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Show World's Oldest Library Discovered in Syria What Is supposed to be the most ancient library In the world, consisting consist-ing of documents written In the first alphabetic signs known to savants, was discovered in Syria by a French archeologlcal expedition. Eighteen large and small tablets, engraved with letters that are neither hieroglyphics nor Assyrian cuneiform characters, but evidently parts of the first alphabet alpha-bet made of 26 and 27 signs, were found by a j'oung Alsatian archeologist on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean, Mediter-ranean, at a place called Ras-Shamra, near Iatakleh (Ladlkiya). The expedition expe-dition had discovered there a necropolis, necrop-olis, the 4.000-year-old ruins of a Phoenician palace and town, and numerous ancient vases, Jurs and statutes of great archeologlcal and historical value. Tlie opinion was put forward by the Academie that tliese ruins represented traces of an Aegian colony that existed on the Phoenician coast 2.000 years before the present era, and whose civilization was of the Mycenian period. Salomon Reinach, the famous French historian, who was present when the report was presented, pre-sented, declared that the discovery was a most extraordinary one, and that It would be of the greatest Importance Im-portance for the study of ancient history. |