Archaeology Magazine - Passport to Antiquity - Passport Stamp 5

Stamp text: "Permission to proceed to Basra has been conveyed in letter no. 143925 M.E. 44 dated 23/10/19 from the Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office London (signed) Passport Officer to the Government of Bombay. (Stamps: Government of Bombay 1-Mar. 1920 Bombay Political Department; Government of Bombay Fee Received 2 Mar 1920)."

After a long sea voyage through the Red Sea to Bombay and back up the Persian Gulf, Breasted and his team arrived in Basra, in what was then called Mesopotamia. They arranged to visit the sites of southern Mesopotamia, ancient Sumer. At one stop, Breasted wrote, "Behind me looming high against the setting sun, is the temple tower of Ur of the Chaldees, the traditional home of Abraham. It is something less than four miles away. And when we had arrived yesterday morning it required only a little manipulation of the official wires to produce two Ford vans, and we were presently rolling away across the desert at twenty miles an hour. Behind us was Ur Junction! Ur Junction! What do you think Abraham would say to that!"

The west corner of the ziggurat of Ur along the northwest side; Messrs. Bull and Shelton, and Prof. Breasted in the foreground, March 17-18 (Courtesy Oriental Institute)

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