1t possible to assign his
torical positions to the successive oc-
cupants of the city. The older race
was slender and short, none Of them
exceeding 81 inches and most of them
only ga inches in hight. The skulls
were thick and heavy and resembled
those of the earliest occupants of Eu-
rope in the neolithic age. They were
certainly a pre-Semitic race.
The uncremated remains of the in
habitants of the third and perhaps the
fourth city show that they were taller,
the average hight being Sc inches. while
some of them reached II. They were
also more strongly built, their faces
were longer, their noses more promi-
nent and their skulls more circular.
They probably belonged to the earliest
wave of Semitic immigration.
The pottery of the earlier race was
coarse and rude, but that of the later
was of better shape. Neither conforms
to the Egyptian or Phoenician designs.
The jars were of wrought stone and
Clipped flint tools were found. The
pre-Semtic people who burned their
dead were not acquainted with metal
Those who came later and who buried
their dead had good weapons. of copper
and bronze. This is remarkable, as
cremation in Western Europe came In
with the Bronze era.
The site of Gezer was therefore first
Inhabited by an aboriginal race of
Palestine, neolithic people who Gre
mated their dead. and next by prim-
tive Semitic race in the Copper age,
both practicing human sacrifice. Then
there were two later Semitic occupa-
tions. the scarabs indicating that the
former was not less than 1000 years
b. c.
Others relics proved that there was
communication with Egypt, and one
clay cylinder indicates there was direct
or indirect trade with Babylon.