Past Perfect: Banks at Eden

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Edgar James Banks (1866–1945) began his career as an American consul to the Ottoman empire and spent the next 15 years traveling extensively throughout the Middle East as an archaeologist and an explorer. On a quest to find Noah’s Ark, Banks became the first American to climb Mt. Ararat. As an antiquities dealer, he imported between 11,000 and 175,000 artifacts to the United States, including hundreds of cuneiform tablets. After returning to the U.S., he became a consultant for the legendary film maker Cecil B. DeMille. Banks is considered to be one of the inspirations for Indiana Jones.

Following is an excerpt from Banks’s Bismya; or, The Lost City of Adab (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912):

Kurna stands on the point of land formed by the union of the Tigris and Euphrates. Here, so says a local tradition, was the Garden of Eden, and here, or somewhere between the Tigris and Euphrates, the author of the Biblical story of the creation would have us believe that Adam and Eve were created. I had frequently passed Kurna on a river boat, but now I was about to step into the garden. On the way the soldiers entertained me with stories of the place; of a great tree coming from the days of Adam; of a huge serpent loitering in the hollow of its trunk and playing with the Arab children, a serpent which disappears whenever an unbeliever approaches. I presume they were inventing the tales for my edification, but even so, they were familiar with the old Semitic stories. At half-past eight in the evening we rounded the point into the Tigris, and pulling up to the serai [inn/palace] of the kaimakam [provincial district governor], we landed. The soldiers were sent with our letters to the chief functionary of the Garden of Eden, and in a moment they returned with an invitation for me to dine at the “Palace.” I found the kaimakam with his boon companions preparing to gather about the table, but already they showed signs of having drunk of the juice of the forbidden fruit. His name was Yakub Effendi … He professed that his chief interest was archaeology, and that he had been following my work at Bismya. He claimed that he was the kaimakam at Divanieh when Dr. [John P.] Peters [archaeologist and director of excavations] was at Nippur; that Dr. Peters had published his photograph in a book, and for the sake of his love for me, would I not send him a copy of the book? Yakub Effendi, mellowed by arrack, thus showed himself to be a scholar and a diplomat.

Two hours later I left him to wander about the garden in the beautiful moonlight. Kurna, as a town, is of little importance. It possesses a telegraph office, a good serai facing the Tigris, one large house now in ruins, and several mud huts nestling in the shade of the tall, date palms. On the Tigris shore stands a little locust tree which the Arabs call burhan. It is the Tree of Knowledge, and we sat beneath it, hidden in its dense shade from the moon. Perhaps here, too, Adam and Eve hid in the cool of the day. Like them, we were discovered, for a green-turbaned imman strolling along the shore, joined us. Soon we were discussing the location of Eden and the age of the burhan tree above. The real garden, so the priest used to believe, was 068in India, but since he had come to Kurna, he was convinced that it was here. Was that not the very Tree of Knowledge from which Eve picked that forbidden fruit? It seemed like a little tree as it leaned out over the river, scarcely more than 30 feet high, and not that many years old. I looked for the great hollow in the little trunk, where the serpent still loiters to play with the children, but it was withholden from my unbelieving eyes. When I spoke of the tree’s youthful appearance, the learned imman explained that about 30 years ago the old tree fell down and renewed its youth by sending forth a shoot from its ancient roots, and this it does every hundred years. Thus convinced that it was the real Tree of Knowledge, I sent Ahmed up for some of its bean-like fruit, that I might eat. I hope that long ere this the reader has observed the result.

If that point of land between the rivers were not the Garden of Eden, it ought to have been, for it is one of the beautiful spots of the earth, and nowhere has nature done more for primitive, defenseless man. Here he may live, protected from the hot sun by the dense shade of the palms, and the tree which shelters him gives him most of the necessities of life. From the tree-trunk he has material for his house; its leaf-stems are his firewood, or he shapes them into beds and chairs and tables and bird-cages. From the fiber he makes coarse cloth and ropes; the leaf-blades he transforms into mats and baskets and plates and trays and fans, and even cigarette cases; the fruit, both fresh and dried, is his food; from its juice he distills his arrack, and from the fermented dates he makes his vinegar. Pekmez, or honey of several varieties, he produces by boiling the juice, or by evaporating it in the sun, or collecting it as it oozes from the heaps of fruit. From it he makes his sugar; the dried dates he grinds to flour for his bread; he makes sherba, a sweet drink, from the fresh fruit, and the date-stones he feeds to his camel. Even his coffin is made of the leaves. Thus the Arab, with a single date-tree, possesses an independency.

Edgar James Banks (1866–1945) began his career as an American consul to the Ottoman empire and spent the next 15 years traveling extensively throughout the Middle East as an archaeologist and an explorer. On a quest to find Noah’s Ark, Banks became the first American to climb Mt. Ararat. As an antiquities dealer, he imported between 11,000 and 175,000 artifacts to the United States, including hundreds of cuneiform tablets. After returning to the U.S., he became a consultant for the legendary film maker Cecil B. DeMille. Banks is considered to be one of the inspirations for Indiana Jones. Following […]