Show Deed Adds a Thousand Years to Age of Dura New Haven Conn Surprised Americans digging in Mesopotamia mia have unearthed a real estate deed years old that adds over overa a thousand years to age of a fa famous famous fa- fa a. a ancient city Eu Dura The deed inscribed on clay has has' been brought here to Yale university university university sity by Frank E. E Brown archeologist archeologist archeologist gist of the Yale expedition exploring exploring ing lag Duras Dura's buried ruins luins The real estate deed reveals that Dura was not founded by Alexander the Great Groat as a desert outpost of his empire about B. B C. C which historians historians historians his his- have taken for granted Instead Instead In In- stead the city was flourishing 17 or 18 hundred d years before Christ in an era so 50 little known that modem modern mod mod- em ern scholars call it a dark age of ot Mesopotamia's civilization Archeologists found the tile clay tablet tablet tab tab- let embedded in a temple w wall of much later date Deciphering it they realized it describes a real estate transaction regarding a field fieldin fieldin fieldin in the city of Damara which by its described locality and its spelling was apparently the same as Dura Pro Prof F. F J. J Stephens curator of Yale's Babylonian collection points out that the ancient deed was witnessed witnessed witnessed wit wit- by important people such as officials judges and priests We may say he explained that our document was wa's a deed whereby the tile king conferred the piece of property described upon one of his nobles The tablet dates dales from the reign of a king Hammurabi of Hana who lived several centuries later than famous King of Baby Baby- lon Ion Hana is a mysterious kIngdom kingdom kingdom king kIng- dom whose capital lay near Dura within the thc 2000 years of ot dark ages between early Babylonia and I Ithe the Greek and Roman era a gap which archeologists are now beginning beginning begin begin- ning to fill with ancient history |