LIBRARIES UNDER THE SANDS.
THE learned gentlemen who constitute the Victoria Institute of London, enjoyed at their last meeting a paper written by Professor Sayce that gave a historical description of what has become known in regard to the conquests of Amenophis III. The recently discovered archives of the old king's palace were carefully investigated by Professor Sayce, and he learned from the tablets and inscriptions that literary intercourse was not unknown in the civilized world of Western Asia as long ago as the fifteenth century before the Christian era; that there was, indeed, a great deal of bookishness, so to speak, between Babylon and Egypt, and in the smaller States of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, etc. This state of affairs was not unsuspected by those who have cared to gain some history of the ancients, from available sources, even before the estimable Victoria Institute came into existence. Nevertheless, the world must be interested in two of Professor Sayce's inferences—first, that Babylonian was the court and diplomatic language of that day, as French in modern times; second, that under the ruins and débris of Kirjath-Sepher (interpreted "Booktown") there is a tablet library awaiting the spade of the excavator. It is assumed that Kirjath-Sepher was the seat of a famous library, and, as the town was also known as the "sanctuary," that the library, composed of clay tablets with cuneiform indenture, was stowed in the temple, like those of Assyria and Babylonia. From this assumption to the other, that Babylon exercised a widespread literary influence, is easy and natural, and this influence, we are told, explains the use of the names of Babylonian deities among the inhabitants of the West. Nebo, the mount on which Moses died, received its name from the Babylonian god of literature. These tablets make clear another point, concerning which the distinguished archeologist says:— "Ever since the progress of Egyptology made it clear that Rameses II. was the Pharaoh of the oppression, it was difficult to understand how so long an interval of time as the whole period of the eighteenth dynasty could lie between him and the 'new king,' whose rise seems to have been followed almost immediately by the servitude and oppression of the Hebrews. The tablets of Tel-el-Amarna now show that the difficulty does not exist. Up to the death of Khu-en-Aten, the Semite had greater influence than the native in the land of Mizraim." Moreover, a matter of consolation to many people of religious sentiment whose faith has had some knocks from learned skeptics, these Tel-el-Amarna tablets adduce corroborative testimony to the historic accuracy of the Pentateuch, though we are yet ignorant what is the evidence rescued from the palace of Amenophis. Should the Sayce conjecture be justified by the fact, and a library be unearthed from the ruins of Kirjath-Sepher, the discovery will be one of inestimable value to the world of science and philosophy, for it would probably introduce us to the literature of one of the highest civilizations in ancient times. The Tel-el-Amarna tablets, that are accounted the greatest historic discovery of the century, are, perhaps, 3,500 years old, and supply a link between sacred and profane history that is of the highest importance. If there lie under the sands of Syria and Palestine the rich libraries the judgment of such men as Sayce accredits to that keep of ages, clearly the student would have a great duty to perform in its rescue from long oblivion. What discoveries have been made signify with what pains the cuneiform writers preserved the records of their times, celebrating the achievements of princes, and the thoughts of wise men. That one of these cities should be known as "Booktown" proves the likelihood that there were massed libraries of more than ordinary value and importance to a people cultivated in the art of literature to the extent it is probable the Babylonians were. The societies of savants in Europe—English, French, and German—should co-operate to the end of making the fullest and most thorough search for these treasures; and it would be an honorable thing to do would some of the rich Americans who are interested in historic research, contribute of their means to the furtherance of a work of such dignity. There is no good reason why America should not share in the honors of these Old World discoveries.—Chicago Inter-Ocean.