The Washington times., 1923-01-21

One Of the s iren EsIa and s. - Off Massa,
Where the Lost q as 1iscovere j.
II Was One Of tn Places
of the Mysterious Women rom the
Sea-" According q I.sssl gends-
And AboAA
Interesting Old Wood Css ~ as SIREN
or Mermaid Which Was Supposed to
Have Been Captured During the
Middle Ages.
ton played the leading role III the discov-
I cry of sirens can it be that so many
generations have been fooled
Wel know that many strahke things
walked abroad in the land iii Che early
days. Can it not be equally true that
strange things swan the seas
The French scientists have not yet an
swered. All they viii say at this time is
that they hope to find out one way or
another, which is the true scientific at
titude.
Golden chalices and basins were discov-
cred in the lower ruins at Masse Lubrense
some of them intact-with beautifully
carved figures of sirens clearly traced on
their sides. And there were mysterious
markings on these vessels and on blocks
of stone that mad evidently been parts of
affairs.
These markings, the scientists think,
are inscriptions If so, their trans
lation will be highly important.
But no one could translate them. They
were like nothing hisherto known, except
that in general way they were like
markings on Pictish tombs in Great Brit
ain. Like the wrlting-if It is writing
in the Masse Lubrense tenn lie, the Pictish
inscriptions consist of groups of vertical
lines above and below horizontal line,
And the Picts, it is known, ca e from
the Mediterranean from even farther east
than the Isles of the Sirens According
to G. F. Scott Elliott's "Romances Of
Early Britain" they colonized the French
coast around Calais before several pairs
OF them were expelled and sent TO settle
Britain.
They had spread over Britain and ire
land before the KeltS found and con
quered them. They were a small, dark
people, whose descendants are found
among the brunette races of Wales, Corn
wall and northwest Scotland, and it is
about them that the ancient English fairy
tales of dwarfs spratg up
Now, the Picts were probably not the
race that built the lower siren temple at
Masse< Lubrense. And their la-guage
coulu nardly De me same. But they EVIL
IDENTIFY adopted the writing of the Massa
Lubrense people-that is, their priests or
magicians did, for writing was so mys-
FERROUS in those days that illiterate people
thought it charm.
And only a few words of Pictsh have
ever been translated Thus it would
seem that the French psychologists were
not greatly helped by their discovery of
the siren inscriptions.
But there. are several hopeful features.
The Pictish inscriptions are mainly u
transferable because in most cases tn. &c
is no clue to their purpose; The siren. in
scriptions, it is logical to suppose, were
about the objects of worship on whose
affairs they were inscribed.
So, by comparing what little is known
of Pictish and pre-Cretan writings and
with the aid of much scientific deduction,
it is still hoped by the French scientists
that before long the Masse Lubrense in
scriptions will read as clearly as does
ancient Egyptian
If this proves true, the world will know
a great deal more than it does now about
it's earlier civilizations-even if it doc
not become convinced that in the oldt,,
days there really were women with blu.
hair and the tails Of fish.