Sir, A Brendan McWilliams is somewhat out of date (Weather Eye, November 25th). In 1929, the archaeologist C. L. Woolley and his team were excavating the burial hill of the Kings at the site of Ur of the Chaldees, southwest of the mouth of the Euphrates. They dug shafts which passed first through the level of the graves, and next through a layer containing broken pottery vessels.
Then they reached a level of "pure ... that could only have been deposited by water . . ." The clay was about ten feet deep. Beneath it were more potsherds, but they were different from those in the layer above the clay: handmade, not turned on a wheel.
The reference is Dr Werner Keller, The Bible as History (translated by Dr William Neill), Hodder & Stoughton, 1956. - Yours, etc.,
Ballygar,
Roscommon.