The Monticellonian. [volume] (Monticello, Ark.) 1870-1920, 1916-12-28

rator since the beginning of the European war,
when DR.. Arn0 Poebel left to join his regiment
at the German front. The Eckley b. Coke Ir,
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 incaculable
treasarerove not only in tablets but in all kinds
of articles dug up from the dirt layers of Biblical
and pref Biblical tands
All this accumulation has not had the attention
It deserved. Doctor Langdon's abors will be bent
toward arranging the #Babylonian exhibit The
collection the largest in the world. No other
museum has such quantity of sacred Sumeran
documents, which make this the most important
EabYIenian collection in the=word, even though
it is not so large rs 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 decpher these
tablets which tell of the lives and histories of
peoples who lived many hundred years ago
Younger men like Poebel. at the front and
may come back; other well-known Egypto-
Iogsts are old men.
Not enough young men will be left to carry on
the work of transatng the ancient cuneiform
writings When the present scholars pass away
the achievement may die with them and Sumeran-
Akkadian become again a dead language, for not
enough young college men are proposing to take
up archaeology.
There is today no endowed seat of Assyriology
in any university The University of Pennsyl-
vana museum is eXerting every effort to secure
such endowment. that other intellects of so
high an ORDER Doctor Langdons may be en-
couraged and helped to carry a work similar
to his
Eckley B. Coke Jr. died in Philadelphia in Sep
tember last and left an endowment fund of $780,
600 to carry on the work he has been equippng
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. ''S to 90 back
to Nippur again and again, and dig for them" En-
d0wmentS 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 inexhaustbe
pleasure and satisfaction to be derived from facts
unearthed of Biblical and pre-Bihllcal peoples.
There is complete agreement among arch
biologists that Hammurabi is that same Amraphel
of Genesis AL. contemporary of Abraham.
From chronological differences It follows that
Abraham may we'll have attended school at the
temple in Nippur; nay that he studied these very
books that are now in the University of Pennsyl-
vania museum. He may have read there the
count of The creation. Why not? The dates dove
tail.
Let me take out and touch of those tab
let's said religious man recently in the Uni
versity Of Pennsylvania museum. 81 believe in
my heart that the hand of Abraham must have
held any or all of them nearly 5000 years ago"