The Cook County herald., 1905-09-02
!. OLDEST CITY In THE WORLD
Adab Located Region Where Always Placed
>~#. the Garden Of =#% .<@.%#>=

-. -
when Babylon was in it's infancy. It
was, like Ur of the Chaldeans, city
OF the tabled olden times, whenaK
murabi began his reign in Babylon
24OO years before the birth of Christ.
For years-back, in fact, to 1877,
when the work of exploration and dis
covery began to give startling results
at Babylon and Nineveh-the field uf
more ancient human occupation in
Southern Babylonia, down near where
the remains of great canals and colos-
sal mounds mark the sites of vast Gre
ations and activities, of which there
is no historic chronicle, has been the
desire of all explorers. Since the brief
work at Ur a score of years ago that
yielded priceless treasures, the
mounds at Mukayer have possessed an
intense allurement for oriental schol-
ars.
But the very eagerness with which
buried walls of Ur and unearth it's
hidden secrets has defeated the aims
of the explorers.
For fifteen years Prof. Banks has
been one of those who desired to
probe the mysteries of the mounds of
Ur. In 1891 he secured the position
of United States consular agent at
Bagdad, in the hope that it would
bring to him the coveted opportunity.
To his disgust he found that members
OF the consular service were forbidden
to do work of exploration within the
Turkish dominions. He therefore re-
turned to this country
Three years ago Prof. Banks went
to Constantinople to seek authority
from the Turkish government to open
the mounds at the Moor city," hav-
ing organized many influences in sup
port of his petition.
1t was only after two and a. half
years of waiting and striving that
Prof. Banks was able to get permit
| through the intricate channels Of Of
ficialdom in Turkey and Mesopotamia,
to work on the unidentified mounds
south of Nippur.
Here he has now made the discov.
cry of perhaps SURPRISING Importance
in uncovering the temple of a city
that was closely linked to ancient Nip
pur, and which lies further south
within the narrow circle of the earliest
known civilization of the world.
In fact, Prof. Banks discovery is
of four temples, one superimposed
| above the ruins of the other, indicat-
ing the immense antiquity of the city
as we'll as the vicisitudes it underwent
in the contests of ancient sovereign
ties in this valley of primitive COM
munities.
From the brief descriptions received
it is known that the temple unearthed
by Prof Banks is in all essential re-
spects similar to those brought to
light elsewhere in Babylonia-in fact,
similar to the 'ToWer of Babel" the
ruins of which were identified as the
mound Birs Mimrud at Borsippa, and
the ruined building at Babylon now
fully exposed that Nebuchadnezzar
named the Tower of Babylon" the
great Temple of Belus.
The temple consists of several solid
brick platforms, reared one above the
other, each successive story being
smaller than the one beneath it. A
! staircase or inclined plane leads from
! the shelf of one story to the next, with
shrines on the shelves or in inches
in the walls, the shrine of the chief
deity being in small building at the
| top. To give beauty to the structure
the exterior was coated with enameled
brick and roofs were supported by
| tree trunks sheathed with FURNISHED
metal. Buttresses and palisades sup
porting the platforms gave further
variety to the architecture.
The work has but just begun at
Adab. In the debris of the older tenn
pies have been found marble statues,
onyx and sandstone lamps and many
! bronze articles, but when the earth
! has been removed from some palace
Of the city, of which the eloquent
mounds indicate there are many, the
! disclosures it will yield of the life
of this remotely ancient people can
! be hopefully conjectured from the
wonderful discoveries and achieve
ments of recent explorations in this
land of the dawn of humanity.-New
York World.