Page 111 - The Truth of the Life of This World

regions that have since been afforested, is covered with sand. These
deserts, once the homeland of the Sumerians, have been there for thou-
sands of years. Their glorious country, which today we are likely to meet
only in textbooks, was as real as any contemporary civilisation. These peo-
ple were as alive as we are today and they created architectural master-
pieces. In a sense, the magnificent cities built by the Sumerians are part of
the cultural heritage of our own time.
Among what survives of the cultural remains of the Sumerians, we have
information about an elaborate funeral held for Puabi, one of their queens.
Vivid accounts of this splendid ceremony are to be found in a number of
sources and they tell us that the dead body of the queen was embellished
in an extraordinary way. Her corpse was dressed in cloth fashioned from
beads of silver, gold and precious stones, and with tassels of pearls. On its
head was a wig decorated with a crown encrusted with golden leaves. A
vast amount of gold was also placed in the tomb. 11
In brief, Queen Puabi, an important name in Sumerian history, was
buried with a splendid treasure. According to accounts, these matchless
riches were carried to her tomb by a procession of guards and servants.
Queen Puabi may have been buried together with treasures beyond count-
ing, but that did not save her body from being reduced to a skeleton.
Like all other people in her kingdom, for whom she may have felt con-
tempt because they were poor, her body decayed under the ground
becoming a putrefying mass of bacteria. This is surely an impressive exam-
ple showing that the wealth and properties of this world by no means
ensure salvation from a disastrous end.

The Minoans

Land and sea may lie relatively still for centuries. Then, an upheaval
suddenly unleashes a cataclysm. Perhaps no event illustrates such a horror
so clearly as the calamity of ancient Thera. What happened there may have
been the most explosive volcanic eruption in history. Towering over the
Aegean Sea some 3,500 years ago, a mile-high volcano formed a ten-mile-
wide island. There loomed over a magnificent civilisation centred some

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