Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-09-19
THE SPADES CHANCES.
Nhdrew Lang on the Fascination OF
the Excavator's Lot.


thsr is q being whose lot | sim
eefeiy envy. it is that of the excava-
'ot' Oh Tie man who digs out of the
top crust OF The earth the relies Of an
cieht peoples. The world is his oyster.
"iich ne with spade doth OPEN His
DAYS among the dead are past" To be
sure, out ne has his eye on the future
When some PARKWAY member of his
trade Will dig in the dust heaps OF
London, find an iron shoe scraper ana
puzzle The learned OF his time by saw
ing; What is ths?"
Mr.. Hogarth's account of the onan-
ings of his diggings at JerabIus ON
the Euphrates. proves that the scien-
tific digger's life is not all endowment
The place. called Carchemish of old
was vastly important some three thou
sand years ago. Here two empires met
the Assyrian. of which one can see
plentiful remains in the British Muse
UNI and the Hittite, whose inscriptions
we cannot read, and whose art is a
clumsy and incompetent copy Of the
Assyrian. apparently.
The Assyrians had the better of the
Utilities. and seem to have looted their
pretty things. If they had any pretty
Things, NO golden or agate or ivory or
crystal sword hits, or elaborate silver
boards for playing some such game as
Backgammon, are found at Carehe-
mish. In photogra phs IL looks a kind
OF fossil sea of sandy breakers. with
huge staircases. and a few large ugly
rellefs of human beings and heraldtc
beasts. Yet it was a great capital OF
fertile land on the wide Euphrates
with an empire stretching from the
Black Sea southwark through Asia
Minor. Homer appears to have heard
of it, and TO have called its people Ke-
teiians. Many of them fell in "A battle
that is all We know about them from
him They went to the wars. but
they always fell" though they were
stoutly built persons. Ladies, in their
art. have very thick ankles
Conceive an empire which. as far a.
/ know, has left. of all its wealth. only
one big. ugly royal seal ring, now il
the Ashmolean Museum at oxford
Remember it. when inclined to .thinE
imperialfy''.
Ireland and Scotland were muci
richer in gold many centuries before
the Romans heard of these countries
if we can judge only by what has bee,
found in the dust. found usually b.
quite unscientific explorers.
At Mountfield, in Sussex, we read.
turned golden things
eleven pounds avoirdupois
and the plowman sold them as oil
brass for five shillings and sixpence
In Dublin, at Trinity College you sc
i'm abundance huge collars of gold sue
as Malachi wore, and enormous brace
lets, all of the purest metal. There +
q farm called "The Law in the shriu
of Moray, the name being derived froI
a conicai mound about a hundred an
fifty feet across and fifteen feet higl
Not in the mound, but forty feet apa
from it. the plowman turned up.
1857, about forty great golden ara
rings. / fancy that he was born t.
far north to sell them for five-and-si3
pence' Only four of them We're res
cued for a museum.
The popular belief, says DR. Andes
son. is that Il golden cradle lies buria
in the Law, or large mound; but som
body dug into it, and found only h
man bones in cist, and an urn
clay. Had somebody robbed the mou
long ago. taken the bracelets, burr
them hard by. and never dug them
again? In the burial mounds. for re
sons unknown, only small objects /
usually discovered with the dead
Scotland-never, on almost never, ev
a sword of bronze Were the livt
too canny to bury an object so vail
BILE as sword
1t is thrown in my teeth by
learned who do not share my views I
nowhere in Greece have been found
burial mounds just such things as
mer descrihes--an urn or box OF c
with the ashes of the dead, and, !
baps a mixture of iron and bro
tools aud weapons. Often, no doE
they were stolen long ago; everyb
Knew where to dig for them and in
days, nobody has dug much. or
carefully, in these cairns. 1t does
follow that there were no such bul
as Homer describes. for certainly u
must have been a time when iron
only coming in and bronze had
gone out. But traces of that pei
which could not but exist, in the
| ture of things, have not been dls
| cred. There is, 1 learn from Dr.
derson, nothing unusual in tins aosl
| of evidence There are other per
during which the people must
| been buried in large NUMBERS, anu
there Is hardly a trace LETT OF
lsepulchral remains" There was
time between the age when IRON
lin, in our islands. and the time y
the Romans occupied the country
vet the burials which can be attrih
to that period are but few-and
| not yery satisfactory. There is pl
to be found, dare say.-lllusti
London News.
/ Scattered about Egypt the only