American Archaeologists Seek Ancient Palestine-egyptian Records

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

An effort to discover evidence of early relations between Egypt and Palestine is now being made by the University of Chicago expedition to Megiddo, at a mound 37 kilometers southeast of Haifa. Previous archaeologists who searched the ruins revealed six or seven well defined layers, each representing successive cultures, ending with the era known as the Third Semitic, and representing about 10,000 years.

News of the latest archeological discoveries in Palestine is sent to this city by the correspondent for the Catholic Standard and Times, and by the Pennsylvania Museum expedition.

Among the important recent excavations reported by the correspondent is the unearthing of what are believed to be the ruins of a synagogue built in Roman times at the Megiddo mound, where Prof. James H. Breasted, who is now in the United States, headed the Chicago expedition. This synagogue is believed to be the one referred to in the New Testament. The ruins and the mound are on the site of Tell Hum, on the Sea of Galilee.

Prof. Breasted has been led to hope he will find evidence of communication between Palestine and Egypt at this mound because it is at the point where the ancient fortress of Megiddo guarded the pass across the Carmel hill from the coastal to the inland plains, and thus constituted a strategic point, doubtless for the taking of toll from caravans passing between Egypt and Damascus.

The Pennsylvania University Museeum expedition at Beisan, headed by Alan Rowe, reports that the Canaanite temple at Ashtaroth has proved a mine of archeological treasures. The clearing of this famous temple, in which the armor of King Saul was hung, disclosed a bronze figure of a Canaanite god holding the Egyptian sceptre, a splendidly-cut, Babylonian seal cylinder, and a silver box containing an inscribed crystal scarab to which a square piece of carnelian had been attached by means of a bronze loop.