OCR Text |
Show ABRAHAM AS PLOUGHMAN. The ancient tendency to affix without with-out reason, tho names of prominent men to pictorial scones represented upon up-on tablets, monuments, or to attach the names of historic persons to pictures of various kinds, or to writings, writ-ings, ' continues up to this day. We note as an instance, tho roceipt by the University of Pennsylvania of a Babylonian Baby-lonian brick, said to be of unusual interest in-terest on account of a pictured stamp thereon, which shows a man ploughing with oxen and aided by two helpers. The plough is represented as of tho old forked-stick style, but has an attachment at-tachment that consists of a hopper into which tho grain is fed and through which the seed was carried to the ground and covered by the harrow. har-row. Ono man drove, one held the plough and the other attended to the seeding and watched the effectiveness of the harrowing. The particular wonder in this process is that it was a combination plough, seeder and harrow, which shows that the inventive ingenuity of tho ancient Babylonian was by no means a negligible negli-gible quantity. Tt was a demonstration demonstra-tion of ihe practical ingenuity of the ancients, something similar to that which we mentioned some days ago in noting the header harvester which was used by the ancient Gauls. That was driven in front of oxen who were hitched to the framo on wheels, and movable knives, substantially on the same principle as the modern header, took off the heads of the grain, leaving leav-ing the straw standing useless on the ground. There is no great personage named on the picture or as attaching to the use of this plougS, 3eeder, and harrow represented on the Babylonian Baby-lonian brick which tho Univorsity of Penns3'lvania has obtained. But there wero not lacking those who immediately immedi-ately attached the namo of Abraham to the picture and held that it was Abraham who was holding the plough. The explanation does not undertake to say that his son Isaac and his grandson grand-son Jacob were his assistants in this operation, but it might as well. The picture is evidently ono representing a familiar scene in the Babylonian fields -which was ia no way connected with any distinguished individual, and which any groat man would havo no doubt disdained to havo been connected con-nected with, just a3 any groat noblo of tho Middle Ages would havo disdainod t0 go into field work of any kind. Tho picture on tho brick ovldontly rop-rosonts rop-rosonts a rural scono with which tho artist who drow it was familiar, and which was well known to tho farming communities of Chaldoa, and there wero doubtloss thousands of such bricks. How old this brick ia ono cannot can-not say, but it is probably well back toward tho ancient days, and tho name of tho individual who invented that seeder had been lost in tho obscurity of tho age3 by tho timo this picture was made. But tho idea of connecting Abraham with field ploughing in Babylon is something that is bo absurd that one cannot refrain from comparing compar-ing it with the controversy which Bishop Spalding had with certain individuals in-dividuals hero who wero undertaking to maintain a theory connecting Abraham Abra-ham with an Egyptian mummy wrap, which is as absurd as this which undertakes un-dertakes to roprosent Abraham as ploughing on tho Babylonian plains. |