The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-11-21

which at the elbows are free from the
body, its location when found, and the
archaic character Of its inscription,
all point to date not far from $500
B. c., and Justify the assertion that at
that remote age Babylonian civi!iza-
ton was at its highest point. The
brief inscription, containing mass Of
the information for which We had
been seeking gave "Emach" as the
name of the temple. "Udnun" as the
city, in "Daud" or David as the Sum
erian King whom the statue repre-
sents. The names of the temple and
city appeared on the recently dis
covered Hammurabi Code but the
name of the King was unknown ex-
cepting as that of the Hebrew David,
who lived $500 years later.
Excavations in the upper strata of
the temple hill resulted in the unique
discovery of the evolution of the
brick. The earliest of all bricks
found in the lowest strata were merely
sun-dried Jumps of clay, and it APP
pears that bricks were not burned un-
til about $500 B. c., the date given to
those Of piano-convex shape. Such
bricks are fiat on the bottom where
they are placed on the ground to dry,
and placed on the ground to dry, and
rounded upon the top, and instead of
being laid fat, they were set upon
edge, herring-bone fashion, and ce-
mented with clay or bitumen. The
inscription which characterized the
bricks of later period had not yet
appeared but the Kings who employ
ed the plano-convex bricks conceived
/ the idea of giving them a distinguish
/ ing mark by pressing the thumb into
the clay before it was baked. That
! thumb mark was the origin of the
brick inscription. In $500 B. C. Sar-
gon adopted the large, square brick,
! the form of which continued to the
end of the Babylonian Empire and he
appears to have been the first to en-
ploy an inscription. Bismya yielded
three brick stamps of Naram Sin, the
son of Sargon Each was inscribed
"Naram Sin, the builder of the temple
of the goddess Ishtar." This long
series of bricks discovered at Bismya,
as in number, not only shows the evo-
luton Of the brick, but presents the
archaeologist with a clew to the
chronology Of the earliest Babylonian
ruins, enabling hif to tell at glance
the relative dates.
It has long been a theory that the
early jewellers of Mesopotamia burn
ed their dead, for though Babylonian
graves have been found in abundance
they date from toward the close Of
! the empire. At the south corner of
the Bismya temple tower we came
upon an oval chamber, which had
originally been covered with a dome.
At one Of its ends was circular plat
form about six feet in diameter with
pit beneath 1t four feet deep. AS
the pit was cleared, it was found to
contain two feet of ashes mixed with
1.-THE sand which had sifted in. The
smoke marks upon the adjoining wall
| and the terrific heat to which the
bricks of the PLATFORM had been sub
jected, marked 1t as a crsmatory The
body to be eremated was placed upon
a platform; flames from a furnace in
an adjoining room, passing thrc Ugh
a fiue, consumed the bodies, and the
smoke passed out through a vent
above. The ashes unmied with the
ashes Of the furnace, were either
gathered for burial in urns or swept
into the pit below This crematory
which was duplicated in a second
chamber near by, explains the absence
of early Babylonian graves.
The excavations at Bismya have
given us our first picture of the life
Of the Babylonian Of 5000 years
ago. The statue of David tells us
that his head and face were shaved,
that his garment was a skirt hanging
to the knees, and that his feet were
bare. The temple tells us tha
his highly ritualistic religion re.
CURED offerings to the gods and
goddesses, that the dead Kings were
venerated and, perhaps, deified and
that the cremation of the dead in the
temple was possibly regarded as re-
llgious rite
In the eastern parts OF the ruins
which marks the residential portion OF
the city little remained save the
foundations of houses, and scattered
implements. AS in every age in Me-
sopotamia, few houses possessed
more than q single room. The thick
walls Of mud-brick admitted the light
only through the doorway. The
height did not exceed single story
and the roof was probably fiat. Earth
served as flooring, and the only re-
naming furniture Is an occasional
divan Of mud-bricks built along the
wall. In the larger houses a cisterr
Of clay was built into the floor anC
then as now it was the duty Of hte
daughters of the family to fill the
earthen Jars with the water of the
canal in the plain below and bring /
to the cistern. Frequently, too, {
house was provided with a system o.
drainage which speaks we'll for the
sanitary ideas of that age. Although
5000 years old, the city was bull
upon the ruins of others far older
The sewage was not allowed to hui
down the sloping sides Of the mound
| as in modern Oriental towns, but, YER
teal drains constructed Of tile ring
were sunk through the earlier ruin
to the desert sand below-sometime
distance of 80 feet. AS we uncov
cred the drains we sometimes founC
one which was in as good condition al
when the city was deserted. Now an'
then we came upon an old oven ii
which the housewife Of 60 centuries
ago baked her bread. 1t was built III
of clay like huge jug, with an open
ing at the top and a small hole at tn
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