The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-01-06

rator since the beginning of the European war
when Dr. Arno POebel left to join his regiment
at the German front The Eckley B. Coke. Jr-
expeditions, which began operations in Egypt in
1889 and have carried them through various
years since, finding localities OF the war
ridden land where they still operate this year,
have sent back to the museum incalculable
treasuretrove not only in tablets but in all kinds
Of articles dug up from the dirt layers of Biblical
and pre-BiblicaI lands.
All this accumulation has not had the attention
it deserved. Doctor Langdon's Iabors will be bent
toward arranging the Babylonian exhibit The
collection is the largest in the world. No other
museum has such a quantity OF sacred Sumerian
documents, which make this the most important
BabylOnan collection in the world, even though
1t is not large that in the British museum
The war; which already has done 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 histor IS Of
peoples who lived many hundred years ago.
Younger men, like PoebeI. at the front and
may come back; other wel-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 a dead language. for not
enough young college men are proposing TO take
up archaeology
I'm any university. The University Of Pennsyl-
vania museum is exerting every effort to secure
such an endowment, that other inteilects OF so
high an order as Doctor Langdon's may be en-
couraged and helped to carry a work similar
to his.
Eckley B. Coke. Jr. died in Philadelphia in Sep
TENDER last and left an endowment fund of $780,
600 to carry on the work he has been equipping
expeditions to do in Egypt many years. But
one expedition 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. lis to go back
to Nfppur again and again. and dig for them"
dowments for these expeditions anotherI,I 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-
cfates the work done by museums and by scholars.
To Biblical students alone there is inexhaustible
pleasure and satisfaction be derived from facts
unearthed Of Biblical and pre-Bibcal peoples.
There is now complete agreement among arch
biologists that Hammurabi is that same Amraphei
of Genesis 14:1. a contemporary Of Abraham
From chronological differences it follows that
Abraham may well have attended school al the
temple in Nippur; nay. that he studied these very
books that are now in the University of PennsyI-
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 a religious recently in the Uni
versity OF Pennsylvania museum 81 believe in
my heart that the hand OF Abraham must have
held any all Of them nearly 5000 years agoi"