THE OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGICAL 
RESEARCH IN PALESTINE. 
By JAMES A. MONTGOMERY. 
University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Divinity School. 
[ With 3 plates. ] 
One of the most distinguished of American archeologists, Prof. 
James H. Breasted, of the University of Chicago, has spoken of 
“the bridge of ancient civilization” that stretches like a great arc 
of a circle from the lands of Mesopotamia on the east to ancient 
Egypt on the southwest. This great are follows the northerly 
course of the Euphrates Valley and bends around into the country 
we call Syria, which borders on the eastern shores of the Mediter- 
ranean and has the vast deserts of Arabia as its hinterland. At the 
two ends of this great curve lie the lands of the world’s most ancient 
civilizations, Egypt and Babylonia. Archeologists dispute which 
of these is the older, but similarities and identities of culture show 
that there must have been active exchange of ideas and commodities . 
between the two lands from earliest times, and we can confidently 
trace this intercommunication to 3000 B. C. and earlier. If Syria 
does not rank as one of the lands of original civilization, at least it 
was the exchange and meeting ground of the cultures of Babylonia 
and Egypt. 
Also, politically and strategically Syria was always necessary to 
the ambitions of those great Empires. Egypt needed its buffer 
possession in Syria to protect its eagerly preserved isolation beyond 
the Isthmus of Suez. This strategical idea is continued to this day 
in the British claim to the proprietorship of Palestine. And 
from the other end the old Babylonian Empire, and later the 
Assyrian Empire, pushed forth by the logic of geography into the 
upper Euphrates Valley and then into the contiguous lands of 
Syria. In the mountains of Asia Minor on the north lurked fierce 
and barbarous peoples ready to descend on these young lands of 
civilization, and in Arabia roamed the nomads, ever preying on the 
settlements of peaceful life. We must remember that apart from 
the mere military lust of conquest those ancient civilizations insensi- 
bly extended their borders and threw their control over the bor- 
dering lands that were adaptable to civilization for the purpose of 
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