Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-02

" vR of the Chaldees, lately hailed as the
oldest city on earth, must yield place
to a city that is older still Before
Ur ever arose, before Babylon the
great was ever dreamed of, Susa was.
Susa was the home town of Abraham, and 1t
stood ON the Mesopotamian plain before the
Flood received its first settlers and learned its
first civilization from the hill country Of clam
to the east.
How large a city stood there under the flank
of the Zagros Mountains. in the gray twilight
before the dawn of history. no one yet knows;
there is not even tradition OF It's kings OF
priests, nor of its conquered provinces, If it had
any.
But susa was there, settled and populous
community with highly developed arts and
industries and presumably with well organized
system of government and religion. The IN
nabitants were in the last stage of the New
Stone Age or rather in the transition period
between it and the Age Of Metals.
The "Susanites" still used polished stone for
most purposes but they had learned the value
of copper and were beginning to make con-
siderable variety of implements from it. They
were far from the discovery of the process OF
converting it into bronze by the. addition OF
tin: farther yet from the discovery of iron. AS
long as the only common metal they knew was
soft, easily bent, and difficult to keep up to
good edge, stone tools still had considerable
advantage; so the people went on using them.
The New Stone Age as everybody knows, has
been given the special name of Neohthic This
last end of this age. when the application OF
metals was gradually being discovered, has
recently acquired the name "Aeneolithic," or
..Eneolithic' to indicate its traditional char
acter.
Aeneolithic pottery, stones, copper have been
found across vast stretch of territory in Asia,
all the way from what is now Turkey to
Baluchistan and there are indications that the
Aad int China
was not the capital of an empire of this ex-
tent, but merely the focal point, like Paris or
Vienna in modern Europe.
WHAT were the Aeneolithic people like?
w Where did they come from? What in
fuence did they have on the development Of
history in the Mesopotamian Valley? Have
they any modern descendants?
These questions all highly interesting since
they concern the oldest civilized people in the
world, are raised by Prof. e. A. Speiser of the
University of Pennsylvania, and given at least
a preliminary answer in a new book which will
soon be published by the press Of his university.
In his effort to get at the history of these
prehistoric folk, Prof. Speiser has neglected
nothing The fog of time is thick enough over
them at best. So he has collated all data; OBJ
iects found in almost timelesS ruins of many
towns, some Of them excavated by himself; the
sueech of the ancient peoples, recorded on
written tablet or carved pillar; the names Of
the cities and their gods and kings: the more
reliable parts of ancient, sem-traditional
chronicles.
They build up a very convincing case if yau
adopt Prof Speiser's own attitude of scientific
caution, and hold up the final verdict pending
more data, which is now being sought in hills
Of old Asia.
To answer the first question as to where the
people OF the Aeneolthic culture typified sk
Ssasa came FROM Prof. Speiser states that they