Diggers

U. S. gentlemen rove abroad to dig with native muckers for pieces of old civilizations. The pieces go into museums, where historians patch up history's gaps, where the populace gapes a holiday, where eager young women copy decorations for the gewgaws of applied art. Finders, keepers and users they all are.

In Egypt. Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid, 4,800 years ago was the first great Pharaoh of Egypt. Harvard men under Dr. George A. Reisner have put together much history of his line. His father was Snefru, his mother Hetep-Heres I. Cheops loved her greatly. When her first tomb at Dahshur was robbed, he secretly reburied her at Giza, close to his pyramid. Cheops had four queens and several children. One of these, Chephren, built the second pyramid. His doughtiest daughter was Hetep-Heres II, a biological curiosity. Other Egyptians were swart and black-haired. She was blonde with reddish hair, probably inherited from foreign ancestors on her mother's side. She married her brother Kawa'ab, a dumpy, coarse man. He died. She married another brother, Radedef. He died. For her third husband she took Ankh-ha-ef, a nobleman outside the family. By Kawa'ab she bore Meresankh III, who grew up to be a small, black-haired woman. Hetep-Heres II also outlived and buried her daughter. It was Meresankh Ill's tomb that Dr. Reisner's party recently discovered. Pictures and inscriptions therein related the family's affairs and filled a long gap in Egypt's dynastic history.

As humanly interesting was Professor Breasted's Luxor Expedition discovery of what seems to have been the private apartment of Rameses III. A large hall contained a dais for his throne. Adjoining was his bedroom with private bath. Alongside his was his queen's suite, and three rooms with private baths for his concubines.

Tethmosis III quarreled with his stepmother Queen Hatshepsut over her doings in her temple at Dier el Bahri (Thebes). Angry Tethmosis took all the temple statues, smashed them to bits, threw the debris into a quarry pit, where diggers have found them and assembled some into the original shapes.

In Palestine. Whenever an archaeologist digs up something ancient in Palestine there is joy, whether the object corroborates a Biblical story or whether it indicates a pre-history which the Biblical reporters knew nothing of.

At Beth-Shemesh, Dr. Elihu Grant of Haverford College has found jugs and vases which represent a bronze age culture.

At Beisan, Alan Rowe of the University of Pennsylvania found drain pipes, a grist mill, a circular silo, all indicating a busy city life 3,200 years ago. Pagan temples, tools, utensils, seals and jewelry were signs of Beisan's wealth. It was of such civilization that Jeremiah complained: Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven [Ashtoreth], and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods that they may provoke me [God] to anger.--Book of Jeremiah VII, 17-18.

Near present Hebron, the American School of Archaeology has found Kirjath Sepher, which the Israelites captured in the time of Joshua. Interesting are the remains of a wool-dyeing factory, a small household altar of Samuel's time.

In "the land of Acre," the Metropolitan Museum of Art has found better examples of 12th and 13th century A.D. war, commercial and household goods than it had been able to find in Europe, where such things have been destroyed, lost or remodeled. Palestine, in those bleak centuries, was a European province. Leading crusaders lived luxuriously and busily. When the Mohammedans finally drove them out, their goods were abandoned. Looters could not find them all. Hence the Metropolitan Museum's delvers made rich cultural finds at the isolated fortress of Montfort, old headquarters of the Hospitalers of Our Lady of the Teutons. By further Palestinian exploration, the museum hopes to develop a complete series of armor, something that does not yet exist in the U. S.

At Pentecost of the year 383 A.D., Samaritans at Mount Gerizim massacred Christians. Other Christians were angry and destroyed the Samaritan temple. A church was built on its ruins. Later the church fell to pieces and was buried under debris. This autumn the German Archaeological Institute uncovered the site.

The spending of money for this Palestinian digging caught the attention of Emir Abdullah, ruling under British mandate beyond the Jordan. Hence his recent invitation:

"I wish to invite American archaeologists and scholars to come to explore the unlimited fields for research in my country. I shall lend all possible aid and grant facilities for their work. Our widely reputed hospitality shall be proved."

In Syria. Another crusaders' castle, Krak des Chevaliers, is atop the Aloutie Mountains, near Tripolis, Syria. The place was captured from Kurds by survivors of the First Crusade (1096) and later, under the Knights of St. John, was an important guard of the road to Damascus. It is the best preserved of crusader fortresses, because natives during the centuries have dumped 50,000 tons of manure into its cellars and vaults. French diggers have found the masonry in excellent and representative condition.

Alexander the Great conquered the Near East and in the present Syrian hinterland founded a military colony, Europos. This was about 300 B.C. The next century the Parthians conquered the place; then, in the next, the Romans. The name became Dura. About the time of Jesus, the Romans retreated and desert sands quickly covered buildings. In 1920 British soldiers accidentally discovered Dura. Word went to the late Gertrude Bell. She sent a call to Professor James Henry Breasted of the University of Chicago, who was at Luxor, Egypt, his headquarters for Egyptian research. He sped to Dura, hastily made photographs and maps. As the result of his recommendations, the General Education Board gave money to dig at Dura. Rewards: rare colored frescoes, fine sculptures, important inscriptions, and best of all--Greek, Latin and Aramaic parchments. Rarely have parchments of the period been found outside of Egypt.

In Turkey. At Constantinople, men who knew of the beauty of old Byzantium, working for Art Dealer Sir Edward Joseph Duveen, dug earnestly. In the large square between Saint Sophia's and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque they found two crumbly piers of brick & stone, supports of the once magnificent Byzantine Baths of Zeuxippus.

In Mesopotamia. Some bread, wheat, barley, peas and pistachio nuts were dumped into the bins of a great temple at Kirkuk, Iraq, some 3.500 years ago. They were still there, although carbonized, when diggers recently uncovered the building. Nearby was the home of a rich family. Clay records tell of their marriages and adoptions, their business in slaves, securities, and goods, their loans, deposits and lawsuits.