Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-13

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Once across the border they could
rest, and slip into the safe obScurity
of a small town, until such time as it would
b. possible to return to their own land. They
would rent q small house. and Joseph would
hunt up jobs of wood working such as carpen-
Sers can always find, and life in exile would
not be so different after all, from life at home.
They would scarcely even be noticed
foreigners. There were no end of Jews in lower
Egypt and the arrival of another family from
the north was merely something for few
bored immigration officials at the border to
note down in Grabbed Greek on longs nee
persisted papyrus roll, before they turned back
to their Office gossip, forgetting the newcomers
before the dust of their plodding donkey had
settled in the road.
Nobody knows where the Holy Family went
in Egypt though it is unlikely that they
troubled to journey far beyond the border.
Nobody knows how long they stayed there One
common tradition says seven years; but since
they returned to Nazareth soon after the
death of Herod, t is unlikely that the Egyptian
sojOurn lasted that long. AS nearly Is can be
made out nov, Herod died a few months after
the birth Of Jesus; it may be that the massacre
of the innocentS was an act of madness fore
bOding his end.
But when all is said this episode in the life
of Christ is and will remain obscure. Half of
a terse chapter in the Gospel according to st.
Matthew tells all we know about it.
RECENT researches by American archeolo-
gists in the ruins of an old Egyptian town
have thrown flood of new light on how the
common people lived in the villages and small
cities of Egypt during the time the Holy Family
sought refuge there. Out of the dust of
centuries they have dug the remains of the
little houses of n-baked brick where the folk
lived there unobtrusive lives.
''ney have found door and window frames
o. wood, wooden stools and reading desks,
wooden rakes and pitchforks-even wooden door
locks with wooden keys! There evidently was
no lack of work for Joseph. They have found
glass dishes and woven baskets such as Mary
must have used in her housekeeping. They
have even found quaint little wooden toys
oddly like modern playthings sometimes, such
as Joseph might have made in his odd mo-
ments for the amusement of the little Jesus
his is new kind of Egyption archaeology
The scientists of the spade have hitherto con-
cerned themselves mostly with relics of the
great, tombs of nobles pyramids of pharaohs,
enormous temples of the gods.
But history does not consist wholly of the
record of the wars and WranglingS of the great
There are also the laborious poor on whose
mu't.Iie of bowed backs thorns have always
been Borne. What of the common people of
Eg
tn new view of history led the Near East
Research committee of the University of
Michigan to seek for site in Egypt where the
common people had lived their common lives
mummified Main street
ouch place they found finally not in Egypt
itself, but in the Faiyum oasis This valley
OF green, which lies beyond 4 naked ridge of
stone hills in a basin cut down into the
Libyan desert, is sort of annex or suburb of
Egypt proper.
This region the Ptolemies brought under
cultivation IN one of the greatest reclamation
projects of ancient times
This Ptolemaic boom in real estate started
more than two and half centuries before
the Christian era and ended in the decline of
the settlements when irrigation went to wrack
and ruin during the civil wars that attended