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Show i - - LETTERS OLDnrt THAN SOLOMON. j . I Mlr,l s l'x Imticpit 400 Veara llrfnre Ills I ntlier'a lltMli llug I p. The Smithnonian institution has re-I re-I reived information of tho discovery at Tcll-cl-AiiKiria, in upper Kgypt, of a numln r of tablets relauing to tiie history of Jerusalem, and dating back 000 yenfh earlier than any records hitherto known. i'hon it is understood that those tableta of Ktolio urn li tters pas-sed between tho king of Jerusalem and tbu Pharaoh of Lgypt 400 ye.-i.ra before tho birth of David, Da-vid, who was tho father of Solomon, Hin'i notion xvill bo formed of their extreme ex-treme interest. These letters were written, writ-ten, so Dr. CyrtKi Adit r told a Wellington Welling-ton reporter, nlmut tho year loot) H. C. nnd cast ft great light upon tho relations of Egypt at that ancient epoch. This, of course, wag h; ug before Jerusalem v;!3 captured by 1)0 .Iowa. At thnt time Palestine was a federation federa-tion of independent cities, each of which, like Jerusalem, was governed by a "prefect" "pre-fect" this word meaning literally "king ''of -a1ty." Nevertheless, these towns I paid a tribute to Pharaoh, find it was in ! relation to this frilmto that tieveral of tho letters found were addressed to the ruler of Egypt by the king of Jerusalem, Al ili-Taba. In them he tries to explain, with duo respect, that ho occupies a inoro independent position than tho Other prefect.", mid omjht to bealreated accordingly. For example, iu one inia- sivo ho nays : "Behold, thin city of Jerusalem neither my father nor my mother has given tmto ni', but tho call of a mighty king." This refers to tho ancient ctiKtoiu in Palestine, by which rulers were sometimes some-times chosen in consequence of a suj-posed suj-posed divine call and without any reference refer-ence to hereditary law. Having been summoned to his throno by the Deity, ; Alsli-Taba argned that lie should be j treated inoro leniently with regard to tribnte. Ia another of tho letters ha hays:- , , "Behold, neither' lily filler nor my mother ha appoiujvd'uio in this place, but t he call of the rt'ity king has made me enter into tho ftjf my fathers," That the "mightj ifing" upoken of was the Deity is proven by the fact that to him as authority is referred an oracle inscribed in-scribed upon another tablet, which says that "as long as a ship sails upon the sea so long will Mesojiotfimi.i and Baby- Ionia conquer." The chief aim of tho three other letters written by Abdi-Tiba is, to ask the Pharaoh Pha-raoh for military aid against foreign conquerors con-querors invading Palestine, und esticcial-ly esticcial-ly the district of Jerusalem. These warlike war-like strangers ho calls peoplo of Habiri in other words, they were Hebrews. It seems hardly probable that the Hebrews He-brews as a nation shoeld havo invaded Palestine at so early a date, and so it is likely that those were some advanced tribes of Israel which settled down west of the Jordan nnd made incursions from time to time. In one of tho letters on this subject Ahdi-Taba says: "The Ifabiri people are conquering the cities of the king" i. c, the cities tributary tribu-tary to the Pharaoh "therefore the king may turn his face to bis subjects and send troops. If tho troops arrive this year tho countries of tho king, my lord, may Vie saved, but if no troops arrive the countries of tho king, my lord, will exist no longer." This tremendous "fimr nt Tell-el-Amaria includes 200 tablet;', largely of Babylonian cuneiform script, which is thus discovered for tho first time to have been ill use ut so early a period in Egypt and Palestine. Many of tho other tal-ltts tal-ltts are dispatches of about the samo date from prefects of other cities of Palestine Pal-estine to tho Pharaoh. Some of the inscriptions in-scriptions are in an nuknown language, which no ono has so far been able to translate. It iu funny to think that Solomon Solo-mon liimaelf would havo looked upon these tablets as remote antiquities. , Washington Star. |