Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1909-05-08
5UNCOVERING BABYLON.
Isaiah Proves More Trustworthy
Than Herodotns.
.S-ES HE Germans are taking Babylon

4 S1eIllldllo A'ehpy
| out of the dust and proving
| Isaiah more trustworthy than
\ ifIsT Herodotus, the father of his
tory.
/ We crossed desolate plain ribbed
| With mounds of clay and scanned with
trenches-the remains of ancient irri-
cation canals--and came to q hill
swarlning with Arabs. They. ran to and
! fro like ants, carrying baskets of earth
to little wagons on a little railway. and
in tho midst Of them was the queen
sant-n white man in a. white suit Tie
chief of the exploration party, a genial
German scholar, received us with hos
| pitality begottcn OF solitude and g.
| warm heart.
| In Mesopo tamia every form of Ger;
man activity is suspect and coored by
! the 3agdad railway. But in Babylon
| at any rate, the shovel and pick are
their only weapons, and their one am,
bition is to make q plan showing the
i shape and size of the city founded by
1 yNlmrpd, the mighty hunter before the
Lord. 1t Is the misfortune OF Ger
mans that they came late into the
brotherhood of nations, and that even
1 hero they must be content to CLEAN
where others have i1eaped, for, the spoils
of Babylon and Nineyeh are garnered in
London and Paris. But & the Germans
| cannot discover libraries and treasures
/ of gold and silver they call uncover
4 the foundations of houses and palaces
I and temples and give us architectural
4 drawings Of the city that did make the
| earth to tremble."
4 The chief put on skull cap, took a
| staff in his hand, and led us forth.
/ And this is Babylon-"the glory of
Il NJ mo ri fP nCx,
| like rude graves, in which city lies
/ ccfined on city Dig among ruins so
/ feet deep and you come to water, and
! under the water to the remnants of an
i other83OoO years. The foundations alone
/ renlain--one above the other, line upon
line in orderly succession, forswllen one
4 city was RACED to- the ground another
had no stone, and built of brick, burnt!
and sun dried; they had no mortar. and
used pitch poured upon rushes between.
the layers OF brick. The PUSHES are.
gray dust. like the }ashes9of a fire, but
the imprint Of them on the pitch is
1 clear after thousands Of years,
4 . THE TOWER OF Babel.
r"Tho tower Of Babel stood there"
said our leader, pointing his staff to a
/ yellow pool in n deep hole. ct was
/ built OF brick $50 feet square. The
Arabs have stolen the casing of burnt,
\ bricls-which was 46 feet thick-to
build their. houses. The core Of sun
dried bricks has melted away, and only
the foundation remains under the wa
4 ter. This is the famous tower of
Birs Nimrod, which you see on the
| horizon, and was built by a king of
| olden time to fight the gods with their
| lightning
Shall scatter more OF the airy
| phantasies that gather about the name
! of Babylon? Shall rake in the dust
| heaps and drag forth bones and bricks
and give you dimensions of walls and
depths of foundations? Mol These
| things, and many more besides, are
| written in the chronicles of the
| Deutschen t-Gescllschaft zu Be,.-
lin. Let us leave them there and join
the procession in the stately avenue
| which runs through the city from north
| to south.
Nebuchadnezzar--the biggest adver-
| tiser of the age, for his name is stamp
| ed on every brick of Babylon, and may
be read to this days going to wor-
| ship Merodach, the champion Of tho
| gods, whose temple is set III tile midst
of the city. Followed by courtiers and
! slaves bearing gifts in vessels of gold,
the king walks along the broad. paved
| avenue between walls painted with
| bulls and horned griffins. He enters by
| the brazen gates, and salutes the mes
senger of the gods who stands at tho
threshold of the temple with winged
| feet poised for fight. Through the
central court he passes into the sane
tuary, and bowling low before the
| golden image Of Nlerodach prays that
| his days may be long and guiltless In
the sight of the exalted godhead
While the king is at prayer we will
visit the record office and turn over tho
! tablets of baked clay ranged upon
| shelves and labeled as in u library
| Here are tablets inscribed with oneas
with reports of ambassadors and as
| trologers, of warriors and travellers,
with letters from kings and hymns to
| the gods, with deeds for the sale aud
transfer of house, land, and slave, dis
solutions of partnership. and loans of a