Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1918-08-04

pressed bricks In cuneltorm characters.
Nebuchadnezzars degenerate son and successor
plunged into such disspaons in spite of Daniels wise
warnings, that he brought ruin upon himself The Bible
relates that in the great banquetng hall of his father
belshazzar, the King, made great feast to thou
sand OF his lords, and drank wine before the thousand
"Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to
bring the golden and silver vessels which his father
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS had taken out Of the temple which
in Jcrusalem that the king and his princes his wives
and his concubincs might drink therein
During this lnpous feast perhaps the most famous
in all history the Hand of Jehovah those mysterious
words upon the wall which the sacricgous King could
not understand but which Daniel interpreted as meaning:
Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting
At that feast and that very night Darius the
head OF the rising power of Persia surprised the egener
ate elshazzar in his palace and slaughtered him his
courtiers and favorites
In years archaeologists have unearthed the
ruins of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS mighty palace, his great H.
brary and the banqueng hall in which Beshazzar Toasted
1t of modest satisfaction the British who
now occupy the ruins that the hardest work in
ing the ground has been done by the German Oriental
Society patronized by the Kaiser whose scientists have
been compelled to remqulsh their territory. very in
eresng description of the latest discoveries Babylon
has recently been written by Professor Leonard w King
OF the British Museum, who says:
The most interesting apartment within the palace is
one that may be identified ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS throne
room This is the Immediately to the south of the
Great Court 1t the largest chamber of the palace
since the walls on the longer sides six thick
far broader than those at the ends possible they
supported barrevautng 1t has three entrances from
the court, and in the back wall opposite the
broad niche douby recessed into the structure of the
wall where may the royal throne once stood
During any elaborate court ceremony the King would
thus have been visible upon his throne only to those
within the chamber but also from the central portion Of
the Great Court 1t in this portion the palace that
traces of the later Babyonan methods of mural
decoration discovered For while the inner walls
of the Throne Room merely washed over with
plaster OF white gypsum the brick work of the outer
facade which faced the court decorated with brightly
colored enamel.
"Ony fragments of the enamcllcd surface were dis.
covered but these snfced to the scheme of deco
ration. series of yellow columns, with bright blue
capitals both edged with white borders stand out against
dark blue ground The capitals the most striking
feature of the composition Each consists of two sets of
double volutes above the other and white rosetc
with yellow centres partly into sight above them
Between each member is bud in sheath forming reoil
and linking the voutes of the capitals by means of light
blue bands which fall in shadow from either side
OF It, Still higher the wall n frieze of double
pamees in similar cooring between yellow line borders
the centres of the latter picked with ozengcs coored
black and yellow and black and white alternately.
The rich effect of this enamecd facade of the Throne
Room was enhanced by the decoration of the gate
way the surface of which adorned in like fashion
with figures of lions So the gateways of the
other eastern courts, to Judge from the fragments of
enamel found there but the of the court walls were
left nndecoraed or perhaps, merely received coat of
plaster The fact that the interior of the irone Room