The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1917-02-01
LET THERE BE LIGHT"
Day Will Come When History of
Early Man Will Be Revealed.

has Deen a sealed DOOk. f1lStOFldus
could only go back as far as the be-
ginning of the angular or modern
handwriting. The archives of the
Greeks and Hebrews was the source
of the major part of what We call
ancient history, but it is far from be-
ing ancient; in fact from an archaeo-
logical viewpoint it is modern his
tory. From the light Of the goth
century there begins to be made
plain the secrets of the past, lost for
ages beneath the sands Of time.
Archaeologists have now begun to
wonder at what remote period and
how primal man did record his
thoughts and actions. What signs or
symbols did he employ? 1t surely
was not the engraving on stone and
clay tablets the cuneiform characters
employed by number of ancient
people scattered in several different
parts of the world; surely not when
the Egyptian with picture language
on pillar and palisade, on obelisk and
tomb, made those mysterious char
acters of animated life represent
sounds and words. From the light
now before us the age of the cunei-
form and hieroglyphic was the mid
way between the beginning of which
we know nothing and the angular or
modern way of writing. Four times
we are sure has the mode of writing
changed in the Nile delta.
When in recent years the secret of
the cuneiform and hier!oglyphics was
made plain, then did a part of the
past, the long dead past, come to life.
Some of these writings have been de-
ciphered, the art is fully known, and
makes interesting reading; not the
cultured kind; no fights of fancy, no
beautiful sentiment, no grandilo-
quence, no scraping of the stars, no
bombast, no romance, but plain and
lucid, short and terse, to the point,
always, boiled down, with nothing
superfuous. Yet it exposed man as
man was then as man is now. In
him there has been no individual
change. He was the genus homo
then as now. His life was the same,
his passions the same, his laws, his
living, his all was the same as now.
Centuries have past, generation after
generation has gone to the dust, but
in man himself there has been no
change.
The man who began to pick up
fragments of what man was and
what man wrote some 5000 years
ago believes that the long lost secrets
of the past must soon be made plain.
Archaeology is making wonderful
strides, for now it's devotee has a
lamp to his feet; those symbols so
long unknown have rendered up
their meaning and each year there
opens new and wider avenues in the
dim vista's of the long ago. From
temples and tombs, from mural tab
lets and blocks of clay, found deep
down in the sands of time, are being
exhumed and their secrets worked
out, and we of today are holding
communion, literary seance, spir-
itualistic, perhaps mentalistic con-
verse with the shades of the crowned
heads of learning of some so CEN
turies ago.
Rich indeed are those finds made
in that part of Asia and Africa known
as the Near East, comprising Assy-
ria, Babylonia, Egypt and other
places of ancient note. Much has
been found, but it is safe to say that
the greatest surprises are ahead.
One day when the Sphinx shall have
had the sands removed from around
and about it, this the most gigantic
piece of sculpture art, once a solid
living stone 200 feet long, so feet
high and 40 feet wide, representing
in one solid mass 100000 cubic feet,
weighing more than 4O,OOO,OOO
pounds, the greatest mystery OF the
ages, will be explored and beneath 1t
will be found many, if not all the
secrets of the lost art of Egypt and
the East; beneath it will be found
the greatest temple of all times, left
intact with it's treasures of hidden
secrets of more value to modern man
than was the Alexandrian library so
ruthlessly destroyed by Caliph Omar.
On what base such declaration!
From minor towns and cities, where
the landmarks are small and insig-
nificant, there are being brought TO
light valuable finds in modest and
unpretentious temples. The SPHINX
evidently was "the watchmaI on the