THE RISE OF MAN — BREASTED 423 



as field director. In connection with the investigation and restora- 

 tion of these magnificent palaces of the Persian Emperors, especially 

 of Darius and Xerxes, the institute has begun a series of researches 

 in the vicinity of Persepolis which will carry our knowledge back 

 of Persian days into the pre-Persian Highland Civilization, which 

 has left numerous city mounds still untouched by excavation and 

 scattered far and wide across the Persian hills and valleys. The 

 Persepolis expedition when the institute received the concession was 

 the first scientific project of America within the limits of modern 

 Persia. 



THE EXCAVATION OF ARMAGEDDON IN PALESTINE 



South of the Highland Zone is the great desert bay which has as 

 its cultivable fringes what we may call the " Fertile Crescent." This 

 great crescent has Palestine at the west end, Babylonia at the east 

 end, and Assyria in the middle. (See map, p. 414.) We have already 

 mentioned the excavations of the institute at Tell Asmar and Kha- 

 faji, on the east end of the Fertile Crescent. It is also excavating 

 in Palestine, at the west end. Closely involved with the shifting 

 history of the east in the Imperial Age is the famous battlefield 

 of Armageddon, or Megiddo, in Palestine. This plain, lying inland 

 from Haifa, received its name from the strong fortress city of 

 Megiddo, which dominated the plain and commanded the pass over 

 the Carmel Range which flanks the plain on the south. It was this 

 very pass through which Allenby advanced to his great victory 

 on the Plain of Armageddon at the close of the World War. The 

 institute has recently acquired control of the entire site of the his- 

 toric city, an area of something over 13 acres, and is now engaged 

 in the systematic clearance by stripping off stratum after stratum of 

 the levels which mark the successive cities built one above the other 

 on this ancient site. Thus far the excavation has descended to 

 the Age of the Hebrew Kings. The stables in which Solomon kept 

 his blooded horses, imported from Egypt for sale to the Hittites, 

 have been uncovered ; and a monument of the Pharaoh Shishak, who 

 captured Jerusalem under Solomon's son, has also been discovered. 



One of the interesting developments at this site, where the excava- 

 tions are in charge of P. L. O. Guy as field director, has been the 

 use of a small captive balloon for securing air photographs which 

 are so valuable to the archeologist. Mr. Guy has employed a type 

 of balloon which, though not large enough to carry an operator, 

 nevertheless will carry a camera, the shutter of which can be oper- 

 ated by electricity from the ground. A small hangar has been pro- 

 vided for the protection of this balloon, which now makes possible 

 a series of very useful air photographs, showing the varying plan 



