PALESTINE EXPLORATION. Mr. Grove, the secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund, writes to the Times : A discovery of an entirely new and interesting kind, one of the most brilliant that have yet been made in Palestine, have just been made by M. Clement Ganueau, the explorer of the Palestine Fund. It consists of two inscriptions cut in the rock, a short distance to the east of the village of Abu-Shusheh, on the plain between Jaffa and Jerusalem, three miles south of Ramleh, halfway between Akir (Ekron) and Kubab, four miles from the latter place. The inscriptions are almost exactly alike one slightly more perfect than the other. Each contains two Hebrew words Tahum Gezer " which are interpretated to mean "the boundary of Gezer," and also the Greek word AAKIOT. The Greek word in both oases appears to have been inscribed after the Hebrew. Gezer was one of the ancient Royal cities of Canaan, which after the conquest was bestowed on the Levi tea, and formed a border town of the territory of Ephraim. It was part of the dowry of Solomon's Egyptian Queen, and the levy made to meet the cost of its rebuilding was one of the proximate causes of the great revolution under Rehoboam. In the Mac-cabeean war of liberation it played a great part. The site has always been one of the puzzles of Palestine topography ; the name had apparently vanished, and no clue could be found to it. But M. Ganneau has for some time conjectured that the place was to be identified with the modern Abu-Shusheh, and has urged various arguments, drawn from the Bible, the Chronicle of Mejr-ed-Din, and other sources, and which will be found at length in the Quarterly Statement of the Fund for April, 1873. A few months ago these arguments were corroborated by M. Ganneau s discovery of the name " Tell el-Jezir," still in the mouths of the Arab peasants at Abu-Shusheh; and now they have been fully confirmed, and the identification placed beyond doubt by his finding the stones just named. This in itself is much. Students of Bible topography will understand how much is implied in the certain recovery of one ancient site, especially of so cardinal a point as this town. But this is not all. What occurs at one Levitical city it is reasonable to believe was tbe case at others ; and, having obtained so distinct a clue, we may hope to discover similar monuments elsewhere. The inscriptions have been detached from the rook, and are out of M. Ganneaus possession and in the keeping of the Pasha of Jerusalem ; and the vexatious circumstances connected with this (which I leave for a future communication) had naturally so occupied M. Ganneaus time and thoughts that he had not been able, when he wrote, to follow up the discovery into all its consequences, or to complete it by measuring the distance from the village, and by the search after other similar stones in the neighbourhood. But his belief is that the two stones were marks of one side of the square of land which was known to have surrounded the Levitical cities (Numbers xxxv., 4, &e, ) They stand exactly N.W. and S.E. of each other, and the inference is that the square lay with its diagonals N.S. and E.W. Of this we shall hear more. Meantime we have the singular fact of the name of the ancient city being inscribed on the boundary of its possessions a fact which I believe to be entirely new in Palestine. I should also mention that the letters are carved on the rock, so as to strike the eye of a person coming into the town from the country, not of one going out from it. The form of the letters is square Hebrew, and M. Ganneau gives the date of them as probably that of the Maccabees. The Greek name, in one case upside down, has possibly been cut at a later time. Photographs and drawings by M. Leoomte, the architect, M. Ganneau "s coadjutor, are to be seen at the offices of the Fund, 9, Pall Mall East
