The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-03

THE late President Harper of the
university of Chicago once said that
Rabvlonian excavations had thrown
more light on the Bible and the early
history of the Semitic peoples than
had come from all other sources in the
PREVIOUS eighteen centuries. In the
last few years a great deal of light
has also been thrown upon Biblical
literature by the study of Egyptian
archaeology.
Much that has been learned through
excavation and archaeological study
in Egypt and Babylonia and Palestine
has confirmed the Biblical narratives
regarding incidents which have some
times been called in question. These
researches have also brought out facts
that reveal how far advanced in
knowledge of the arts and of what
we now call science some of these
neople of early days were and how
even the 'grafters" of our own time
had their prototypes in people whose
history is told in monuments erected
many centuries before the Christian
era
THE FIRST CRATER.
The first CRATER Of whom the exca-
waited tables of ancient Babylonia tell
us existed in the time of Hammurabi.
King of Shinar and sixth King of
Babylon, who is believed to have ante
dated Abraham. This monarch starr
ed the first graft investigation OF,
record. That the woman's rights
movement Is not very new is suggest
ed by q marriage contract consider
ably over 1000 years old discovered in
tomb near Cairo, Egypt. and now
in the collection of the Toledo (O.)
Museum of Art. The woman's rights.
movement had even then acquired
much strength, as it was stipulated in
this contract that in case of a separa-
ton the husband might take but one
third of the valuables the couple
should have acquired during the time
of their marriage. In other respects
the contract indicated that the ancient
could furnish pointers to
the legislators of to-day as to divorce
laws giving the gentle sex the best
of the situation.
RELICS OF PAST AGES.
Six thousand years seem a good long
time. 1t is not such a very great while
ago that people generally believed the
earth itself to be only that old. But
in excavations made within the past
five years in the ruins of Bismaya, in
the heart of Babylonia. a large library
Of clay books was found which told
some very interesting things, when
their inscriptions were decipherea,
about what folks did and how they !
lived some $500 years ago. There |
were several thousand of these PRINT
tive books. Many of them were de-
voted to business transactions. They |
to the ledgers, the deecs.
the mortgages and other recorded evil /,
dences of business operations which !
are common in our own time. The
leading business man of that day seal
ed his documents with a beautifully !
seal cylinder, of which ne
thought so much that he sometimes
caused II TO De inferred Win MIN IN
his grave. In the larger houses OF /
a system of drainage was In
stalled which may perhaps be regard I
ed as the direct progenitor of the I
sewerage system prevalent in the up
to date communities of our time In
the houses were clay ovens and els Z
terms. Toy animals have been founo
on the floors with which the children
Of 5000 years ago amused themselves,
They We're the Teddy bears of that
era. One relic discovered in Baby +
oman home is declared to be a babys
rattle.
THE SUMERIANS.
The original inhabitants of this an
,ient Babylonian city were of the peu- :
pie called by the archaeologists Sum-