Photograph from Frederick Simpich 

 A THRONG OF PILGRIMS ON THE DESERT OUTSIDE OF BAGDAD PREPARING TO JOIN 

 THE CARAVAN OF PILGRIMS FOR KERBELA. AND NF.DJEF 



Before man came the land was waste. When he had learned to bridle its rivers and to 

 develop its capabilities, it became "as the garden of the Lord." Now that he has lost the 

 grip of his first inheritance, it has gone back to waste again. Yet there can be no doubt that 

 here is a country of almost infinite possibilities, and that in the future, possibly not a very 

 distant future, the first home of the race will again be one of the most fertile and perhaps 

 one of the busiest spots in the world. 



PUSHING BACK HISTORY'S HORIZON 



How the Pick and Shovel Are Revealing Civilizations That 

 Were Ancient When Israel Was Young 



By Albert T. Clay 



Professor of Assvriologv and Babylonian Literature, Yale University 



OXE of the romances of the last 

 75 years has been the unearth- 

 ing of the remains of forgotten 

 empires and the decipherment of their 

 ancient records. A little over a half a 

 century ago what was known concerning 

 the ancient peoples of the nearer East, 

 besides that which is contained in the Old 

 Testament, could be written in a very 

 brief form. 



Israel was then regarded as one of the 

 great nations of antiquity. Abraham be- 

 longed to the dawn of civilization. The 

 references to other peoples in the Old 

 Testament had little meaning, for few 

 appreciated the fact that the history of 

 many pre-Israelitish nations had practi- 

 cally faded from the knowledge of man. 



The pick and spade of the explorer, 

 however, and the patient toil of the de- 



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