The Covington leader. (Covington, Tenn.) 18??-current, 1919-07-03
MARVELLOUS CIVILIZATION
OF THE ANcIENTS

OlcAtlWe OF an advance III ClNift1ssstssA
during the 30th century B. C. greater
than any other century save the 18th,
according to Prof. James H. Breast
ed. Of Chicago, who delivered the
second part of the William Ellery
Hale lectures on "The Origin Of Civ
ilization" before the National Acad-
envy of Science in Washington re-
Gently. He also pointed out that
the American eagle, symbol Of lib
erty, originated in Babylonia some
five thousand wears ago.
"The pyramids Of Eo- are COM
monty pointed out to the ordinary
traveller as the earliest monuments
on the Nile" said DR.. Breasted. I'm
Yesterdays lecture ! followed the
long development which lies behind
these pyramids and leads up to them.
They do indeed mark the culmina-
ton of a civilization advancing so
rapidly that the 30th century B. G.
was greater development of mans
control over the forces of nature than
any other century except the 18th
of our own era.
'sThe cemetery Of Gizeh, especially
the Great Pyramid, is the earliest
and most impressive surviving wit
ness to the final energies of high
ly organized and efficient govern
ment, of which it is the product,
ct the greatgrandfathers of the men
who built the Great Pyramid laid
the first examples of stone masonry.
We find it difficult to understand the
rapidity of an advance in government
al organization, engineering, mechan-
les and craftsmanship which could lay
out this vast building, covering ID
acres, with an accuracy involving an
error in the length of the sides of
less than a twelve-thousandth of the
length of the side (755 feet an error
of only 6-100 Of foot. Neither can
we comprehend the efficiency in adj
ministration, which could quarry out,
transport and lay in position $780,
900 blocks of limestone each weigh
ing about two and one-half TONS"
''The pyramid" continued the pro-
fessor, lis the greatest building and
engineering feat ever achieved by
ancient man, and it was constructed
at the outset Of his historic career.
The civilization of the Pyramid
Age (about 5000 to $500 B. c.
brought forth the first great sculp-
tors, especially in portraiture, re-
finement in the arts and crafts, and
school of architects who devised
the clerestory, and in the middle of
the 18th century B. G. designed the
earliest columns and colonades. In
the first sea-going ships the diffu-
sion of this culture was so intimate
and even in the scanty remains now
surviving is so evident that Sir Ar
thur Evans has even affirmed that
the possibility of prehistoric Egyp-
tians migrating to the islands of
southeastern Europe is not to be ex-
Guided.
Later an amazingly refined pre-
Greek civilization arose in the Ae-
gean islands, especially in Crete, as
revealed by the excavations of Sir
Arthur Evans and others. The Pha-
raohs then extended Egyptian con-
troll over the eastern Mediterranean,
as the first great naval power in
history. This Egyptian empire, which
was at it's elimination in the 18th
century B. G., profoundly affected
the Aegean civilization of southeast
ern Europe. At the same time the
Babylonian influences were beginning
to be felt in the eastern Mediterra-
mean world.
"After $500 B. G. the barbarian
shepherds who had been migrating
southwards through the Balkans for
centuries, took possession Of the
country and the islands which we
have been accustomed SO long to
know as theirs. Thew destroyed the
wonderful culture of the Aegeans,
which had been the first civilization
of the soil of Europe, and thus in
the centuries after 1900 B. G., civil
ization disappeared in Europe. The
paintings on Greek vases of the
eighth century B. G. cannot be COM
pared for quality with the cave paint
ings of the prehistoric stone age Eu-
ropeans of. several thousand years
earlier.
Meanwhile Babylonian civilization
by way of Asia Minor had brought
into Europe many important contribu-
tions, like ordinary business customs
and conveniences, like business credit
still a fundamental element in civili-
ization The Greeks adopted the col
onade from Egypt, and chen they
wished to erect light house tower
at Alexandria they put up a modi-
fled form Of temples towers they had
seen in Babylonia, which thus became
the ancestors of the church spires of
Europe.
'Babylonian study of the skies for
the purposes Of divination had led
them after 700 B. G. to elaborate
observation of the celestial bodies
with painstaking observations Of the
relations of both time and space.
The Babylonias were founders of
astronomy and meterology, and the
Greek astronomical science was built
upon their remarkable work. Similar
Oriental views of the ruler as divine,
and of his relations to the godsy
brought into Europe the doctrine of
divine right-.a doctrine whose last
representative survived to be over
thrown by the great war just ended
in contrast with this force so
hostile to democratic institutions we
may note in conclusion that the eagle