The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-05-31

dab and Israel did not make use OF
written monuments TO celebrate the great
events and great achievements of their
reigns and the conquests of themselves,
and their gods. We have as la:e as
the time of jeremiah. in the seventh CEN
fury B. c.. evidence in the Bible itself
that the Jews were in the habit OF writ
ing business documents on clay and bury
ing them in the ground precisely as the
Babylcnians did. In the Tel el-Amarna
tablets found In Egypt we have the evil
dence that in the fourteenth century B.
c., the predecessors of the Hebrews in
Palestine wrote letters and official docu-
ments on clay tablets. precisely as was
done in Babylonia and Assyria. One clay
tablet and one only has hitherto been
found in Palestine and that written by
the King of Egypt to subject king. Clay
tablets were almost indestructible. If
they are broken. at least one finds the
fragments. With the evidence now at
hand it is evident that such tablets were
used in Palestine both among the Can
naanites. who preceded the Israelites,
and also at a later date among the Is
raelites themselves. 1t would seem that
somewhere we must find the remains of
such tablets containing the same sort of
contemporary information which the tab
lets discovered in Babylonia and Assyria
have revealed regarding the history. the
religious. social ard economic life of the
people.
In conclusion 1 may refer TO one of the
curious and rather characteristic archae-
illogical discoveries of Palestine made
last year. The German Roman Catho-
lies as previously stated. have acquired
land to the north of Jerusalem on the
Damascus road. and commenced excava-
lions for building. There had been found
previously at this place huge stone.
rectangular oblong, evidently sepulchral
monument About this were rock-cut
graves the place of which seemed to
have been marked by a huge stone The
German excavations have shown that at
at later date this stone became the core
of built monument, perhaps pyramidal
in form. part of the lower steps of which.
finely cut and well-set blocks of hard
limestone are still in place. Later some
sort of chapel with crypt beneath was
built adjoining this monument TO the
east This crypt proved to be full of dead
bodies. The floor consisted of graves
placed as close to one another as was
possible. rubble and plaster walls separ-
ating them. In each grave were a num-
Der of dead bodies laid one upon another.
as many as ten in one grave, / believe.
The graves were closed with slabs. form
ing the pavement of the crypt. When
the graves were all filled UP the floor
of the crypt was used for purposes of
burial, and bodies were laid on the floor
and piled one upon another. In one cor
ner the pile of bones and skeletons rose
to a height of about eight feet I am told
Some of the bodies at the very top were
supposed TO have been Saracens; and y
number of the skeletons in the top STRAIT,
UNI showed wounds-holes through the
skulls and the like The objects found
with the bodies showed that the burials
commenced somewhere not later than in
the fifth century B. c., and went on
apparently TO the close of the Crusad-
ing period. Now in this immediate neigh
borhood stod after the Moslem conquest
a great hospice for pilgrims visiting Je-
rusalem. Probably this was but the con-
tinuance of a hospice which had existed
earlier at the same place. and to exist
until the close of the CruSadng period.
What the Germans found was the NOR
tuary chapel of this hospice. with crypt
beneath for the burial os pilgrims dying
on the visit to the holy city. similar in
its purpose to the Aceldama valuts in
the valley of Hinnon, south of Jerusalem
But the monument in front OF this NOR
tuary chapel belonged to an earlier date.
Aox -
one OF those sepUlchral monuments which
Josephus ills US were so numerous about
Jerusalem in the first century A d. This
monument again. it will be observed. en-
close dan older monument and grave,
which may well go back TO the Hebrew
period. This little discovery is in itself
a fair epitome of the history of Pales->
tine and the changes by which succeed
ing ages have utilized and often destroy
ed the monuments Of their predecessors.