Cradle of Civilization [antikvár]

j [^U^'J'j Q ^ story told in the following pages is of buried treasure in cities of long ago. The treasure is real, as a glance at the illustrations will show: gold, silver, exquisitely carved ivories, gems cut in carnelian, serpentine, lapis lazuli. And yet that seems the least of it. The exciting, the immeasurable value of this treasure goes beyond costly materials. It lies in the unique knowledge these finds bring us: every fragment unearthed from the ancient sites recovers a part of human history that was lost, tells of beginnings, of the first cities ever built, of the first civilized men who lived in them, of their thoughts and doings when the world was new and theirs to subdue. The cities of long ago from which the treasure comes are the cities of Sumer, of Babylonia and of Assyria. They lie now as low grey mounds in the desert in Iraq, the ancient land of Mesopotamia; what Jeremiah prophesied about them (Jer. 51:43) has indeed come true: "Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby." That anyone should imagine that things remained in them is a wonder. But someone did. Imaginative explorers began to probe mound after mound around the middle of the last century, and soon brought to light buried pal-