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Show I i I i I II l l 'W fees" tsa W Jis?v I i ffp hg0mf jam l i"Vi in I tj' iAyi i j?imu Cai i lia The Extraordinary Rock Jn and Around Which Was Built Semiramis's Ancient City and That Holds Within Its Cav-erned Cav-erned Depths Her Dust. Remarkable Accident Tliat Revealed tne Sepulckre of tke Girl Slave Who Conquered Kings m Battle, and w 19 i ..- ; I Hi M tito . l wlr. . ; i " V ' "e Extraordinary Rock in ' t - , ) , 3 and Around Which Was Built V-1. : i; -.i.i , -, Semiramis's Ancient City and f , ," ' 7 ("V...,. That Holds Within Its Cav- ' ' I !"J erned Depths Her Dust. - v ! - .-. ,v -v - . n f, " : vvs' ' 1 . , I ' 'I 'V'Jii , f Chapter in the Life of Semi- : ' , ' ' ' ,s " ramis Inscribed on Her Tomb. f ' ' - , ' jt"" r3' (Cuneiform with Hittite Characteristics) f 1 Is- 1 "'T.i,X '0 Ninib, the powerful, the strong, . s. ; . ' I the exalted, the chief of the gods, ; j tv, ' r'l'VP". the Tahant' the mlSht;y. the Per -'i , l i ViV'! :"''-"" ' VnNv fect; X' Sammuramat the Sreat queen, i ' ' 1 v. ' ' ths Pwerful queen, the queen of the ' VV i j k 2Ti5&"-4NrN world, of Assyj la, of Van, of Babylon ' ' t'!, t ' , - ' SbTv and Nineveh, and of all the lands that aie t r , ' ' ' ? nS j ' 4 ' ,-ssj;-- ' Viak V beyond, I bend m leverence and say these 't v 4 ' i sS 3 jg- ' -' - ' Vv things of myself. I have found no rnal li' ,' i' v Fyj 5 L-i - -J - w ; t (a ' H'V1-" r5, ffb tSfJ since my victoiy over the mighty Aram, h v ' "f J 3 F?3SC3';C(5- iFSff the King of Va,n, and his hosta. t. '"1" " r i1iSb "gT jp ofl TIie King of Araiu' t0 him' 1 owe my j -jy ' ' j ' ' csp tfiaMMmaiafai-w H ffM I allegiance of reverence and m his name I , llhl-v " The Brick Covering of the Tomb with the Hole Made by the Turkish Shell Brougkt to Ligkt Her T ragic Romance PERHAPS the strangest freak or the great war is that which has brought to light tho actual tomb and remains of Queen Semiramis, the most famous woman of all ancient history, with her own story of her life and her tragic romance. ro-mance. Ancient chroniclers attributed so many wonders to Semiramis that moderns almost al-most began to doubt her existence. According Ac-cording to the Greeks she was the wife of Ninus, the plunderer of Nineveh. Old Herodotus exercised his highest fancy in painting her achievements. She built the great city of Babylon with its hanging gardens gar-dens and other wonders. From legends and a few early inscriptions inscrip-tions discovered before this, we could believe be-lieve that Semiramis was a very remark-' able queen, perhaps the first woman conqueror con-queror of history, who ruled in Mesopotamia Mesopo-tamia in early Bibical times. Now we know her own story as inscribed at her own command, and find that her life was in many respects as remarKable as the legends make it. The news of the discovery discov-ery of the tomb and the extraordinary fashion fash-ion of its revealment are told here for the first time by the Rev. Earle Slac R. Plem-ming, Plem-ming, who shared in the discovery. By the Rev. Dr. Earle MacR. F lemming, D. D., Ph. D. .The Distinguished Archaeloglst of the University of Dublin, author of "Footprints "Foot-prints in the Holv Land." Entrance to the Tomb Chamber, with a Fragment of Semiramis's J n - Q f )Vjaat"l'""'' " '"" c e . ; v ih has brought - . ' : "'" , r7::::: b and remains rf;: K!' ' A -v " ' -' most famous $ I. i " 4 " " Jt &-'-'A'r Dry, with her A . ,l " xfes her tragic to- i.lQ" , ; ' ' JQc-,5SsO-s. V. uted so many tx 1 t 4 1 -JpF ' U VVN xistence. Ac- MM. I ;W ' ' ' ' . . ' iffCt- fnetehWif01d iT " ' ' ' . " 1 2 jj JBpTf) heat fancy in ' :;3fj3'- IStj'-- v ' ' 3 i" ' TOtraylua She built the ; t ( 1 ' . " " jSS early inscrip- " -"OJf " 1 "ly-CI t.i5'-4 ld be- ' 1 ' ' V ? PSltl 3WomMn.con' ' " ' . I gggc: es. Now we Entrance ' J (K cribed ather h . . . . ?S!Snr2-MgSSa : her life was . - , . J v SJjTTri (SfTZj Kable as the -Jomb ' , - ;1J,2 W-T" BW& P of the discov- Chamber, , ! , - p7 v -Sfao. " n4l-!f MacKPlem- Fragment - . 1 i UJOttSi Semiramis 3 t , x ' rle MacR. Auto- ' j - v llL 1 biography - , J , oglst of the i s lh " '; ' V , t u tV ' ! j Sectional View of Queen r 11 j SemiranuVs Tomb. '? -t.- - . " ft , " ' - J A. Where the Shell Struck the Brick 1 r " . ; - " . 1 - ' ' ' top' Bi Room wltn Tomb of Semiramis - , - s ' ' " ' 'J and Urns Containing Ashes of Her Royal f - i ' ' ' Husbands. C. Open Chamber Behind -''v';,,i. j Tomb. D. Chamber Containing Unopened T' r-v XT ' r , ' ' s ' ' ' i Vrn. E. Library of Inscriptions Tell- v . - " . . it ' . , ' j ing Story of the Creation and Semlra- . , ' i il ' ' i " t J mis's Life. G Circular Opening Lead- , ' . . ' , ' H '"9 to Vaults Below. H. Treasures of 1,1 ' l SJ t t , , " ' " J Semiramis. . Small Chamber Con- f ' ! , ' . v talnlng Tablet. J. More Treasures. ,i t -; K. Unexplored Chamber. i ' , i ' . ' . - - 1 t i t '"- lated the lines of the beautiful body which v y 1 ! i t " j. r '7 C ' i the royal undertakers had laid within s ' i . , k ' , ' s What is left is only the powder and dust ( . - ' ' , ' -1 to which the body has returned, thus piov- t'1 ' , ' - i , ' ' lnS t'lat whateer might have been'known ! . " v ' o r t ii of the arts of preservation or embalming. , - 'i - x . i. ' 'J Ihev were not piacticed upon the royal linfli, rf llm Tflmnroira TTprmp) ipn 1 1 v cpnlprl A Chapter in the Life of Semiramis Semi-ramis Inscribed on Her Tomb. (Cuneiform with Hittite Characteristics) TO Ninib, the powerful, the strong, the exalted, the chief of the gods, the valiant, the mighty, the perfect; per-fect; I, Sammuramat, the great queen, the powerful queen, the queen of the world, of Assyria, of Van, of Babylon and Nineveh, and of all the lands that are beyond, I bend m reverence and say these things of myself. I have found no rival since my victory over the mighty Aram, the King of Van, and his hosta. The King of Aram, to him, I owe my allegiance of reverence and m his name I have conquered the earth. Among the prmces of the four quarters of the earth there is none to compare to him whom I have made my consort, the great Ramman-Nirari, Ramman-Nirari, who is King of Assyria, the mighty successor of the great, the powerful, the wise King Shamshi-Ramman, whose bondwoman bond-woman I was, and whose captive from the palace of Babylon I was, and who set me upon the throne of Aram when I had overcome over-come the hosts of my beloved. To Ramman-Nirari I now also give reverence rev-erence that it may be contained forever m.this place where I have ordained that imib, the powerful, the strong, the god of all gods of Anu, take me to his arms and here guard over me until the Great Lake shall again devastate the earth and Vhile the explorers were making their way through dust and crumbled clay about this room one of them suddenly crashed through the flooring and into a third chamber cham-ber below. There was no stairway, but there had been a circular opening m the floor, through which the Queen s treasurers, treas-urers, perhaps, let down into these lower chambers the royal treasure. This floor is divided into three smaller chambers. The walls and stone columns which stand alone are covered w:ith inscriptions. About the floor are scattered stone blocks which probably are hollow and the repository of sacred emblems or gold and jewels. There was much debris of clay and earth scattered scat-tered about, but opportunity and the tools at hand did not permit exploration with the caution which was imperative. Still below this tier of chambers there Is another this one reached by a stairway. stair-way. This chamber remains as yet unopened un-opened unexplored. The investigations were halted before we could reach the bottom of the stairway. We identified, however, walls which proved the existence of at least one more treasure room. Undoubtedly Un-doubtedly there are still other rooms bo-low, bo-low, reaching m tiers, perhaps, far into the earth itself. A future explorer may find within this rock, hollowed out by the labor of what must have been thousands of plaves, treasures of gold and jewels exceeding ex-ceeding the riches of 'Ophir itself the bootv, perhaps, of all those plundering campaigns cam-paigns which Semiramis led. The explorations were suddenly 3tonped by Djevdet Bey, tho Governor, hut from the sreat mass of cuneiform inscriptions within the tomb we had already been able to decipher Semiramis's story of lier own amazing life and other matters of great interest. She discloses herself as having been a Khatti woman who bad been captured by the Babylonians and immured as a votary in the Temple of Sarpanit hi a Babylonian city whose name has not yet been deciphered. de-ciphered. She was later again captured by the Assyrian king. Shamshi-Ramman, who took her to his palace at the capital of Assyria. In the harem of the king Semiramis. or, a she calls herself. Sammuramat. of which Semiramis seems to be the Greek and Armenian Ar-menian form, made good use of the arts of love she had learned in the Temple of Sarpanit, Sar-panit, the Babylonian Venus. There came a time when Shamshi-Ramman. having failed in two attempts to conquer the great king Aram of the Vannic Kingdom to the north, bethought himself of the widely heralded penchant of Aram for pretty girl slaves. He chose Semiramis as that one of his women most skilled in voluptuous allurements and hade her go into the north and throw herself upon the mercy of Aram as an escaped Assyrian slave who had 'been picked for a sacrifice at the Temple of Ishtar, the love goddess of Assyria. etc. Attached to the Council of Foreign Missions Mis-sions In Syria and Armenia. Ar-menia. ONE morning in Ma, 1915, a stray shell from a Turkish gun Ti'hich had been turned upon up-on the Christian citizens of this city of Van, in Armenia by Djevdet Bey, Governor of the vilayet of Van, soared over the rebellious quarter of the city and pierced a hollowed rock which rises on a high promontory pro-montory northwest of tne city. A great hole was torn in the rock, which yawned for several months after, the massacre which, in that May, stained the narro-v streets of Van witj blood. A Kurd goat tender found the hole a few days later and picked out of it an oddly shaped ancient vase, which he sold for a trifle to one of the colony of archaeologists ar-chaeologists engaged in research re-search In Van. This scholar immediately realized that be had found a key to some of the most interesting problems of the ancient The Tomb Chamber. Semiramis Was Buried Beneath the Slab on Which the Man Is Sitting my kingdom thereon. May all the princes who shall rule after me be guided in their mighty judgments by the chronicles of my righteous doings, which I have had recorded re-corded in these chambers for the treasure of the great Nmib. And to these later princes who mav be called by Ashur I sav if this temple decay and thou see this writing, then repair its damages and writ thy name with mine, that the God Anu may kuow I grant to thee my favor also, and restore this temple to its place. Semiramis went Into the Vannic camps and threw herself at the feet of the impressionable im-pressionable Aram. The king at once took her into his household and gave her full opportunity to perform her mission. So infatuated, did he become with the refugee that his wise men and priests began to conspire against the new concubine and finally succeded in opening the king's eyes lo her machinations. Aram was a williifg lover, but he also was a wise king. He summoned Semiramis Semi-ramis belore him, reproached her and, deaf to her pleadings that she sought nothing noth-ing better than to prove her affection for him, he sent her into the wilderness, bidding bid-ding her return, as she came, to her Assyrian As-syrian master. Semiramis returned to the palace of bbamshi-Ramman, furious at the scorn of Aram, whom she had grown to love. She demanded of the Assyrian king that he descend de-scend upon Aram and punish him, and when Shamshi-Ramman displayed a hesV tation, she offered to lead an army herself, her-self, if he would grant her one, and briny back to him the annic crown. Shamshi-Ramman consented to this plan, making up the army from the ranks of his slaves, prisoners and criminals, with a scattering of picked soldiers. Semiramis led this heterogeneous army northward, gave battle to the hosts of Aram on the plains which skirt the shores of the lake, and defeated him. When the toll of battie was counted the bodv of the king was -r found among his slam warriors. Semiramis grieved greatly. She caused the body of Aram to be burled in state and its ashes confined in an urn which, in after years, she must have removed t,o the shrine she builded for herself in the Leak rock. As a reward for her victory over the A.ramaeans. Semiramis was crowned queerv. she relates, of the Vannic Kingdom, King-dom, by her master. Shamshi-Ramman, who, accordingly, emancipated her. Probably Prob-ably lo forjjpt her loss of Aram, her true lve, Semiramis at this epoch began the series of voluptuous debauches which legends associate with her memory and which. 'it is indicated by various chance translations of her inscriptions so far made, are verified by herself. She tells, also, of her descent upon the Assyrians after the death of her former master. Shamshi-Ramman. and her victory over the hosts of Ramman-Nirari III, the succeeding king. Further on in the inscriptions, in-scriptions, she is found describing herself as the queen consort, of this same Ramman-Nirari, "king of the world, the great king, the powerful king, by my grace King of Assyria and all the lands that. He beyond." be-yond." Thus It. would seem that Semiramis. Semira-mis. having conquered Ramman-Nirari, fell in love with him and combined the two kingdoms under a Joint throne. An Interesting Picture by Henri Motte, Illustrating HerodoHis Story of How Semiramis Quelled a Force of Savage Rebels by the Simple Display of Her Queenly Beauty Sectional View of Queen Semiramis's Tomb. A, Where the Shell Struck the Brick top, B. Room with Tomb of Semiramis and Urns Containing Ashes of Her Royal Husbands. .iC. Open Chamber Behind Tomb. D. Chamber Containing Unopened Urn. E. Library of Inscriptions Telling Tell-ing Story of the Creation and Semiramis's Semira-mis's Life. G. Circular Opening Leading Lead-ing to Vaults Below. H. Treasures of Semiramis. . Small Chamber Containing Con-taining Tablet. J. More Treasures. K. Unexplored Chamber. lated the lines of the beautiful body which the royal undertakers had laid within. What is left is only the powder and dust to which the body has returned, thus prov- ing that whatever might have been'known of the arts of preservation or embalming, they were not practiced upon the royal body of the Empress. Hermetically sealed, the body may have remained as it died for many centuries, but time has overcome whatever were the precautions taken-for preservation. Behind the stairway leading down nto this tomb room is a smaller room, in which one huge urn of bronze and clay rests in solitary splendor upon a slab. Around the walls are inscriptions as yet undeciphered. What this urn contains may only be conjectured. con-jectured. Perhaps it is the ashes of the lost Aram the king who was Semiramis's only love, and whose asnes she says she preserved. Below these chambers Is another, reached by a sharply descending stairway, also stretching clear across the rock. This was the royal "library" room, for here, in inscriptions and pictorial carvings, on walls and slabs, is written the history of the world as reported to the Queen, and the history, too, of her own life. These inscriptions, in various forms, have been but partly translated. On the floor of this room there are countless urns and vases, each with an inscription or a pictorial legend on its bowl not yet solved. What they contain also is a mystery perhaps each one holds the ashes of a royal lover. Great Britain Bis'nts Reserved. world from the Creation to the Flood and later events. He hurriedly summoned the other members mem-bers of tho colony of whom I was one. We found to our wondpr that the stray gun shell had pierced the tomb of Queen Sammuramat, the world-famous Semiramis of Assyria, who died In the seventh century cen-tury before Christ. Tools and equipment for careful excavation excava-tion and exploration beyond the opening in the roof of the hollowed rock, laid open by the stray shell, were only partially, available, in the city of Van at that time. And those of us who wished to solve the fascinating mystery thus opened up before us were compelled to use discretion. We kDew the Turks are averse to any explorations explora-tions into the records of the past buried in Turkish lands, and we endeavored as long as possible to keep our explorations eecret. Carefully scraping away the soft earth and accumulated dust and ashes of a by gone age into which the shell had penetrated pene-trated we uncovered, first, the remains of an ancient stairway, dropping by wide, easy stops, directly down into a great room which had been hollowed out by infinite labor of countless slaves, probably, until It stretched from one side of the rock to the other. The walls and floor of this room were in a good state of preservation, although there was a dense accumulation of dust and gases which impeded our progress prog-ress for many days while we were letting in the fresh outside air. From the bottom of the stone steps there stretched a raised platform, or dais, with a balustrade of urns and vases across the length of the room, traversing its centre, cen-tre, reaching at last what was ?oon discovered dis-covered to be a iarse stone tomb set at the foot of a huge slab, on which were the familiar cuneiform characters of the Hittite Hit-tite alphabet. After many days we had lifted the covering cov-ering slab from this stone tomb, exposing a hollow chamber directly underneath, in which rested many ancient swords of a shape never before encountered among' indent relics. Ornaments which we afterward after-ward concluded had been the insignia of Semiramis's sovereignty, and which, no doubt, she had worn upon state occasions, were scattered in this trough-like chamber. Little mounds of dust, with traces of threads and bead work, were mute evidence that here had been laid away the rich robes and intimate garments of the Queen herself, whose body, according to the inscriptions in-scriptions above tho tomb, reposed somewhere some-where beneath. When we had opportunity to delve deeper into the tomb, lifting aside another layer of slabs, we came to the catafalque. In a huge solid stone space had been carved large enough for the body of the Queen. The primitive sculptors had stmu-Copyrisht, stmu-Copyrisht, 15JS, by Star Company |