Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-04
MYSTERIES OF UR
PUZZLE EXPLORERS
Important Finds in Ancient
Home of Abraham Reported
by WOoIIey Party.

ny the Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA. January TN
teresting and perhaps important finds
in J-r of the Chaldees, the home of
Abraham. are reported by the joint
expedition in Mesopotamia of the
Museum Of the University of Penn
sylvania and the British Museum.
A report just received from 4.
Leonard Woolley. director of the eN-
petition. regarding the first of this
seasons work in the ruins at tr.
states that from 80 or 40 examples
of the many tablets found it is he
lieved that literary material of the
first class has been discovered.
or the decipherabie tablets found
Mr.. Wooiley says:
Instead of the business documents.
receipts and contracts which are com
monty found ON the site. these are all
of literary on scientific character.
Some are mathematical and give lists
of square and cube roots of all the
numbers up To 60: some are hymns
some record the pious foundations Of
early kings, important for the his
tory and topography of the city.
con one there seems to be mention
Of an unknown king of Ur, possibly
dynasty, Of which we know no more
than that II existed
Tablets Packed i'm Sand.
Hundreds of tablets are being
packed in sand preparatory To baking
in furnace, cleaning and mending To-
render them legible.
'tOf more immediate interest," says
Mr.. Woolley. are the houses in
" DiRh tho t.t},I9fG found These
date just about the time when Abra
ham was living at Ur. They were
first put up about POO BIC. and were
inhabited, with various minor rebuild
ings and repairs, for some 200 years.
What strikes one at once is the high
degree of comfort and even luxury 10
which the ruins bear witness. Two
stored buildings soljdly constructed
in burnt brick (sOme Of the walls To-
day stand IS and 20 feet high. they
were almost exactly like the best
houses of modern Baghdad.
Although all traces of decoration
have gone. and we have only the bare
walls with occasionally a little mud
plaStering and whitewash, yet we
can scarcely be wrong in SuppOsiug
that the furnishing matched the ex-
cellence OF the construction.
1T was a common custom to bury
the dead under the houses i'll which
they lived, and often beneath the
pavement we find clay collins or vault
ed brick tombs containing, together
with the body. clay vessels of offer
ings. food for the journey to the next
world and perhaps the signet seal of
the house owner.
"A room in one house was distin-
guished by having a niche in the end
wall. and in front of the niche "a
raised block of brickworlS like an altar
All round this. under the pavement.
there lay thick together nearly 80
bowls containing the bones of little
children. There was no moloch i'm the
Sumerian Pantheon to demand infant
sacrifice, yet it is hard to believe that
within a comparatively short space of
time and in a single household 30
babies should die q natural death.
Can we have here "a domestic
shrine dedicated to some deity kindly
to children whereto friends or rela-
tons might bring their little ones for
burial? If so, there was in the Su-
merriam religion of Abraham's time Il
sentiment morv intimately human
than the texts would lead us to sup.
pose.