The Washington times., 1918-07-28

cause the wild Arabs of Southern Baby
lonia barely acknowledged the rule Of the
Sultan, and preyed upon any unwary trav-
eIlers who were so foolish as to come that
way.
Matters promise very differently as a re-
suit of the war. Great Britain has been
forcing her way through Mesopotamia. and
under her rule will come peace and pro-
lection for Europeans and Americans as
well as for the native Arabs, who will be
compelled to become law-abiding. The
prospect is therefore most encouraging
for some splendid work at Ur and other
sites in that important district, the very
moment that peace is secured. The ready
spade of the excavator will be at work at
the earliest possible moment and from
the dry sands and lofty mounds Of these
ruins may come new revelations of the life
and literature of the third fourth and
possibly the fifth millennium before the
Christian Era For Abraham lived about
21OO B. c., and that was by no means the
beginning of Babylonian civilization and
culture.
From that ancient time will come, ac-
cording to Professor Langdon, DR.. Sayce
and other scholars, the great original tab
lets on which the first Of the Babylonian
priests wrote down their tale of the del
uge, mans early attempt to solve the prob
lem of sinners and righteous men on earth.
In the later version and copies already
translated we know that the Babylonian
Noah built his ark, took aboard his fam
lily and the animals which were to be kept
alive. and that he sent forth a raven and a
dove, just as the Noah of the Bible did.
But how much closer the older version will
come to the Bible narrative, we do not
know II ii is found, however, it will go
far toward establishing the fact that Abra-
ham took the story with him when he emi-
grated to Palestine, and that in the Prom
ised Land the story was worked over, and
preserved, until it reached the hands of
Moses. and other editors. many genera
tions afterward
New discoveries that back up and sup
port a remarkable prophecy made two
years ago by DR.. Stephen Herbert Lang
don, one of the worlds foremost Sumerian
scholars, have Just been made at the Mu-
scum Of the University of Pennsylvania
in the translation of ancient cuneiform
tablets written in the dynasty of Isin, but
based on the religious practices of still
earlier period in Babylonian history DR..
Langdon is now serving with the British
army in France. Before he left this coun-
try he was curator of the Babylonian Sec
tion Of the University Museum and he is
also a tutor of Jesus College, Oxford.
For the best part of lifetime Dr. Lang
don has been studying and translating
the cuneiform tablets of the worlds earli-
est civilization, from Nippur and other cities
of ancient Babylonia, once inhabited by
the Sumerians, in the British Museum and.
in more recent years, the University Mu-
scum. His and other discoveries of tablets
in the Temple library Of Nippur and in the
library Of Asurbanipal have given to the
world volumes of information within the
last decade OF the earliest civilization of
which written record has been found
But in the reading of these tablets, some
of them fully five thousand years old, DR..
Langdon found so many references to earl
Ter works that little less than two years
ago he became convinced that the great