Diggers

The pick & shovel corps of science toils far afield, probing the earth for traces of vanished men and civilizations. Recent doings of the diggers:

High Key. On a steeple jack's scaffolding set against the vertical face of Mt. Behistun, in Persia, the University of Chicago's Dr. George G. Cameron, an Elamitist (authority on the ancient state of Elam), would soon be busy with his research. There, some 2,500 years ago, King Darius of Persia had his portrait carved along with ten of his liquidated enemies. Long inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian tell how Darius attributed his success up to this point (later his armies were soundly whipped by the Greeks at Marathon) to the favor of his god, Ahura Mazda, and to the fact that he was "neither a liar nor an evildoer, neither I nor any of my family."

These inscriptions were the "Rosetta Stone of Western Asia" which enabled scholars to decipher Babylonian and the other cuneiform languages of ancient Mesopotamia. About 100 years ago, philologists dangled from the cliff to copy part of the inscriptions; they tried it again in 1904. But much was missed or garbled, and the inscriptions are too inaccessible to be photographed effectively. The Cameron party will make accurate copies by pressing a rubber compound against the carvings. Orientalists all over the world are eagerly awaiting the results.

Old Ruin. In socialite Newport, scholars are having another go at the mystery of the Old Stone Mill. Led by Archeologist William S. Godfrey, the diggers will try to determine whether it is a Viking church tower or only the ruins of a windmill built by Governor Benedict Arnold (great-grandfather of Traitor Arnold) of the Rhode Island colony. Down-to-earth archeologists side with James Fenimore Cooper who (in The Red Rover) called it a windmill. The romantic school inclines to Longfellow, whose The Skeleton in Armor refers to the "lofty tower" built by a far-flung Norseman for his "lady's bower."

By cutting a narrow trench 80 feet from the mill, Godfrey hopes to find traces of the "ambulatory walk" of the Norse church. Uncovered thus far: a 1696 King William III penny, a lead musket ball, an old brass button, a clay pipe.

Later in the summer, Professor Johannes Brondsted, a Viking expert from Denmark, will stop by and look over the findings. He will also judge other "Norse" relics (mostly suspect) such as "mooring holes" on Cape Cod, and the Kensington stone, with its alleged runic inscriptions, which was found in Minnesota in 1898.

Odd Fort. On Roanoke Island, N.C., archeologists got closer to the unanswered riddle of the "Lost Colony." Results from excavations started over a year ago have convinced Jean C. ("Pinky") Harrington of the National Park Service that he has uncovered the outlines of Fort Raleigh built by Governor Ralph Lane in 1585. The radical shape of the fort (its bastions are on the sides, rather than the corners) is identical with another fort built by Governor Lane in Puerto Rico while en route to Roanoke.

Most of the finds so far have been relatively unimportant: pottery fragments, bricks, wrought-iron nails, an iron strap, the inevitable musket ball. But in a ditch near the fort, the diggers found a pit containing a horizontal layer of charcoal sticks. They had been expertly fired but never removed--a significant indication that the lost colonists hastily abandoned the fort. The tree rings in the charcoal sticks are quite distinct and the National Park Service hopes to date the wood (as soon as archeologists develop a tree ring calendar for the eastern states, similar to that for the southwest). Then they may know in exactly what year the lost colonists left Roanoke Island. Still to be discovered: why they left, where they went, what happened to them.

Dead End. The little-known, nearly extinct Indians who met Columbus when he first set foot in the New World were the subject of a report made through the Smithsonian Institution by Yale's Dr. Irving Rouse. The Arawaks were a medium-sized, roundheaded, peaceful people who established a stable agricultural society based on corn and tapioca. They slept in hammocks under thatched roofs, wore gold ornaments and no clothes. Like the early Britons (who preferred blue), they painted their bodies; red, white, black and yellow were favorite colors. They bathed frequently (were more sanitary than the Spaniards) and polygamy was common among the men who could afford it. The Arawaks believed that spirits inhabited not only their own bodies but rocks and trees. The dead went to "paradise," a Shangri-La valley somewhere in Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Each Indian owned at least one zemi, an image shaped like a grotesque human being that was supposed to help give him control of supernatural powers.

But the zemis were no help against the power of Spain. Smallpox, brought from Europe, swept away entire villages. Even worse, was the forced labor in the gold mines where, ill-fed and mistreated, the Indians died off. The Arawaks fought back at the Spaniards as best they could--by battle, mass suicide and the slaughter of their own children. An estimated 200,000 Arawaks lived on Hispaniola when Columbus arrived. Less than a century later Sir Francis Drake reported that there was not a single full-blooded Indian left on the island. They held out longest in Cuba and even established a colony in Florida. Their "Fountain of Youth" legends sent Ponce de Leon off on his wild goose chase.

Before Columbus arrived, the Arawaks had already been driven from the Lesser Antilles by their savage cannibal enemies, the Caribs. By the time the fatal Spanish sails appeared in the east, the sails of the big Carib war canoes were looming dangerously in the south. Even if the Spaniards had stayed at home, the peaceful Arawaks would have been a people without a future.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.