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Show Ruins of Five Cities Found on One Site : S Leveled by Invaders and Restored Re-stored Each Time. Philadelphia. Buried beneath the placid wheat fields of Palestine lies the remains of a great city which was leveled lev-eled by Invaders at least four or five times and restored to its former grandeur gran-deur after each invasion. It was the city of Beth Shemesh in Ain Shems. Situated on important trade routes between Egypt, Palestine and Syria, the city flourished between 1800 and 600 B. C. Five archeological expeditions from Haverford college have delved into the ruins 20 feet below be-low the waving wheat. A sixth expedition expe-dition is being arranged for next year. Findings of the fifth expedition now are being collected under the direction of Prof. Elihu Grant, director of the department of biblical literature at Haverford. The mounds, which have yielded startling historic material, are located 20 miles east of Jerusalem, overlooking overlook-ing the Mediterranean. The first expedition unearthed three Bronze age cemeteries. Successive excavations ex-cavations have disclosed four successive succes-sive levels representing distinct epochs in the city's history. When the city was first pillaged and burned by invaders, walls and roof beams were leveled to the floors and the new builders erected another city on the ruins of the old. This process was repeated, the findings show, until at least four or five cities were destroyed de-stroyed and rebuilt on the same site. Evidence of the prosperity of the ancient city is seen in the remains of temples, palaces, dwellings, shops, and industrial properties. Vases, flasks, bowls, tools, weapons, and jewelry indicate in-dicate the personal wealth of the inhabitants in-habitants who dwelt there 3,000 years ago. As a result of the findings, a Palestine Pales-tine museum has been formed at Haverford college. It contains an abundance of valuable material and Doctor Grant has published several reports of his discoveries. |