The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1916-12-29

rator since the beginning of the European war.
when Or. Arno Poebel left to join his regiment
at the German front. The Eckley Il. Coke, Jr,
expeditions, which began operations in Egypt in
1889 and have carried them through various
years since, even finding localities of the war
ridden land where they can still operate this year,
have sent back to the museum an incalculable
treasure-trove not only in tablets, but in all kinds
of articles dug up from the dirt layers of Biblical
and pre-Biblica lands.
All this accumulation has not had the attention
it deserved. Doctor Langdons labors will be bent
toward arranging the Babylonian exhibit. The
collection is the largest in the world No other
museum has such q quantity Of sacred Sumerian
documents, which make this the most important
Babylonan collection in the world, even though
1t IL not so large that in the British museum.
The war; which already has done so much dam
age bids fair to rob of this comparative re-
cent achievement the ability to decipher these
tablets which tell Of the lives and histories or
peoples who lived many hundred years ago.
Younger men, like Poebel, at the front and
may never come back; other well-known Egypto-
logists old men.
Not enough young will be left to carry on
the work of translating the ancient cuneiform
writings. When the present scholars pass away
the achievement may die with them and Sumerian-
Akkadian become again dead language, for not
enough young college men proposing to take
up archaeology.
in any university. The University of Pennsyl-
vania museum is exerting every effort to secure
such endowment, that other ntellects of so
high an order as Doctor Langdon's may be en-
couraged and helped to carry on a work similar
to his.
Eckley g. Coke Jr., died in Philadelphia in Sep
TENDER last and left endowment fund Of $780,
600 to carry on the work he has been equpping
expeditions to do in Egypt many years. But
one expedition can only scratch the surface Of the
myriad hills there and the countless buried and
forgotten cities that lie beneath them.
"Our only hope of getting the rest of the tablets
buried there" says Doctor Langdon, ais to go back
to Nippur again and again. and dig for them" En-
dowments for these expeditions another Of the
crying needs of scholars. The world at large will
lose If archaeological excavations and research
have to be abandoned.
There is no doubt that the general public appre-
ciates the work done by museums and by scholars.
To Biblical students alone there is inexhaustble
pleasure and satisfaction to be derived from facts
unearthed Of Biblical and pre-Biblical peoples.
There is now complete agreement among arch
biologists that Hammurabi is that same Amraphel
Of Genesis 14:1, contemporary Of Abraham.
From chronological differences IL follows that
Abraham may well have attended school at the
temple i'm Nippur nay, that he studied these very
books that are now In the University Of Pennsyl-
vanla museum. He may have read there the nc
count OF the creation Why not? The dates dove
tail
"Iet me take out and touch one Of those tab
let's" said religious man recently In the uni
versity Of Pennsylvania museum. 81 believe In
nv heart that the hand of Abraham must have
held any or all of them nearly 5000 years agol"