New Britain Herald Newspaper, September 24, 1919, Page 14

American Explorers 'ind Temple Where By H. C. Norris THE very pavement on which Moses stood when he begged the Pharaoh of the oppression to let the children of Israel depart from bondage; the very throne before which Aaron “cast down his rod * * * and it became a ser pent”; the actual room which formed the backgrouna for events in the first chapters of > have been brought to light by the University of Pennsylvania explorations in Egvpt Hampered by all the difficulties in cident to the war, the Eckley B. Coxe, Jr.. Egyptian expedition has neverthe- less made a discovery of almost un- exampled interest to students of the Bible and of archeology. As soon as armistice condition permit the chartering of ve: 1 there wili be sent to the University Museum in Philadelphia one of those columns— eighty feet high—that Aaron and :d on their way to the ne; their robes may have brushed it. There will be sent also & number of the door panels—inlaid with pure gold—that swung open to admit the Tsraelite natriarchs; their eyes must have looked upon the intri- cate decoration. Through 3000 years the throne room of Merenptah, with the rest of his exquisite palace at Memphis, lay hidden beneath the sands and waters of the Nile. It remained for an expedition from America, made possible by the and generosity ot & Philadelphian, the late Bckley B. Coxe, Jr., to reveal the veritable wails of the palace about which millions of Bible students have read for thou- sands of generations. Yet what the Coxe expedition has accomplished is only a prelude to what will come. Because of a Mohamme- dan edict against disturbing the dead, excavations in the Holy Land were constantly hampered by interference from the Turkish Government. But the Turk has been driven from Pal- estine forever, and the end of the war marks the beginning of a renaissance of archeology. Even now the schol- ars are planning to dig at places where lfe burled remnants of ancient won- ders hidden for thirty centuries. Ex- cavations are soon to start above the foundation of Solomon's temple. In- vestigation is being arranged for Samaria.. The war that freed mankind from the modern oppressor is liberator also of the splendid ghosts of other da; Rescued from far beneath their rubbish mounds, Memphis and Nine- veh will lift wraith-like pyramid and tower; Jerusalem will shine again upon her sacred hilltop; and the peo- ples of the earth, so troubled now and tugged about in the scuffle of read- justment, will be able by the light of the past to discern the path of the futur Rameses II. the Builder On the west bank of the Nile, four- teen miles south of Cairo, a few tum- bled stones bencath the palm trees were all that indicated the great and ancient city of Memphis until the Coxe expedition began its resurrection. Natives had for hundreds of years used projecting bits of tombs and temples as quarries from which to get stone for an Arabic hut or a village street. Blown sand drifted in billows that wiped out In a few seasons the work of an entire dynasty. The Nile, gradually rising for 3500 years as the mud grew thicker on its bed, covered most of tho spot, except during the months of spring. In an age so remote that its date can hardly be conjectured, Memphis ymust have had its beginning. Chief {seat of worship of the artisan god Ptah, as well as capital of all Egypt in early times, Memphis held its place through centuries as a shrine of re- ligion, art and government. Thebes, and again Alexandria, later out- stripped it as principal city of the Egyptian empire. But at the time when the brave and powerful Rameses 1T received the doublo crown of Egypt, Memphi “The White Walls"—glis- tened with prosperity, hummed with industry and rose statelier day by day. For Rameses 1l was a builder. He filled Egypt and Nubia with monu- ments as multitudinous as his bat- tles. His fame as a maker of temples is immortal in Karnak and the rock fane of Abu Simbel. His heroism in the fight was so signal that to this day it is remembered how, alone with his squire, he eight times charged the chariots of the Khati. The Israclites who dwelt in Bgypt, however, found him anything but pleasant. During the reign of the Pharaoh whom Joseph served all had been milk and honey. But Rameses II is believed by most authorittes to be the Pharaoh to whom the eighth verse of the first chapter of Exoaus * refers (though some contend it was Merenptah himself), “Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” Txodus gocs on to make clear, Pharaoh thought there were too many Israelites in nis jsnd. He feared that in the event of o war--gince there were more Tsraelites than gyptians—these for- eigner side with the enemy and cause acu The remedy which he pre tiie st i1 all the male infants meses II dream that foreign iminigrants, k upon his temples, tte an of those tir. would iive after his t had b sand drifts and the { the gods whom they sheltered only So rbsolute is the of time. Ior the edict e death of cvers aelite baby led ono mother to hide her little son for three months of terror and then—with the boldness of fear—to float him in a basket among the reeds on the rive edge, where Pharach’s daughter went to bathe. Gentler than her King-father, the young girl had pity on the child, adopted it and named it Moses. It is not hard to picture the littic princ such a human girl, in spite of the gold circlet and the crouching slaves— standing delighted and amazed when the basket was laid at her fect. “This one of the babes of the Hebrews,” she said and had not_half the cruelty needful to order its ilistant execution. After his adoption as the son of the princess, when he had grown to young manhood, Moses “went out to his brethren and saw their aflliction,” and an Bgyptian striking one of the Hebrews, his brethren. It must have been a savage beating, for when Moses “had looked about this way and that way and saw no one there, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” But in some manner Pharaoh heard Y, Y = “ 1}])7' // = % upon the Deita and the march Memphis. There is a m fusing evidence oné way and anothe which is the delight of the One plausible theory, however. vanced by careful scholars, is that the Israclites who joined the Libyans in this attack were not those who had been held in bondage, but anothev branch who lived round Palestin “None among them lifts his head any more among the nomads,” boast the inscription in question; “for, now that the Libyans are destroyed, the Khati are peaceful, the land of Canaan s reduced to subjection, the people of alon and of Gezer are led into captivity, the eity of Tanc n aid low, those of Israel are destroy there is no particle of them left.” In spite of the thoroughgoing wauy in which he waged war, and in spite of the severity which he showed to- e P~ SO ward the Israelites, who were bondmen in his domain, Meren- ptah had among his own people - a reputation for gentlenes: Cer- of the deed. Moses fled to the land of Midian. Not till long afterward, not till “Pharaoh died” and the burning bush had flamed but not been con- sumed and Moses had heard the call to free his countrymen from bondage, did the boy whom Pharaoh’s daughter rescued return to the Nile. ‘When he returned, with the com- mand of God in his heart and Aaron as his spokesman, he gathered the elders of the Israelites together and went to that same palace which the Coxe expedition has just uncovered. Merenptah was king now, the thir- teenth son in the huge family of Rameses II. History, deciphered from the monuments he left, tells us this much. It tells us also that he was an old man when he succeeded to the crown in 1 B. C. and that he relgned ten years. Under his father, the prince had fought with valor In many a cam- paign. The training stood him in good stead, for even when he had reached the 'age of seventy he was forced to don armor again against the migratory tribes perpetually threatening the borders of his empire. It was one of the most desperate moments in ISgyp- tlan history. The Libyans had invaded the eastern part of the Delta and ad- vanced near to Memphis. Though anxious to lead his army, Merenptah felt the burden of his years. Tortu atoly, the god Ptah appeared to him in a dream and bade the king remain within the city walls while his gen- erals went forth to battle. The aged Pharaok obeved. Iis warriors killed 9000 of the enemy in 2 terrific battle and Egypt rang with hymns of vic- tory. The campaign against the Libyans and their allies is notable for some- thing else besides the triumph of Egypt over her traditional enemies. T'or the first time the name of “Israel” appears on an Egyptian monument. The Bock of Exodus gives the Hebrew version of events through many years. But though scholars have searched Hgypt far and wide, the first mention of “Israel” is during the reign of Merenptah—and he lists Israel with other defeated nations on a monument erected by himsel! to commemorate the conquest of the Libyvans. This fact would irdicate that the Israclites were an independent tribe, who jolned the Lsbyans in the rald tainly he loved the arts of peace. In 1300 B. C. he was an archeologist—as vitally interested in the relics of the past as we today are in his own. Round the walls of his palace were hundreds of cases filled with speci- mens of the Stone Age; flint razors that still shave; flint knives that still cut. And, like other kings, Merenptah built himself a palace. Doubtless many thousand Israelites panted ana groaned and winced heneath the heavy whips of the taskmasters in order that there might grow into a vision of unearthly magnificence the palace Moses visited and the Coxe expedition found. In Cleopatra’s Time They found it, the Coxe expedition, beneath the ruins of five towns. On the surface were the stumps of a large Roman city, which the natives haa carried off piecemecal for grindstones and shelters till hardly a trace r mained. Below the Roman town the fragments of another, bullt in tho days of the Ptolemy rulers—to whom Cleopatra. Dbelonged. Beneath the Plolemaic town had been one huilt (as an inscription testified) in 500 13 C., in the reign of the last Pharach before the Persian invasion. Below this again was a yet carller town, built in tho days after death. And beneath that wa Mecmphis and the palace of Merenptah. A fire had gutted the building not many years after Merenptah’s death. All tho gorgeous furniture it must once have contained was destroyed. because the palace lay buried ei; een feet below the ground level, and because during much of the year the Nile covered it, no natives had found and robbed the gold inlaid panels and pillars. In spite of the fire, the four towns above {t, and the lapse of 3000 years, the palace is in a remarkably good state of preserva- tion. It happens to be one of the few palaces—not temples—found in such a state that its parts could be recog- nized. And it is one of the few build- ings intimately connected with an ancient religion which remains in the spot where it was built. Only three bits of furnishings caped the conflagration. They were two broken alabaster pitchers and an ink pot. The ink pot was decorated in the green-blue glazed pattern called faience. It bore the name of a local official, vright, 1919 Again Moses ‘and Aaron went to the palace * * * To prove the di- vinity of their message, Aaron cast down his rod on those pavement stones, or, perha; on the carved ramp, and it became a serpent So well defined were the walls and the colonnades, and so unharmed the decorations in spite of flames and water, that it became easy to recon struct, mentally, the east wing of the wondrous house. Only the east wing has been opened up so far, but it is the important end of the residence; the one with a throne room hardly to be CPASE utter magnificenc the Lord of el had said to Moses. With Aaron and the elders of his people, Moses - proached a palace inklosure sur- rounded by a wall twenty-one feet thick. Sun-dried bricks were the ma- terial of which the palace was built— probably bricks manufactured by the hard toil of the fellow countrymen of Moses. All the columns and door frames were of limestone, vivid with ornamentation. Passing through one of these lime- stone portals on the western siae, Moses and Aaron were dirccted by the guard along a corridor that endeq in another portal — this one cut through the twelve-foot thickness of the wall of the palace itsclf. They en- to the cloud less turquoise of the Hgyptian sky: a courtyard round which a roofed colon nade of thirty-four pillars st tered a courtyard, open o cateful shadow. As the patriarchs traversed the limestone pavement this colonnade they must h of have eyeq o great yard, 8% feet wide by 175 feet long. And they had time to not that the columu shafts w veilow with bands of e re a rich inseription i, lit blue, blending and e same contrasting with panels of yellow, nd’ blue arovnd the w: Lt inscriptions, of course, recited virtues and victo the of the king whom the patriarchs had petitioned for an audience. I'rom the courtyard the patrlarchs pasged through a noble doory feet wide the doorway was, twenty-three feet high. en and It opened into the coolness of a vestibule just outside the throne room. The vestibule root was supported by tweclve column: similar to those around the court- yard, but even lar; On these lovely shafts the inscriptions were done in ence, and in t s of reliet were figures of the king and gods overlaid with thick gold leaf. Along the jamb of the door marched a carved pro. sion of Nile gods offering the king v s of water from the lakes and canals of his kingdom. It must have struck the patriarchs— the bitter contrast between the Juxury surrounding the Pharaoh and the misery of the Israclite bondmen, worked to their death in order that s on each cach with a base zontal band of inscription done in pale greenish-blue faience ran around each Jlower part of the column sp: of gold, the petals dyed bid leaf laid over deep red th n indescrib- Between the bloomed large open ind the band able depth and richness. tips of the petal flowers of faience, the king in gold on a blue ground. colors covered walls of the r base decorated i of painted in which were shown symbols of upper and lower Egypt. The floor was racle of painted patterns like the nobleman's tomb, & painted patterns and with gold. Gold—gold—gold, the glint of it min- the brilliant tints of wall carved stone windows high above the painted pave- ment: this must have been the beauty Moses when light from Approaching, themselves prostrate before the incline nce were the carved figures of hound captives, rep- resenting the nations Merenptah had overthrown-—a much bold- Moses in the Bulrushce—By Paul Delaroche The dread Pharaoh bowed his head And the two patriarchs—Moses, eighty Aaron, eighty-three—thelr beards a badge of wisdom, thelr dark, suffering eyes undazzled by the of their oppressor—Moses and Aaron said, with complete simplicity, the Lord God of Israel: Let My people go that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.” “And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice, to let Israel go?" is all written few chapters of Exodus. Pharaoh stirring magnificently on his throne as he continued: the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. What, indeed, had he to do witl Lord of these foreign bondmen? ‘He, palace, where the Merenptah’s name might be eternal. With deep fervor they besought God that their hands might not tremble nor It took tremendous audience of a king ood directly op: their tongues fail courage to Another great door s posite the one they had entered from rd, and copied it in design, “Thus saith one on each sido of the great middle portal, were shimmering with faience praises of the Suddenly the middle door swung on bronze sockets. heard a noise of trumpots forty-one feet wide in the first One can see “I know not columns bathed mysterious light—columns his golden g0ds brought him The patriarchs v broad path to the majesty of the throne itself. There were three Pleaded for Israel /. anger Pharaoh cried out at them that they were keeping the bondmen from work; that they had not enough to do and so idled away their time In thinking up these fantasies. “For they De idle, therefore they cry, say- ing: ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.! Let there be work lald upon the men that they may labor therein; and let them not regard vain words.” So from his golden throne Pharaoh dealt out a bitter punishment. He commanded that straw should no longer be brought to the Israelite brickmakers, but that they should be compelled to seek their own straw and yet furnish as many bricks each day as they had manufactured in a day heretofore. With these stern and com temptyuous words he dismissed the pae triarchs. The already fainting bond- men groaned under this penalty, but the lash of the taskmasters drove them to their burdens. Thus fell the sor- rowful days of the bricks without™ straw. Again Moses and Aaron went to the palace through the mighty portals and stood before the sumptuous throne. To prove the divinity of thelr message Aaron cast down his rod on those pavement stones or perhaps on the carved ramp and it became a serpent. Pharaoh called his magicians, who threw down their own rods and these became serpents also. Let the mod- erns who scoff at this incident con- sider, among other things, the Hindu snake charmers of today, who can hypnotize a serpent into the rigidity of a staff, though they may not turn a staff into a snake. Tiven as the king bent a scornful smile on Aaron the Egyptian sorcerers shouted in dismay. For “Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” Still the king remained unconvinced. And ther, with Aaron stretching forth his rod, Moses called down upon Egypt the ten plagues. Again and againm, so Exodus records, the king sent for Moses and promised to grant the petl tion cf the Israelites if Moses would remove the plague Yet again and again the king broke his promise. Through the plagues of frogs, lice, flies, hail, Jocusts and darkness Pha- raoh resisted Moses. But then came the tenth plague, the plague of the death of the first born. The Exodus From Egypt The blood of the first Passover smeared the lintel of each Hebrew door. And the angel of death walked through Bgypt. “And it came to pass that at mid- night the Lord smote all the first born in the land of Egypt, from the first born of Pharaoh that sat upon his throne unto the first born of the cap- tive that was ‘in the dungeon.®* * * And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egype tians, * * * And he called for Moses and Aaron by night and said, Rise up and get you forth, * * ¢ Go, serve the Lord as ye have said. It is written in Exodus that the chil dren of Israel went in such haste that “the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes on their shoulders. This was the beginning of the es cape. They fled before Pharaoh, and the Old Testament tells of the pillar of cloud py day and of fire by night, the partifig of the waters of the Red Sea when Pharaoh sent his troops to take captive the fugitives. Bible crit. fes have wrangled desperately over this record. But one fact is incontro- vertible: In the tive of Exodus Moses and Aaron are made to stand before the throne of Merentpah, which is the identical spot where explorers of the Coxe expedition stood and saw the same carved captives on the dais. /