The Washington herald., 1908-01-05

place It involved determining whether the
temple had been erected in Syene, as
some fancied, or on the island itself as
believed. I can now report the vindi-
cation Of my hypothesis.
The digging lasted four months. II
was tough job, and at first pretty dis
heartening. so far as my special obiec-
tive was concerned 1 found German
expedition there ahead of me and al
ready burrowing In the most promising
and most accessible part of the site.
Let me add, however. that we had pleas
ant relations with DR.. Rubensohn and
his colleagues.
For the first two months only Egyp-
tian and Greek specimens. Finally to-
ward the end of our campaign We had
the luck to dig straight into the ghetto.
There, to my inexpTessible Joy, we un-
earthed quantity of ostraca covered
with Jewish Aramaic inscriptions gen
orally on both front and back These
texts-of rare interest despite their mu-
tilation-belOnged to the intimate. daily
correspondence between the Jews of
Elephantine and their coreligonists of
Syene. They dated from the same per
iOd as the papyri. Same writing, same
language. Moreover, in signatures and
addresses, there appeared the same peo-
pie that the papyri had made known.
Likewise there appeared the name Of
jehovah spelled in a hitherto unfamiliar
way. When these ostraca are fully de-
ciphered. they viii teach us a lot of
new and curious things.
To Continue Excavations.
The torEid heat forced us to stop dig
ging lastFApril. just as our excavations
work in few weeks thanks to fresh
funds provided by the Academic the
ministry. and NJ Edmund de R0ths-
child. Certain. hencef0rth, that we are
rummaging in the ghetto and not else
where. I propose 10 explore 1t eXhaus-
lively and to try to solve the most i'm
portant part of the problem which con-
Germs the temple OF Jehovah. we are
quite crazy 20 get at 1t,
A discovery made by the German ex-
pedItion has just turned up data Of the
highest value. DR. Rubensohn has col
lected new Jewish Aramaic papyri. three
of which have been translated by Prof
Sachau. of Berlin. The principal one is
an extraordinarily interesting official
document. It plunges us straight into
Bible history and throws flood OF light
upon all these tattered documents of
Elephantine.
II is a petition dating from the twen-
tieth day of the month Marhesouan,,of
the seventeenth year Of the reign OF
Darius (4OS 3. c. and addressed 10 Ba-
gOhi, Persian governor of Judea, by
YedOnyah and his colleagues. priests at
Elephantine, in the name of all the Jew
ish inhabitants OF that city. After call
ing down upon the head of BagOhi 0n
phrases identical with those of the Turin
papyrus) the blessings of the God Of
gods" and after expressing wishes that
he may retain the favor of Darius and
all the royal family. the petitioners set
forth the following facts: Three years
before, in the absence of Arsam. satrap
of Egypt, who was called into the kings
presence-the Egyptian priests Of the
god KhnOum at Elephantine, intrigued
with Ouidrang, the local governor. and
got from him an order instructiRg the
military chieftain at Syene to go and
destroy the temple Of Jehovah. on the
Island Of Elephantine.
Great Temple Is Destroyed.
This temple. say they, had been built
by their fathers long ago. II was in ex-
istence when Cambyses conquered Egypt
He respected it, though he had all the
Egyptians temples demolished. Accord
ing to the description they incidentally