Evening star., 1927-11-06
Moses and the Drama OF
Jewish History.

Y F. the chief function of war IS 10
teach the people geography, the
Weltgeist has lavished war too
4 fiuently in these years upon IA
miliar Europe, and has fnsufn-
ciently illuminated that strange re.
gion of the map which is constituted
today by Asia Minor, Arabia and FER
sia. Lawrence and Allenby have
made Arabia fashionable; but most OF
the Near East" remains phrase.
filmv realm of sheikS and massacreS,
belonging to fiction rather than to
terrestrial reality Once that obscure
area was the heart of the world, and
the home of powerful empires; now 1t
is an almost abandoned desert, rlch
in rocks and sand, kept alive only by
wild courage and the remembrance OF
ancient glory.
But look at the map again; for here
genius passed once, and we must Iol-
low IL. even if only in superficial
flight. Cross from Egypt into Asia
at Suez; to the right the Peninsula OF
Sinai lies. where the Pharaohs turned
copper into gold. and Moses in the
legend coined a morality out OF stone.
To the left the blue Mediterranean;
and as one follows that golden shore
northward, treading the path or the
Jews through the wilderness, canaan
appears; and to the east OF 1t the lanu
of Judah and the Sea called Dead.
Still farther north, along the coast.
Tvre and Sidon, where the Phoenicians
once sheltered the trade of the world,
thrive vet with harbors filled and mar
kets humming; and again so miles to
the east, Jerusalem and Israel, and
bright undying Damascus, too old 10
remember it's youth, and too young
to remember its age. Turn to the
coast once more. and where Beirut
now feels the lash Of democratic I'M
perialism as ruthless as any kings,
follow the trail of a hundred armies
over the hills of Lebanon, and see the
almost obliterated inscriptions which
conquerors from RameseS II to Alien
by have left upon the rocks that look
down over Dog River and the sea;
here is Syria. Go now to the north.
east, and suddenly. after leagues and
leagues of arid land, river sparkies
in the sun, making everything near 1t
fruitful and green; it is the Euphrates,
river of kings. Pass still farther to
the east, across the Mesopotamian
desert, and another river trickles
down from the hills; this is the Tigris,
on whose shores were Assur and Nine
veh, first and last Of Assyria's capi-
tails. Now travel south with the Tigris
till it rubs elbows with the Euphrates;
here is ancient Akkad, and later
Babylon, and-last Of those great EN-.
pires-Chaldea. Finally, where the
Euphrates rushes into the Persian
Gulf, ghostly ruins reveal the home
of the first of these lost Kingdoms OF
the ancient Near East-Sumeria.
Across the gulf is Persia, and every
where to the south the lonely and in
hospitable desert.
That is the scene Of the drama.
The prologue Is Sumeria. Far back
in 1850 Be, we find an Indo.Euro.
pean people established there in stable
tillage of the soil, using. oxen and the
wheel, and digging canals to bring the
Euphrates to their farms. At Nippur
they built a capital and lofty tower;
the height of the tower led to the
legend of Babel: and it's "ziggurat"-
a roadway built around it to the top
co-operated with coming laws to sug-
gest the setback" style of recent
architecture in America. Their meth
cd of writing on soft clay with reeds,
and then baking the clay to give per-
manence to their records, passed down
to the Babylonians as cuneiform-
dge-form"-writing, called so from
the triangular mark made by the cor
ner of the reed. Their use of 60 as
unit IN numbering passed down into
Europe's division OF the circle into
$50 degrees, and Of the hour into so
minutes. The picture they give US
is a landscape of peace.
The action begins with the mighty
Sarpon a Semitic warrior who came
out Of Akkad toward 2750 BIC. and
made himself master of Sumeria by
superior killing. The Akkadians came
with him. helped him to conquer Cy-
prus, grew rich with its copper (which
took its name from the jsland). and
contributed to cotemporary myth.
ology those legends of the creation
and the food which passed down from
them through the Babylonians to the
Jews. For 800 years the empire OF
Sumeria and Akkad dominated the