■v J# A $ \\\t Sfofegfy •<*. % „ 4, , in , , on. 18, „ 6, , Assyrian, , Akkadian. 18, „ 7, , Akkadian, , Assyrian. 95> „ 1.3, , Akharrie, , Akharru. i75» note 1, , Vol. II., , page 11. DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. Plate I. Frontispiece. See page 92. Chromolithograph from a water-colour drawing by the Author. Remaining portion of one of the panels in relief, executed in a kind of porcelain, from the ruins of a palace of Rameses III., at Tell-el-Yahudeh in Lower Egypt. It is identified by Dr. Birch as representing a Kheta (Hittite), although, apparently by an oversight of the artist, the cord round the neck terminates in the conventional ornament ap- propriate to captives from the South, the lotus, instead of the papyrus of the North. The blue enamel, now left only in front of the face, formerly covered the whole' back-ground. Plate II. See page 8. This and the following plates are produced in photo-tint. Perspective drawing of the ziggurat or stage-temple of the Moon-god at Ur (Mugheir), restored from data in the descriptions of Mr. Loftus and Mr. Taylor. The shrine on the top is given conjecturally. The lowest stage was built by Lig-bagas ; the second by his son Dungi. Plate III. See page Aft). Seals and seal-cylinders, from casts by Mr. Ready. A seems to represent the sacrifice of a bull to two gods ; one standing on a gryphon. The lion and eagle, and DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. the combination of both — the gryphon, were generally symbolic of solar gods. The other god is perhaps Hurki or Sin, the Moon-god, bestowing showers from heaven, as in the hymn, page 9. This seal is given chiefly for the sake of the gryphon, which should be compared with that on seal-cylinder G, with the Set-monster, and others mentioned in page 147, et seqq. See also G. Smith, Chaldcsan Genesis, pp. 99, 100. B. Seal-cylinder bearing the name of Naram-Sin the son of Sargina (see page 177) : described and figured by Prof. Sayce, Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. V., page 442. It was found by General di Cesnola at Curium, in Cyprus. The inscription, as translated by Prof. Sayce, reads thus . — " Abil-Istar, son of Ilu-balid, the servant of the god Naram-Sin." Abil-Istar is worshipping Naram-Sin, " bow- ing himself in the house of Rimmon," or Rammanu, the Sky-god, who is represented as standing behind the king, while a priest stands behind the votary. This is a relic of unusual interest in many ways. C and F are specimens of circular seals. The latter .represents a priest in adoration before an altar above which is the star of the god Nusku or Nebo, the planet Mercury worshipped by " the men of Kharran." Behind the altar is the god. D is the seal-cylinder which bears the name of Dungi king of Ur, in the British Museum, sec page 3. The design is rather similar to that of the seal-cylinder of the father of Dungi described in the text, page II. But the god is standing, and bears the curved falchion in his left hand, and a triple thunderbolt in his right. In front stands the sacred tree with two hanging fruits, as on the cylinder given by G. Smith, Ckaldcean Genesis, p. 91. DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. H is a seal-cylinder, very similar to the larger one of Lig-bagas described in page n. E is an Egyptian seal found by General di Cesnola in Cyprus, and very similar to some discovered by Mr. Layard at Arban on the Khabour, and figured in Nin. and Bab., p. 282, see page 147. G is a Babylonian seal-cylinder, given for the sake of the gryphon. I. The very interesting cylinder, representing a tribe on their migration, engraved by Mr. Layard, Nin. and Bab., p. 538, also in Chaldcean Genesis, p. 188, and in Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, Vol. I., p. 264. This is the cylinder on which the Rev. D. H. Haigh believes " that Terah, Nahor, Abram, Sari, Haran, Lot, and Milcah are pourtrayed ;" "on which Terakh is entitled, ' Brother of the king of Warka, Record Writer, Minister of Instruction.' " See the notes on my paper on the Life of Abraham, Trans. Victoria Inst. Vol. XII., p. 151. Professor Sayce remarks : "The name Terah is not found in the inscription, and though Dr. Haigh long ago suggested to me that Terah and his family were represented on the cylinder, I confess I have never been able to see any ground for the idea." It is worth while to compare these figures with the Amu of Benihassan, described in page no. I think the dresses are extremely similar, the lines on the cylinder being intended to represent the stripes and other patterns of the dresses, of which the fashion is quite the same. The leading figure has the bow and quiver, like one in the Egyptian painting, and, I think, a spear reversed, of which the head shows below the quiver. The fringed garment must be noticed, and the bearded faces. Both processions would seem to be Semitic people. K seems to represent a sacred ship of the gods, such as i La langue primi- tive de la Ckaldie, DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. that of Sarturda (see page 25), or the magnificent ship of Hea (page 95), with its weird equipments and company. Plate IV. The head of Marduk-idin-akhe king of Babylon, from a drawing by the Author, from the beautiful black stone in the British Museum. It apparently fur- nishes a rare specimen of the Turanian type of ancient Chaldaea, as explained by Prof. Lenormant and Dr. Ernest Hamy. 2 A good wood-cut of the entire figure on a small P . 383, and piate. sca ] e forms the frontispiece of G. Smith's History of Babylonia. Plate V. Eight typical heads in profile, drawn by the Author. A. Amu from tomb at Beni-hassan, after Champollion. B. Ruten bringing tribute, wall-painting from a tomb at Thebes, time of eighteenth dynasty. British Museum, No. 923. C. Jew from Lakish, making submission to Sennacherib. British Museum. D. Elamite chief (Semitic), British Museum. Assyrian Basement, No. 121. E. Arab riding a camel. Assyrian Basement. F. Israelite, from the black obelisk of Shalmaneser II. British Museum. The oldest known monument which gives the physiognomy of the sons of Abraham with certainty. G. Susianian captive. Assyrian Basement, No. 58-62. H. Babylonian. War with Satil-mugina. Assyrian Basement. All these, except No. 1, are drawn from the monuments. Plate VI. See pages 85, 143. A. Head of Amaru (Amorite) captive, drawn by the Author ; from a fragment of a panel. B. Profile (from sculpture in relief at Medinet Habu) DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. of the same Amorite king. From Brugsch's Geog. Inscr. Plate VII. Kheta (Hittite) princess, from a similar panel ; drawn by the Author. Plate VIII. Seepage 135. A. Head of a statue of Khafra (Khephren), the king of the second pyramid, at Bulak, after a plate in de Rouge's Six Preni. Dynasties. B. Head of Teta, architect of the second pyramid, and C, his wife, drawn by the Author ; from the doorway of their tomb, in the British Museum, brought from Gizeh. These are given as types of the true Egyptian of the great fourth dynasty. Plate IX. See page 133. A, B. Profile and full face of Amenemha, a court functionary of the twelfth dynasty ; drawn by the Author ; from a statuette in the British Museum. C. D. See page 140. Hyksos king, from a statuette of green basalt in the Museum of the Louvre. Plate X. A, B. See page 134. Profile and front face of one of the twin statues of Hyksos at San, after the plates in Revue ArcJicol., 1861. C, D, E. See page 136. Front, profile, and back of the Hyksos head at the Villa Ludovisi, Rome ; after the photo- graph in M. Lenormant's Memoir. Plate XI. See page 140. The small sphinx of granite from Baghdad in the British Museum, drawn by the Author ; and two photographs by Mr. John Davies of Weston super Mare, taken from a cast of the royal cartouche on its breast seen in opposite lights. These will enable the Egyptologist to judge for himself of the name which has been read as in the margin. The Author has submitted them to Dr. Birch, who writes in reply : " Many 1* IS / o^ RA p^ SET Wi NUB DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. thanks for the photographs, which confirm my opinion as to the little trust to be placed in the cartouche ; and the possi- bility of its being after all spurious. It cannot be read P ^ r=n : the p is badly done and apparently cut with a knife." It is curious that the only way, sometimes, to judge of such inscriptions is to obtain a plaster cast from the stone (the speckled crystalline granite being so deceptive to the sight), and then to photograph the cast in contrary lights, as has been here done. The stains and slight un- evennesses of stone monuments often render photographs deceptive, however great their general value. Plate XII. See page 138. Sphinx of San with head of Hyksos king, profile. Plate XIII. The same Sphinx, front face (both after the plates in Revue Archeol). Plate XIV. Seepage 148. The Leyden statuette of Set, front and profile, and the inscription in front of the base. Photographed for this work under the kind direction of Dr. Leemans, Director of the Royal Netherlands Museum. -j£^= m 1 «& «■**#« g*c*_ V £ '-^■i: ,,;,•■ r ■ ■■ . ps^>3 ijj-j ..H.r •'fci 5*-;. ia!> '?mm Ml gf ■ ****** j f! m i ^^feii . / 2*\ f J<^s ^'M^\^> C ; - £) ? ,' V 1 s m 8 . ■.-&•- &t*v. '•■'■ ■;■■■ mml\ v U /^v #£ INTRODUCTION. iOTHING in our days is more wonderful, not even the colossal growth of natural science, than the fresh start of history. Everywhere the structure of historic literature is rising anew on the basis of archaeology, and even more than this : for as in the Church of St. Clement at Rome, deeper, more ancient, and hitherto unsuspected chambers have been brought to light, so the sagacious labours of antiquary and scholar have now recovered whole empires, such as the first kingdom of Chaldsea, and the primaeval Elam, and a language, civilization, literature and polity fresh risen from the dust of four thousand years. We need not speak of Egypt, whose triumph has been already celebrated. Still Egypt is daily yielding fresh spoils ; and in her records the germs J ° x i Gladstone, Con- even of European history are with keen delight %+ Re %J£l Synchronism. 1876. recognized by the veterans of classic lore. 1 Macmiiian. INTRODUCTION. There is scarcely a study of more absorbing interest than is afforded by this new birth of his- tory. It enlists students of many sciences, en- rolling them in one guild, whose brethren learn at last duly to honour one another. In the cave geologist meets archaeologist over the engraven mammoth-tusk. Hither comes the artist too, smitten with surprise at the genial freedom of some pristine Landseer's sketch. Here the zoolo- gist recognises with delight the shaggy fell of fur and hair and the gigantic sweep of tusk, which authenticate at once the subject and the savage artist's fidelity. Over the prisms and tablets of Babylonia stand men of science and of literature in equal rapture. Queen Victoria's astronomer catechizes the as- tronomer royal of King Sargina, contemporary probably with Abraham. The scholar of Oxford, forsaking awhile his Bodleian, revels in the archives of Kouyunjik. The veteran ethnologist of London devotes himself to the life-like statuary of earliest E gypt> spirantia signa ; and the poet of the nine- teenth century honours as he best may the " noble INTRODUCTION. rage" of Pentaiir, and pores with wonder over the descent of Ishtar into the "place of no return." The archaeologist becomes the judge, and often the vindicator, of the aspersed annalist of old time. The "father of pickaxes" avenges the quarrel of the "father of history;" Herodotus, Manetho, Berosus, even Livy, even Josephus, raise their honoured brows from amidst the dust of explora- tion with laurels greener than ever. But this is not our chief point. There is one venerable collection of records, one " Bibliotheca," which professes divinely to make known the " pur- pose of the ages." It is either historical, or else, as men euphemistically say, "unhistorical;" which means fabulous. How do these chronicles bear the collation with independent and authentic evidence now borne by contemporary records ? Was the old isolation of Scripture better or worse for its credibility ? For better for worse it is now for ever past, and must give way to a mani- fold twining with the web of human memorial. No longer do the royal personages of Holy Writ INTRODUCTION. hold their way as in another world to our imagi- nation. Their names, their cities, friends, enemies, alliances, conquests, captivities, are read in hiero- glyphic and in cuneiform. It was, after all, this very world in which they lived and died. This former isolation of which I have spoken, this seclusion of Scripture history from almost all besides which we were learning under the epithet "profane," was a matter of secret cogitation to many minds. For our own part, every new link of true connection between Biblical and other history does not darken or desecrate the Bible, but lights and hallows that other. It is true enough, indeed, that we could not reasonably wish the inspired writers to have filled their scrolls with things more or less remote from the supreme purpose of God ; but when in His benign providence these records fall into our hands, they waken up a thousand dormant questions, quicken a reverent curiosity, substantiate or else at once annihilate our dreamy conjectures, and make us feel as we read again the hallowed stories of Abraham, Joseph, David, or Daniel, how truly the divine purpose ever was, Coincidences. Mur- ray. INTRODUCTION. X not that His servants should be taken from the world, but kept from the evil, and made "salt of the earth " to those with whom they had to do. The test of " internal coincidence " has been applied to the Old Testament with admirable sagacity and effect by the late Professor Blunt 1 and x u others, and we may well be thankful that this line of proof was enforced by the very absence of external testimony. It is the task of this day to recognize this external testimony, never seen by our fathers, but now given into our hands as fresh as it is ancient ; much of it in the shape of actual parallel evidence, but far more in the scarcely less valuable form of "historical illustration," 2 the 2 See for instance Hist. Illustrations of ttie Old Test. material out of which the enlightened imagination byProCRawiinson. S.P.C.K. represents the times and men that were of old ; for the historian must be a seer before he can be a judge, and this historic divination (so to speak) is one of the highest achievements of literature. Meanwhile, humbler workmen may select and store the material. We will, however, write a few words as to the available bearings of the work hitherto wrought on the future study of Holy Writ. INTRODUCTION. And first, it is quite clear that the mere occurrence of a host of names, personal and local, alike in the monumental Records of the Past, and in the faithful traditional memory of the present (as in Egyptian or Assyrian annals on the one hand, for instance, and in the rich harvest of ancient names gathered by the surveying officers in Pales- tine on the other), is of very high value in direct confirmation. Then the study of the recovered monumental languages (especially Egyptian, Akkadian, and Assyrian) is beginning to take effect in the verbal interpretation of Scripture, and will be of more and more importance in settling the true mean- ing of words and phrases, now rescued from con- jectural theory, and brought into the light of true knowledge. Of history itself we have briefly spoken. Its bony framework, chronology, is as yet very dimly discerned. But we believe that the spiritual life of history, theology, will be verified by the deepest research as truly as it is approved by the inmost consciousness of man. INTRODUCTION. xiii Of this "great argument" something will have to be stated in these pages. In collating the records of Holy Scripture with extraneous evidence, we will bear in mind their relative rank. We gladly quote from a most distinguished French historian his judgment on this point. Of the earliest portion of the book of Genesis, M. Francois Lenormant thus writes: 1 — -"This sacred J Ma "; °f i' w - > Hist, of the East, . , , lit Vol. I., p. i. Asher, story, even without the assured and solemn au- London, m 9 . thority which it derives from the inspired charac- ter of the book in which it is found, would always form in sound criticism the base of all history ; for merely considered from a human point of view it contains the most ancient tradition as to the first days of the human race, the only one which has not been disfigured by the introduction of fantastic myths of disordered imagination run wild." Our endeavour in this work will be, not so much to delineate a portrait of Abraham, " the friend of God," as to sketch-in the background of the historical picture in which he is the central figure : for the devious path of his pilgrimage here on INTRODUCTION. earth, led him " from one kingdom to another people:" from his cradle-land in Mesopotamia, the mother-country of all civilization, to the future home of God's people, hallowed even then by the presence of a Melchizedek and his fellow-wor- shippers, and into that marvellous land of Egypt where the light still shines on monuments which were old when Abram came thither. In truth his tent-pegs were everywhere struck into ground already rich with the harvest of the past, and broadcast with the seed of all the world's future destiny. The substance of the following studies originally took the form of Lectures delivered during the winters of 1872 and 1873. An epitome was read to the members of the Victoria Institute in April 1877, and is published in the Trans- actions. In 1875 appeared the first volume of a work by the Rev. R. Allen, entitled, Abraham: his Life, Times, and Travels. Two more volumes were pro- mised, but have not yet been published. Mr. Allen has evidently devoted much careful INTRODUCTION. study to the archaeology of early Chaldaea, and his Appendix contains a good collection of geo- graphical descriptions. He has chosen the form of a biographical narrative, written as by a con- temporary, which ends (as far as it has yet ap- peared) with the death of Abraham's father at Kharran. The Author of the following " Studies " had carried the life of Abraham in his Lectures down to the end of the campaign of Kedor- la'omer. The two works are entirely indepen- dent of each other. In 1877 was published, Abraham the Friend of God, by J. Oswald Dykes, M.A., D.D. This work is a biography including the whole of the patriarch's career. Its plan is altogether different from that of the present volume. The margins of the following pages will guide the reader to the sources of information, and will, it is hoped, mark out a course of inquiry to many studious minds ; for the Author trusts he may rather awaken than satisfy an earnest interest in his subject. He believes that the true conditions of the INTRODUCTION. patriarch's life may be better estimated in the light of these and kindred studies. Let not the devout Christian despise them as superfluous or dero- gatory. He may not have met with those who believe that Abraham no more really existed than Hercules. Let the sceptic for his part honestly consider that the historic Abraham has a very good account of himself to give to the critical inquirer, which must fairly be explained away before the mythological Abraham can take his place. This topic is more fully treated in an Appendix. The highest and divine aspects of the subject do not fall within the special scope of these humbler contributions to Biblical study. None the less does the Author recognize the transcendent significance of the person, the life, the faith of Abraham, which gives a dignity far beyond the nobility of earth to all that concerns him. The Author acknowledges with lively gratitude the invaluable information and assistance so gene- rously given him by distinguished scholars and antiquaries, especially by Dr. Birch, the late deeply INTRODUCTION. regretted George Smith, and other gentlemen of the British Museum, the Rev. Professor Sayce of Oxford, M. Chabas, the Rev. D. H. Haigh, W. R. Cooper, Esq., Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, W. St. Chad Boscawen, Esq., and Lieut. C. R. Conder, R.E., lately in command of the Survey of Palestine. He believes that he has fairly indicated in the margin his obligations to the published works from which he has drawn, both English and Continental. In the references the initial letters W . A. I. designate the Inscriptions of Western Asia, published by the Trustees of the British Museum; P. E. F. the Quarterly Statements published by the Com- mittee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. In the present unsettled orthography of Eastern names, it has been difficult to preserve entire consistency; nor is the Author prepared to defend himself at all points ; but he has en- deavoured to steer an even course in the main, avoiding, for instance, such confusions as have arisen between Kharran and Haran, between Kham the patriarch and Ham the city, and xviii INTRODUCTION. working in the general direction of orthographic correctness and uniformity, i Appendix b. By way of Appendix are given some notes ' which have either been furnished by the kind- ness of friends, or have occurred to the mind of the Author as desirable for explanation. H. G. T. April, 1878. STUDIES ON THE TIMES OF ABRAHAM. i. The Fatherland and Childhood of Abraham. |||'|||HE land of Abram's nativity was known by the name 1UI1 of its capital city, the dwelling-place of Terakh, the true site of which has been recovered of late years, and identified by the most ancient inscriptions found on the spot On the westward side of the Euphrates rise from the dead marshy level mounds of ruin, marking the birth-place of Abram, Ur, which gave the name of Uru-ma or Ur-ma, " Ur-land," to the whole region of Akkad. 1 The plain, reaching to the Persian gulf on the south, bounded (or nearly so) by the Euphrates westward, and the Tigris (Hiddekel) eastward, and on the north by the edge of the higher undulating country of upper Mesopo- tamia, was about the size of Denmark, or less than half the size of England. 2 It had a rich alluvial soil, brought = Rawiinson, , Mon., Second Edit thither by the " . . . ; streams which, fast or slow, Draw down yEonian hills, and sow The dust of continents to be." In fact the very land is, like Egypt, due to the work of the rivers themselves in their annual overflow, an agency Or, Urunu-ma, La la}igue pri)n., 129. Vol. I„ I i Assyr. Gra »t. , p. 3 ; see also Chald. Magit , 2 Anc. Mini p. 31. THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. which has added about one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty miles to the south, since the days of which we are writing. It is characteristic, perhaps, of these sons of Shem, that their home at that time should have been in the great city on the westward side of the river, if, as Mr. Sayce writes, " the original home of the Semitic people was apparently Arabia." " From the port where the Euphrates discharged its ample waters into the beautiful and sheltered sea, the "ships of Ur" set sail, like the ships of Egypt, with their precious lading of corn and dates, and other fruits ; for the warm land, irrigated like a garden (the only natural home of the wheat-plant, where it was twice mown in the year, and then fed down), 2 was (as classic writers tell) the richest in all Asia. The wheat would commonly produce two hundredfold, and at the highest even three hundredfold. The other chief boast of Chaldaea is the stately date-palm, whose endless uses for man and beast have been celebrated in all ages. The shady palm-groves embowered the whole country, laden with their delicious golden clusters, and mingled with tamarisk, and acacias, and pomegranates. "This region," says Professor Rawlinson, "was amongst the most productive on the face of the earth ; spontaneously producing some of the best gifts of God to man ; and capable under careful management of being made one continuous garden." This is indeed scarcely a subject of wonder, if it was in this part of the earth that the Lord God had " planted a garden," and had "put the man whom He had formed," as Sir Henry Rawlinson supposes ; and the gift of the wheat- plant, indigenous only in Chaldaea, has by different nations been ascribed to an especial divine origin. It is remarkable that the name of Ur emerges in the p. 80. 3 Rawlinson, Atic Mon., Vol. I., p. 20. As to the tetrapolis, see Chald. Magic, p. 397. UR AND THE TETRAPOLIS OF NIMROD. 3 Scripture record first as the birth-place of Terakh's sons; nor is it mentioned in connection with Izdubar, nor among the antediluvian cities of Berosus. 1 It is not one of the iSee£«/«,«.ov four cities of Nimrod, which were Babel, and Erech (now the rise 'of 'ur. Warka), and Accad, and Calneh ; unless, indeed, Calneh were identical with Ur (Mugheir), as conjectured by M. Lenormant. 2 But Calneh is thought to have been the * a™. Hist., vol 1 place now called Niffer. 3 Thus, however, writes Prof. Sayce, in a review of Delitzsch's translation of G. Smith's Chaldcean Genesis: "The Biblical Calneh is plainly the Accadian Kul-unu (' the dwelling of the seed '), a town in Babylonia." Now the celebrated cycle of legends discovered by Mr. G. Smith makes the hero-king, provisionally called Izdubar, or Dhubar, since the first syllable is probably only a determinative prefix and unpronounced, " whom," says Mr. Sayce, " Mr. Smith has shown good reason for identifying with Nimrod," 4 rule over an empire 4 sayce,.B a *.za.,p stretching from the Persian gulf to the " land of Bit-ani, or Bachtan near Armenia on the north," 5 and his capital was Erech. But it is clear that in Abraham's time not Erech, but Ur was the reigning city, which dominated the whole of Babylonia in the time of Urukh (or rather Ligbagas, as his name is now read), the great builder- king, and his son Dungi, whose signet cylinder is now in the British Museum. So that some great change had happened between the time of Izdubar and that of Abraham. So indeed we know, for in the year B.C. 2280, a powerful king of Elam, Kudur-nankhundi by name, had conquered the country, ravaged Erech, and carried off the image of Nana or " Ishtar the Archer of the goddesses," 6 which re- mained at Shushan for 1635 years, till recaptured and 5 Assyr. Disc, 6 Assyr, Disc, p. 4 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. restored to Erech by Assurbanipal. Thus fell " Erech the blessed." Babylon was the capital of several kings as appears from i Assyr. Disc. p. a valuable inscription discovered by Mr. G. Smith 1 of very Mr! Boscawen, Trans, early date, in which the Kassi (descendants of Cush), Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. iv.. p., 32 . Akkadi, and Goi'm (the "nations''' ruled by Tidal in Abra- ham's time) are mentioned. It seems, then, very natural that Ur should have been Terakh's home, the place of Abram's "father's house," since we find from the Akkadian records, that it was about his time the capital ; and being on the western side of the great river, it was the more open to the favourite land of the Semitic people, and the pastures bordering on, or in- cluding, the desert, and the better protected from the great eastern enemy Elam. It is true, however, that a subordinate channel of the Euphrates ran to the west of Ur. The lamented G. Smith writes as follows as to the identity of " Ur of the Chaldees : " "I have no doubt the Babylonian city of Ur is meant. There is not the slightest evidence of a northern Ur, and a northern land of the x chau. Gm., p. 29a Chaldees at this period." 2 The history of Babylonia and the neighbouring countries is most difficult to trace in these early ages, and the chronology unsettled. At any time both may be suddenly enlightened by some piece of terra-cotta under the sagacious eyes of our Assyriologists. Meanwhile we will venture, with great diffidence, to piece together in a tentative way some conspicuous portions of this great puzzle-map, and see how they will fit. A venerable and most striking figure is presented to us 3 For &«<,, see Lc- i n the person of Sargina 3 ("the genuine or rightful king-," Dormant, Etudes sur x o \ o o fc>> sueigucssyiiat.,298. as t ] ie name means, who bore a title "king of justice." 4 4 Sayce, Bab. Lit., ° J p- ,0 which reminds us of the name of Mclchizedek). Of this SARGINA THE FIRST AND HIS CONQUESTS. 5 prince, it is in after ages recorded that he was born in secret retirement, for fear of an uncle who had usurped the government. His mother committed him (like Moses) in a wicker cradle to the river, whose stream floated him away to the dwelling of a man called Akki, a water carrier, or perhaps irrigator, 1 who brought him up in husbandry. i"Lechefdeseaux." 110 ° A J Menant, Babylone, At length Sargina took the kingdom and became a etc.. P . 99. it is to be o a & noticed that this legend renowned conqueror, carrying his arms successfully into of ^"^ y° uth is ^ J & -'of much later date Elam on the east, and through Syria on the west, even to 'i 131 ' hi f ° wn 'J"' 6 - ' t> J ' G. Smith, Hist. Bad., the Mediterranean. "His image at the setting sun he set f ?s - ,',' Akki ' h , e o c> ferryman, Sayce, Bab. up." He subdued the whole of Babylonia, and established £ *- p - ia his capital at Agane (some distance north 2 of Babylon), 2 Trans, soc. bo. Arch., Vol. I., p. 49. where, however, he was besieged in vain by a revolted host, whom he completely overthrew. Like some other great Babylonian monarchs he was a devoted friend to literature and science, and founded a library at Erech, where his invaluable records were long ages afterwards removed by the enlightened Assyrian monarch Assurbanipal, copied, translated, and edited for his library ; and are now in the British Museum. The date of Sargina or Sargon I., is given by MM. Lenormant 3 and Menant 4 as about B.C. 2000, 3 ckau. Magic, P . 126, 333; Les prem. and there seems reason for so doing, for his son and suc- cessor Naram-sin conquered Makan (the Sinaitic peninsula), 5 and so even extended Sargina's power before the time of Kudur-mabug the Elamite, of whom we shall have much 6 6 G. Smith, Notes on tO Say hereafter. Early Hist. 0/ Assy It is clear that this power represented by Sargina was a strong and successful rival of Elam, and must have broken the continuance of the domination begun by Kudur- nankhundi, of whom we have before spoken. Now this being, as M. Menant decisively savs, 7 a Semitic 7 Bab y io»e. P . io 3i and Sayce, Bab. Lit., conquest, which had already overrun Syria and Phoenicia, p-9- and even penetrated still further, it would have been Civ., Vol. II., p. 105. 4 Babylone, p. 98. 5 La langue prim., 361 ; Sayce, Bab. Lit., 6 THE FATHERLAND AND CHTLDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. auspicious to the race of Terakh. But when (as both the book of Genesis and the monumental history indicate) the Elamitic power again swept over western Asia, that would be in itself an incentive to migration from Ur, whence the decisive voice of Jehovah summoned Abram and his father towards Canaan. And Abram's splendid exploit against Kedor-la'omer would have a still further significance than is apparent on the face of the Biblical record. It is worthy of remark that Sargina writes, " The people of the dark races I ruled," as if by way of contrast with i Lts prtm. a--., his own race. 1 These dark races would probably be, or Vol. II., p. 108, and .,-,—,,. see^. Butseec/«/rf. include, the Cushites, and the passage seems strongly Magic, p. 193. Other .... . texts on -dark races," confirmatory of the view just mentioned. Chald. Genesis, pp. 85, 86; remarks of schra- j n truth, the monumental records entirely agree with der, Zeitschr. /. sEg. J ° spr., P .*i. i8 74 . i 10 iy Scripture in representing this region between the Persian gulf and the Armenian mountains as the hive of the world, throwing off successive swarms of various great races ; " the cradle of Semitic civilization," as Dr. Birch writes, " highly civilized and densely populated at a time when Egypt was still in its youthful prime." But the descendants of Shem were not the first civilizers of Babylonia. Those far-spreading tribes called by ethnolo- gists Turanian had been beforehand. "All appearances," says ■zAnc. Hist. 0/ East, M. F. Lenormant, 2 " would lead us to regard the Turanian Vol. I., p. 64. race as the first branch of the family of Japhet which went forth into the world, and by that premature separation, by an isolated and antagonistic existence took, or rather preserved, a completely distinct physiognomy." " A thick stratum of Turanian civilization underlay Semitism in western Asia. In fact all the great towns both of Assyria and Babylonia bear Turanian names." So writes the Rev. A. H. Sayce in a most interesting essay on the origin of Semitic 3 Trans. Soc. Bib. .... Anh., voi. i., p. =98. civilization. 3 Soe. BiK I., P- -9- THE VARIOUS RACES OF CHALD/KA. "The Turanian people," says Mr. G. Smith, "who appear to have been the original inhabitants of the country, invented the cuneiform mode of writing. All the earliest inscriptions are in that language, but the proper names of most of the kings and principal persons are written in Semitic in direct contrast to the body of the inscriptions. The Semites appear to have conquered the Turanians, although they had not yet imposed their language on the country." 1 a* But the first to lay the yoke of despotism on the mingled races in Shinar was a son of Ham. " Cush begat Nimrod, he began to be a mighty one in the earth .... and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar." 2 The word £%m* £n!* Kush (Kusu), identified (like Kham) with darkness, occurs c?J^mwT£&-, T ,11-1 on the Kushites, ibid., in early Chaldean inscriptions. In a mythological sense 346 . Kusu (darkness), was the son of Anu. Thus there were races sprung of Japhet, of Shem, and Ham. "There were at first," writes Berosus the priestly Chaldcean historian (born B.C. 261), "at Babylon a great number of men of different races 3 who had colonized &•£**%£*£ Chaldsea." Thus Abram's childhood was familiar with the JV^. ' £& motley mixture of faces, costumes, and dialects of the "**.p-m* great races into which our learned scholars have divided mankind, and among all these races of the sons of men his life's work lay. The names of Shem, Ham (Kham) and Japhet have in effect been found in cuneiform texts as ethnic expressions, so I am told by Professor Sayce and Mr. Boscawen, and are identified in meaning with the different hues of complexion, yellow, black, and fair. Ur 4 was a walled town of somewhat oval boundary, ££J£™£ some centuries old at the time of Abram's birth. It was j£££°%J£ the great port for the commerce of the Persian gulf, and ?•** had been, as we have said, the capital of Chaldaea in the 8 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. time of the great builder king Ligbagas, and for some time afterwards at any rate. The city was devoted to the wor- ship of its chief tutelary deity the great moon-god, whose huge ziggurat, a sacred observatory-tower of three stages or more upholding the shrine, oblong in form and ascended by stairs, rose high above the buildings of the city in its northern quarter. There the royal " monthly prognosti- cators " kept the night-watches, holding in highest worship the " light that rules the night," chanting their hymns, casting their omens, offering sacrifices, receiving votaries, i Trans, soc. Bib. and within the temple-bounds holdingxourts of justice 1 in Arch., Vol. I., p. 91. * ° the name of the king their sovereign pontiff. The very bricks, made under sacred auspices,, were stamped with the king's devotion : " To rTttrki his king, Ligbagas king of Ur his house built, and the wall of Ur built ;" and the like. On the bricks of the lower stage of the great temple of a see Menant, Baby- Mugheir we read : ' — lone, p. 74. " " Ligbagas, king of Ur has built the temple of the god Sin " (or Hurki). This inscription appears fully to identify the edifice, the god, and the builder. The worship of the moon-god was the local cultus of this ancient city, and is thus described by M. Lenormant in his 3 vol n., P . 15a interesting work, Les premieres Civilisations:* "This god, considered as a male personage, was called in Accadian Hur-ki, or simply Hur, and Aku ; in Assyrian Sin. In the inscriptions of the kings of the ancient Chaldsean empire he appears as holding one of the most exalted places among the gods, and the higher we advance (in antiquity) the greater appears the importance of his cultus. " The monarchs of the primitive dynasties regarded him as their chief protector, as his name enters as a special element into the composition of most of their proper names. HYMN TO HURKI THE MOON-GOD, SUNG AT UR. 9 In fact he was the god of the most ancient capital of Akkad, the town holy above all to the Chaldaeans, the great city of Ur (now Mugheir), whence Abraham departed at the summons of Jehovah." With the deepest interest we read the liturgical hymns given by this distinguished historian. 1 One of these, the rs«aiso" Acadian ° J ° Liturgy," in Records best preserved of all, and almost uninjured, is the hymn to ^"^^Jf^"'.: the moon-god actually used in the city of Ur in the earliest L'rTetc^nG^.ith"* times, of which the Akkadian original is given with its ^ t s c syK Disc - p ' 391 ' Assyrian translation on a tablet in the British Museum. From the French of M. Lenormant we have rendered this incantation as closely as maybe, preserving a somewhat rhyth- mical cast in order to save it from prosaic flatness of effect. The grammatical construction, fluctuating from the second to the third person, is preserved. "Lord! prince of gods of heaven and earth, whose mandate is exalted ! " Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! good god, of gods the prince! " Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! great god, of gods the prince ! " Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord god of the month, of gods the prince ! " Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord of Ur, of gods the prince ! " Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord of the alabaster house, of gods the prince ! "Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord of crowns, duly return- ing, of gods the prince ! " Father ! god enlightening earth ! awarder of kingdoms, of gods the prince ! " Father ! god enlightening earth ! by lowering the proud himself enlarging, of gods the prince ! "Timely crescent mightily horned, doom-dealer, . . . .' splendid a Lacuna. with orb fulfilled ! " Self-produced, from his home forth-issuing, pouring evermore plenteous streams ! IO THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. " High exalted, all-producing, life unfolding from above ! " Father, he who life reneweth in its circuit through all lands ! " Lord ! in thy godhead far and wide as sky and sea thou spread'st thine awe ! " Warder of shrines in (Akkad's) land and prophet of their high estate ! " Gods' sire and men's, of childhood guide (?), even Ishtar's self thou didst create ! " Prima? val seer, re warder (sole) fixing the doom of days remote, " Unshaken chief, whose heart benign is never mindful of thy wrongs : " Whose blessings cease not, ever flowing, leading on his fellow-gods. " ' Who from depth to height bright piercing openeth the gate of Lacuna-. heaven ! . . . .' " Father mine, of life the giver, cherishing, beholding (all) ! " Lord who power benign extendeth over all the heaven and earth !...." " Seasons (?), rains, from heaven forth-drawing, watching life and yielding showers ! " Who in heaven is high exalted ? Thou ! sublime is thy behest ! " Who on earth is high exalted ? Thou ! sublime is thy behest ! " Thou thy will in heaven revealest ; (thee) celestial spirits (praise !) " Thou thy will on earth revealest ; thou subdu'st the spirits of earth ! " Thou ! thy will in heaven as the luminous aether shines !....' "Thou ! thy will upon the earth to me by deeds . . . .' thou dost declare ! " Thou ! thy will extendeth life in greatness, hope, and wonder wide ! " Thou ! thy will itself gives being to the righteous dooms of men ! "Thou through heaven and earth extendest goodness, not re- membering wrong ! " Thou ! thy will who knoweth ? Who with aught can it compare ? " Lord ! in heaven and earth thy lordship of the gods none equals thee ! " There are yet some mutilated lines to complete this magnificent ode of pristine idolatry, calling on this " king of kings " to favour his dwelling the city of Ur, invoking CEREMONIAL DRESSES OF THE CHALD.EANS. II him as " Lord of rest " (that is, of the weekly sabbath-rest) : and so in broken sounds it dies away. In such strains did the kings and priests of Ur adore the moon as it "walked in brightness" through the crystalline spaces of a Babylonian sky. 1 ££*£ JTSJE In the engraved seal-cylinder of Urukh (or rather Lig- ™obyMr.^y C ?Sd bagas), 2 this god is set forth under his usual symbol of the £'£ ^'voT'* crescent. The design seems to represent the introduction %, ls iLf"!iif^y, by priestesses of a female votary, led by the hand to the P 2 ^.^on, Anc. presence of a venerable enthroned personage, probably the ^'kJvo^J.' 94 ' priest-king himself, who propitiously stretches out his own Baga^s "TpTamed ? n ' right hand, wearing a solid bracelet round the wrist. The g. smith.^i. lid.', , . . ... . . p. 66, Lig-, a lion, priestesses have a peculiar crown-like mitre, the new Ba gas , the mother- goddess: "a lion (is) votary a simple fillet round the head. All the disengaged sagas.- Thus istar J x ° ° is called "a lion "in a hands are upheld in the religious attitude known as "the »y mn - *«««* °s"><- 1 ° Past. Vol. V., p. 157, lifting up of hands." The votary wears a long garment f d lion - headed as an A » 00 Egyptian goddess, reaching to the feet, and bordered with a stripe ; over it a ff ch ^£ ^ spr - sort of tunic, cut with that long sweeping curve which we see in later Assyrian costume, and fringed. Is this a dis- tinctively Semitic costume ? The principal priestess has the marked Babylonian dress characterised by its many flounces, which we cannot see without a smile, and which we find many ages later, worn by the women of the Ruten from the same country, in the Egyptian triumphs. 3 Mr. Loftus describes the dancing boy 3 wukh in a dress with flounces of red, yellow, and blue, whom he saw performing in Chaldsea, 4 and Mr. G. Smith gives an ac- count of a dancer similarly dressed 5 in a flounced and fringed s Assyr.Disc.,?. 130. garment of red and blue. The form and colours are surely relics of primaeval fashion, and the colours symbolical of the various heavenly bodies to whose worship the dancers were devoted. Red was the colour of Nergal (Mars), blue of Nebo (Mercury), pale yellow of Ishtar (Venus). Jigyfiti. 4 Chain*, and Su i Herod., Vol. I., 505. Edition 1862. 12 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. The third month of the year was sacred to the moon- god, and its Semitic name Sivan is connected " in all probability" with his Semitic name Sin, as Sir Henry Rawlinson has pointed out.' This was the month devoted to the very important task of making the bricks which they " had for stone," and Sin was the patron of the work. The month nearly corresponds with May. The walls and at least three great sacred buildings in Ur, were the work of the great and renowned king Lig- bagas, namely, the temple of Hurki the moon-god, another called Rit-timgal, and the tower of stages of which we have spoken, called Bit-sareser. The polytheism of this very early age is shown by his having built, beside these, a temple to Nana or Ishtar (Astarte, " the daughter of the moon-god," as she is called in the hymn) at Erech, another to the sun-god Samas (Shemesh) at Larsa (now Senkereh), another to Bel, and a separate one to Belat "his lady" (Beltis the wife of Bel), at Nipur (Niffer), another to Sar- 111 " his king," the supreme god II, " the king of the gods," at Zirgulla. In truth polytheism was stamped on the earth in temples and towers, and the warlike or beneficent works of kings. Rimmon was the patron of the all- important irrigation ; Sin of brickmaking and building ; Nergal of war. Polytheism glittered in scrolls of light in the constellations of the firmament ; it measured days and months, and years and cycles, and by its auguries of good or ill decided the least ways of house-life, and the greatest collisions of nations. It has been observed that gods were identified with stars before the invention of writing in 2 y>~Y in its later Babylonia, "and that the most natural symbol of a deity conventional form; was thought to be a star," which is accordingly the originally a star of eightrays. "determinative"" of the names of crods in cuneiform of Baby- Sec. Bi/>. :i.,p. 176. 3 La Magie, p. 114 ; also see I.es Dieux de Babyloue, p. 20. Paris, 1877. B.C. 2000, A GREAT EPOCH IN CHALD.EA. inscriptions. " It is plain," writes Mr. Sayce, " that the full development of astro-theology cannot have been much earlier than B.C. 2000." ' And Mr. George Smith gives the same date for the development of systematic mythology : " 2000 years before the Christian era it was already com- pleted, and its deities definitely connected into a system, which remained with little change down to the close of the kingdom." = And M. Lenormant writes at length to the 2 ChnM - G *»- p- s same effect. 3 It is very interesting to find Mr. Sayce from another point of view, writing thus in his excellent Lectures on Babylonian Literature : 4 — 4 p " The Gisdhubar epic on the one side cannot be older than the formation of the Accadian calendar and zodiac, which, as it begins with the sign of Aries, must be later than B.C. 2300. " On the other hand Accadian had ceased to be spoken before the seventeenth century B.C., and the earliest engraved gems we possess have representations taken not only from the adventures of Gisdhubar, but from other myths as well. Perhaps, therefore, we cannot be far wrong in assigning the composition of the epic to about B.C. 2000, and referring the independent lays out of which it is composed to the centuries that immediately preceded. The bloom of Ac- cadian poetry might then be placed just four thousand years ago, when the nature-myths, which had once ex- pressed a very real and definite meaning, had grown faint and misunderstood, and become the subjects of numberless ballads and hymns." The whole system, then, of sidereal worship, with its hierarchy of the Chaldsean Olympus, was in full working order when Abram was born in his father's house, in " Ur of the Chaldees;" and this family even had been drawn into the stream, for "thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood (Euphrates), i "Astron. of Baby- lon." Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch.,V/ the Past, "complete," in W. A. I. II, 25, 14, says Mr. Sayce. 3 Let it be noticed that this "Sabbath" was " a feast," " a festival," " the white day ; " as well as a holy day of rest and sacrifice. The late Mr. Fox Talbot, in his translation of the fifth Creation Tablet, gives the last legible lines thus : — "17 On the seventh day he appointed a holy day. "18 And to cease from all business he commanded. "19 Then arose the sun in the horizon of heaven in (glory)." He also quotes Mr. Sayce as expressing the opinion that the Babylonians believed the Sabbath to have been ordained at the creation. 4 But Mr. Boscawen has read and translated differently. 5 "17 By the seventh day to a circle it begins to increase. "18 Ceasing . . . towards the mornings its light. "19 At that time on the horizon of heaven the sun," etc. It is clear that when Abram was brought up in his father's house at Ur of the Chaldees, the seventh day was a sacred day of rest ; and the very word sulum, which is, I suppose, equivalent to the Hebrew skahm, is fragrant with thoughts of peace, salutation, benediction and sal- vation. 6 1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch.. Vol. V.,p.428; Records 0/ the Past, Vol. IX., p. 118. 5 Academy, p. 1877. 344, 6 Sec Mr. Fox Tal- bot's notes on and "suimi." Trans. It is an inquiry of absorbing interest how far the first Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. . ,.. ., , , 1 1 1> 11.. p. 30.32. and true revelation still lingered among the several leading MONOTHEISM OF THE EARLIEST TIMES. 19 races of the early world. The means of solving this ques- tion in its several branches are now being restored to us. Let us first then inquire whether the idea of " the Holy One that inhabiteth eternity " was really lost. Damascius (born about A.D. 480), 1 citing Eudemus the peripatetic, ■ Cor y' s Foments. v -r /' & L r > Second Edition, p. 318 ; about eight centuries earlier, says that "of the barbarians a " d = ee Lenormam. the Babylonians seem to pass over in silence the One principle p - 6 - l877 - of the universe, but to make two, Tauthe and Apason," etc. (rwv 8e Bapftdpoov ioUaac BafivXwvioi fiev ttjv puiav twv oXojv apyfp) cnyrj irapievai, Bvo &e TTOtetv, TavOe ical Airaaaiv, k. r. X.) This appears to be the true account of the matter ; and the heathen neo-Platonist philosopher understood what he was writing about. The inferior "gods" were creatures, but the sole first creator is taken for granted, and rarely appears. See for instance, the portion of the creation- tablets given by Mr. G. Smith, 2 where the one God is ex- 2 Ch « ld - Gen - p- Bo - plaining to the newly created man his duties, or that fragment which recounts the rebellion of the angels. 3 Thus 3 fT^' T ^ c ' Bii ' fc> & Arch. .Vol. IV.,p.349; wrote the late Mr. Fox Talbot:* "Amidst the chaos of ^vn.'"£ '£/"*'' names a feeling of the real unity of the divine nature is * Tra " s - ff c - mb - & J Arch., Vol. II., p. 35. visible. The phrase 'God and man' sometimes occurs. ' God and the king ' is very frequent. No particular god is here named or intended, but the word *^r- % is put s -*«* Akkadian, I ilu Assyrian, i.e., god; absolutely, like the Greek to delov, and may be translated but " nstan,J y r> re - * ' ' J fixed as a "determma- either ' God ' or ' heaven.' " tive ; '°'"^ ° f particular gods. In Mr. Boscawen's account of the creation-tablets, 6 I 6Ac ^" y - pp - " 9 - cannot think him right in his statement : " it was necessary for the Babylonian to develop the Creator, while the Hebrew starts with the postulate ' there is a God ; he is the Creator.' " For I do not think the idea of creation is involved in the words, " the chaos Tiamat was the genetrix (or, as G. Smith translates, ' the producing mother ') of them 3* .«;;. East, V and see La Mag\ 20 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. all." This chaos is surely no more to be identified with the Creator than the earth, or the water, in the book of Genesis when it is said, " Let the earth (or the waters) bring forth." The one originator of all is (as Damascius says) Hist, of the passed over in silence. Let us hear M. Lenormant : 3 — "When we penetrate beneath the surface of gross polytheism it (namely, the religion of Assyria and Baby- lonia) had acquired from popular superstition, and revert to the original and higher conceptions, we shall find the whole based on the idea of the unity of the Deity, the last relic of the primitive revelation disfigured by and lost in the monstrous ideas of pantheism, confounding the creature with the Creator, and transforming the Deity into a god- world whose manifestations are to be found in all the phenomena of nature " . . . . " The supreme God, the first and sole principle from whom all other deities were derived, was Ilu, whose name signifies God par excellence. Their idea of him was too comprehensive, too vast, to have any determined external form, or consequently to receive in general the adoration of the people ; and from this point of view there is a certain analogy between Ilu and the Cronos of the Greeks, with whom he was compared by the latter. In Chaldaea it does not seem that any temple was ever specially dedicated to him." His name, indeed, is preserved in the most ancient name of Bab-ili, " Gate of God." This is, however, the Semitic name, which is exactly equivalent to the Turanian Ca-dimirra ; or, as M. Menant reads, Ca-dingira. It is instructive to find the name given in a recently re- covered text as the founder of the Babylonian monarchy (identified by Mr. G. Smith with Alorus, the first name in the list of Berosus) to be " Adi-ur (meaning devoted to the 2 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch.,vo\.\w., v .zb Z . god Ur) ; " 2 and on the other hand, among the "mythical 2 See Mr. Fox Tal- bot's remarks on monotheism, Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., VoL II., P. 35- PROGRESS OF CORRUPTION IN RELIGION. 21 kings after the deluge " of an invaluable broken tablet, two names of a father and son having the element Ilu, the supreme God, namely .... ill, and Ilu-kassat his son, 1 » & smith, as&, Disc, p. 439. thus seeming to show, as Scripture does, the two parallel and opponent elements of idolatry and the adoration of "The Most High God." 2 It is deeply interesting to read that at one at least of the Chaldaean schools monotheism was taught down to a late date. "That at Orchoe or Erech was .... well known, and maintained its reputation down to the times of the Romans. In the period of the Seleucidae the doctrine of the unity of God was distinctly taught there : as we know from tablets with cuneiform inscriptions, dated in the reign of several Greek kings, found at Warka, and now in the British Museum. The only name of a deity found in them, and this is many times repeated, is " God One." 3 This 3 Lenormant, amc. . Hist., Vol. I., p. 495; may have been, as in Egypt, a system of reserved and Les frem - Ciu - Vo1 - 11., p. 167. esoteric instruction. At all events this very city of Erech, from the time when it was the capital of Izdubar, was given over to the worship of Ishtar and other idols. The progress of corrupt worship is distinctly traced by Mr. G. Smith 4 in this very case of Ishtar. " Her worship 4 Chald - Ge »-v-&- was at first subordinate to that of Anu ; and as she was goddess of love, while Anu was god of heaven, it is pro- bable that the first intention in the mythology was only to represent love as heaven-born ; but in time a more sensual view prevailed, and the worship of Ishtar became one of the darkest features in Babylonian mythology. As the worship of this goddess increased in favour, it gradually superseded that of Anu, until in time his temple, the house of heaven, came to be regarded as the temple of Venus." Again, writing of the time of Izdubar, he tells us : 5 "The s chaid. Gen., P . as. city of Erech, originally a seat of the . worship of Anu, Disc, p. 191 22 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. was now one of the foremost cities in this Ishtar wor- ship." We find evidence, indeed, in some fragments of legal tablets written in Akkadian, of the early date of the most revolting practices, even in connexion with the worship of Anu himself. The mode of worship in primitive Babylonia is receiving fresh illustration day by day. It is certain that it was observed from week to week, and from festival to festival, and from fast to fast, with all pomp and splendour ; with processions, music and hymns of high-wrought adoration, and impassioned prayer. Probably the burning of incense was an accessory from early times, as we may learn from c. smith, Assyr. Khasisadra's sacrifice on issuing from the ark. 1 But it is certain that propitiatory sacrifices were offered in abundance. In a very spirited hymn addressed to a goddess of Erech and Agane (where the temple Ulbar stood), probably Nana, or Anunit a goddess of the sun, this is strongly marked ; and as it shows the spirit of unaffected devotion due to the " Living God," but so fearfully " starting aside like a broken bow," which bears witness to the strong yearning of the human spirit towards its Father, I give the fragment, rendered from the French translation of M. Lenormant : — " In Erech thy chief city the fast has been observed, " In Ulbar the home of thy power I have made blood run like water, " In all thy land I have (kindled) the fire, and wide it has spread. " Lady ! over the wicked my strength has greatly prevailed : " The mighty rebel thou bendest like to a very reed ! " Not to my own will do I cling ! I boast not of myself ! " Even as a flower of the waters day and night I fade. " (Verily) I am thy servant ! I bind myself to thee ! " Thy (might) evermore be established ! Ever thy falchion flame ! " AKKADIAN PRACTICE OF HUMAN SACRIFICE. 23 This would seem to be a hymn of triumph, such as Izdubar himself might well have chanted when he had re- conquered this very city of Erech "the blessed," and re-established the worship of the goddess Ishtar or Nana, to whom this psalm was sung, as we read in Mr. G. Smith's volume of Assyrian Discoveries. 1 * p l69 ' The flame or fire of which the royal votary speaks in the third verse is possibly the fire of war against the insurgents, or it may be the flame of sacrifice. The blood which was made to run like water in Ulbar, was doubtless, as M. Lenormant understands it, the blood of sacrifices. The principal victims were the ram and the bull, the most valued subjects of man, as indeed the first and second signs of the zodiac bear witness. But to these a fearful addition must be made : I speak of human sacrifice. The horrible practice of parents devoting their own children in the fire is traced, in 2 Kings xvii. 31, to the inhabitants of Sepharvai'm, that is, the two cities of Sippara, separated by the stream of the Euphrates ; or rather, says M. Menant, by a canal 2 called Nahar-Agane. One of these was called Sipar-sa-Samas, " Sippara of the sungod ;" the other, Sipar-sa-Anunit, was the ancient capital of Sar- gina the first of which we have before spoken, Agane. The men of Sepharvai'm, we are told, when transplanted to Samaria, were those who " burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvalm :" Adrammelech being probably " fire-king," an epithet of the sun, and Anammelech being the name of Anunit made (perhaps in contempt) to chime with the other. 3 The temple of Samas at Sippara was originally built by Lig- bagas king of Ur. The latter element of the names, 2 Menant, Babylouc, p. 96. 3 Rawlinson, Aiic. Sfon,, Vol. I., p. 126, 2 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. IV., p. 25. 24 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF AERAHAM. "Mclek" (king) became so infamous in the form of " Moloch." Now it is only too possible that the royal author of the hymn to the goddess of Ulbar in boasting of the "fire" may refer to these horrible sacrifices. However this may be, it is now clear that those Semitic races who practised this form of worship did not originate it, but received it from the Akkadians, who were their instructors in so much besides. M. Lenormant called attention to a fragment iusprem.civ.,\'o\. bearing most distinctly on this matter, 1 and Mr. Sayce has 11., p. 196. ° 1-1 since treated it in an interesting paper read by him to the Society of Biblical Archaeology. 2 He says that the first poem of that wonderful epic cycle, which comprised among its twelve "interwoven" lays the legend of the deluge, seems to have been one on the sacrifice of Bel ; or, as it was also called, "the sacrifice of righteousness ; " this subject answering to the first sign of the zodiac, and the first month of the year. The Akkadian title of the month given by M. Lenormant is " Month of the Altar of Righteousness." It had no such Semitic name as " Month of the Sacrifice of Bel," and hence Mr. Sayce infers, that " it was not only the worship of the Sun, and all that it implied, which was borrowed by the Semitic from the Accadian, but the dreadful rites with which it was associated as well ;" 3 and this inference he confirms by two cuneiform texts : one is that part of an Akkadian poem of pre- Semitic age mentioned by M. Lenormant, and of which Mr. Sayce gives the original Akkadian text and the Assy- rian version, with his translation, which in effect agrees entirely with M. Lenormant's : — "The sin (?) may he extirpate; and the offspring who raises the head among mankind ; — (his) offspring for his life he gave ; the head of the offspring for the head of the man 3 See also Sayce, Bab. Lit., p. 46. HUMAN SACRIFICE AMONG THE AKKADIANS. 25 he gave ; the front of the offspring for the front of the man he gave; the breast of the offspring for the breast of the man he gave." " This highly interesting text," observes Mr. Sayce, " gives us distinct evidence of the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice among the Akkadians, as well as of the Akkadian origin of the sacrifice of the first-born." He then quotes " a passage from the great astronomical work drawn up for the library of Sargon of Agane between 2000 and 1700 B.C. and based on Akkadian originals," of which we have before spoken. "When the air-god (Rammanu) 1 is fine, prosperity. iL^tT^rT^ ,, _ , , . , , ,, • , , „ Jupiter in sub Jove " On the high places the son is burnt : fmuio, etc. thus showing the place and mode of this terrific sacrifice ; and, we may add, the regular and common-place way in which it was regarded. If M. Lenormant's translation of a line in the celebrated poem of the Descent of Ishtar be correct, it may contain an allusion to this subject : — "36 Let her weep over the young only son, who before the term of his days has been snatched away." s £f£T s£I£ 1 • 1 Oppert, L'Immort. de This is a topic of deep and awful import, to which we uAmtduziesChaid., may have occasion to return in the course of this work. We therefore will content ourselves with the sufficient proof thus given that the question, " shall I give my first-born for my transgression : the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 3 was answered in the affirmative when Abram sMicvi.?. was a boy in Ur of the Chaldees. Among the ceremonies of worship, the use of a sacred ark dedicated to a deity would seem to have existed in the earliest times in Babylonia, as it did in so notable a manner among the Egyptians ; for in the sixth tablet of the " Izdubar " series, " the ark of his god Sarturda " is 26 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF AERAHAM. mentioned in Mr. G. Smith's translation in connection with lAssyr.Discp.ns. some observances of worship. 1 " Long lists of these . . , . , . , arks are given,- says The traces of religious belief on the great subjects ot Mr. Boscawen, "in . w. a. i. ii., and they human destiny in the life to come are very important, and appear to have been sacred barges like the s ^-i r our deepest feelings. As we draw nearer the fountain- boat of the Egyptian L ° 0siris " heads of history, " such thoughts, the wreck of paradise," more clearly reveal themselves. a Trans, soc. Bib. fhe consciousness of sin, 2 and its desert and punishment, Arch., Vol. II., p. 76; Records of the Past, ^he or {nrjn of temptation and transgression, 3 the fall of Vol. vii.. p. 151. fc> r o 3 c*aid.G e »..p.tn. angels and of man, 4 the flood as the punishment of human s Assyr. DiL.. P . iniquity, 5 the fear of death (" death I feared, and lay down on the ground," 5 " the waters of death will not cleanse thy hands"), the reverence and yearning for right- e Assyr. Disc. p. j 93 . eousness, and belief in its reward at the hands of God, 6 the 7 Trans. Soc. Bib. belief in immortality of the soul, 7 in judgment to come, in voi. iv.,p. 7i 'o P pert! a heaven of blessedness and a place of punishment, are all VImmort. de fAme chez us chaid. now brought to light as "articles of faith" among Akka- dians and Semites alike, gradually entangled and overlaid in the " many inventions " of the " evil imagination of man's heart," losing their only true significance and .sanction as men "did not like to retain God in their knowledge." In fact, the result of all the investigation of recent years is that which has been most accurately summed up by St. Paul in the beginning of his epistle to the Romans. There is one point, however, of especial importance, to which we shall have occasion to revert, but which must be lightly touched at once, as it regards the great beliefs of Abraham's early days. It is the resurrection of the dead. This belief seems to have been especially associated with the great god of Babylon, Marduk (Merodach) of whom we will now speak. Marduk was identified with the planet Jupiter. His Akkadian name, which was but slightly altered, was MERODACH AND THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 27 Lenormant, La •n. Civ., Vol. II.: Amar-utuki ;' and it is now found out that his worship at Babylon must have been of extreme antiquity, as it was re- p - 17 °- stored by the ancient monarch Agu-kak-rimi, whose date Mr. G. Smith places as " most probably more than 2000 years before the Christian era;'" and he is mentioned as the son ^Assyr.Discp.^. of Hea in the tablet of the "Seven Wicked Spirits." 3 He was 3Assyr.Discp.399; Records of the Past, Vol. IX. p. 143. called " The God of Hosts," viz., of stars. " Marduk," writes M. Lenormant, 4 "is one of the types of those gods who die 4 £«>>-«*. c.-».,voi. 1,1 ° II., p. 171. On Mar- and rise again to life periodically, characteristic of the duk see also M.Lenor- * main's Essay, Les religions of the shores of the Euphrates and Tigris, of Syria ^J e Babyloue ' and Phoenicia. The famous pyramid of the royal city of Babylon passed for his tomb, where they showed to devotees his sepulchral chamber, afterwards plundered by Xerxes, which they called the place of rest of Marduk." M. Lenormant gives a very interesting hymn connected with the worship of this place and god, in which Assur (in its most ancient form the name stands Ausar) is spoken of as "the shepherd who is thy temple guardian" ("neocore"); the only mention of his name in any "document of the primitive epochs of Chaldaea and Babylonia." This most remarkable line stands thus : — " Assur the Shepherd who is thy temple-guardian ; " Quicken him through his nostrils." It is a prayer to Marduk the life-giver on behalf of Assur. Does not this look as if Assur were really a living king ? This is the first impression we receive from the words in Genesis x. 11, "out of that land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh," etc., as we read them in our Authorized translation. 5 Also given in Chald. Another hymn is added by M. Lenormant. 5 It belongs Magic, p.i 93 ; and by Mr. Bosc3wen, Trans. to a collection of magic formulae, and contains an " ex- soc. sa. Arch., v i. IV., p. 297, in a very pression of the belief in the resurrection of the dead, the interesting P a P er. 28 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. care of whom would be naturally attributed to Marduk, as a god who himself died and revived. This is one of the first indications which one can hitherto take hold of as to the ideas of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians regarding the future life." In the Akkadian text of the " Seven Evil Spirits," Marduk is called " Protector of the Covenant," says Mr. Sayce. His part as the earnest, pitiful, and indefatigable redresser of wrong, and reliever of misery, is a very im- portant feature, and worthy of careful attention. Marduk was identified with Silik-mulu-khi, the merciful helper of the human race, whom the Akkadians invoked in every necessity as the " eldest son of Hea " the god of the abyss and of wisdom. He was the great mediator of the old religion, and to him was assigned the power of " bring- ing the dead back to life." This, therefore, was not a later development of the Semitic system, but part of the ancient heritage. There is much in this to remind us of the Egyp- tian Osiris. The Egyptian analogies to the seven portals of Hades to be passed successively with their guardians, the central judgment-hall, the water of life, and the mystic bark of Hea elsewhere described, are very remarkable, and deserve mature study. As among the Egyptians, the lore of magic abounded. Indeed it is well known that from first to last the Chal- daeans were the renowned masters of the art, from the highest form of astrology down to the lowest jugglery. Auguries, spells, amulets, inscribed phylacteries, invoca- tions against evil spirits and diseases of every sort, are testified by the tablets to have been in continual use among the Akkadians, from whom the Semitic races learned this whole system of superstitious vanities. Besides the epic and the lyric poetry, which is emerging PROVERBS OF OLD TIME IN CHALD^EA. 29 from the darkness of four thousand years, there are popular proverbs which will be available ere long in illustration of their ways of life. M. Lenormant has given a few specimens ; such as these : — {On retribution.') " Thou go'st to spoil " The field 0' th' foe ! " One comes to spoil " Thy field --the foe ! " {Good out of evil.) "Oh! be it mine to eat the fruit of death, " And so transform it into fruit of life ! " {A field song of good omen.) " The wheat of uprightness " Unto its top of thriving growth shall press : " The secret spell " We know right well ! " The wheat of plenteousness " Unto its top of thriving growth shall press : " The secret spell " We know right well ! " z * .. Le ""h, f T ' This little ditty, which I have put into rhyme to avoid the flatness of mere lines of literal translation, may well re- mind us of the cheery Egyptian threshing-song to the oxen. 2 There are, indeed, snatches of pleasant song which the ploughmen of Akkad would sing to their oxen on the threshing floor and in the furrowed field. These are given by Mr. Sayce in his Lectures on Babylonian Literature} It is a happy relief from sad and solemn studies to hear, as it were, the chirping of grasshoppers, and find " the old poetic fields " blooming from the dust of this " primitive and Ante-Semitic Chaldsea," of which Ur was the ancient p.: 2 Wilkinson, Pop. Ace, Vol. II., p. 43. 30 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. mother-town, and Terakh, Nakhor, Abram, and Lot were citizens. We will now turn to the polity, and laws, and transaction of business. " It is the opinion of the majority of Assy- rian scholars," says Mr. G. Smith in his important work, lP -«5 Assyrian Discoveries* "that the civilization, literature, mythology, and science of Babylonia and Assyria were not the work of a Semitic race, but of a totally different people, speaking a language quite distinct from that of all the Semitic tribes. There is, however, a more remarkable point than this : it is supposed that at a very early period the Akkad or Turanian population, with its high cultivation and remarkable civilization, was conquered by the Semitic race, and that the conquerors imposed only their language on the conquered, adopting from the subjugated people its mythology, laws, literature, and almost every art of civiliza- tion." Mr. Sayce, in his valuable essay on Semitic civilization before quoted, has pointed out how the Semitic people borrowed their principal words of rule, civil authority, and law, from Akkadian sources. To the same effect writes M. Menant, in his work on chfidT^U. Park! Chaldsea. 3 " These peoples," viz. those ancient possessors of Chaldaea called Sumiri and Akkadi, " had a constitution civil and religious so powerful, that they imposed not only their system of writing, but also their political and religious system on their invaders." "The political constitution of the Assyrio-Chaldaean kings submitted to the influence of that of their predecessors, for we see the new sovereigns adopt their titles, and perpetuate them during the whole duration of the empire." The most ancient title we can discover, and which is found among those of antediluvian kings, is that of " Shep- herd." M. Menant gives the cuneiform monogram of which >-?> ROYAL TITLES AND GOVERNMENT. 31 Assyr. ri'u, belu, shep- herd, lord. Sayce,jlssyr. Gram. , No. 237, and J ^-T No. 484, j/i«/. the original pronunciation is not known, 1 "but it was rendered in Assyrian by the articulation ri'u (njn)." The Hebrew word is often used in the Bible, beginning with also H~Ip'| Abel who " was a shepherd of sheep." It often occurs in the sense of ruling, and is applied to God as " Shepherd of Israel." The readers of Homer will remember the familiar equivalent. Of all royal titles it is the most pleasing and patriarchal. The terms used for "throne," and "judge," besides the words of majesty, came from the Akkadian. It is clear that there was a hereditary element in the royalty of those . days, which was of course almost the essence of a patri- archal power, but the lines were often broken by usurpation or conquest. There were viceroys of provinces, and chiefs or nobles, like the " princes " of Egypt : and the whole system was sanctioned and knit together by the strongest religious element. If the king, also sovereign pontiff, was not usually worshipped as a god in his lifetime, like the Pharaohs, as indeed appears in the case of Naram-Sin, son of Sargina I., as shown by Mr. Sayce, 2 at least the more venerated were * Trans. s„c. Bit. Arch.,VolV.,p. 442. adored in after ages : as Izdubar, and Suqamuna and Amar- aku. M. Lenormant notices 3 that the two words expressed *Etudcssur q «ei q ucs * /. des Syllabaircs, by the same ideogram and signifying "god," ana and dimmer, p- I4 - were sometimes applied to kings, 4 as in Egypt the title of 4 w. a. i. il, 33. '• 1 T, " Good God." This subject will be treated in reference to the shepherd-kings. The priestly office and other chief functions were here- ditary among the Chaldaeans, properly so called, who are said by Diodorus Siculus to have been the most ancient of the Babylonians. As to the Hebrew name Kasdim, for the Chaldaeans, it would seem to be formed from " Casadu, a common Assyrian word (' to possess ') ; Casidu will be the 32 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM, i Assyr. Gmm. /or UO mcn agentis," as Mr. Sayce says in his Assyrian Grammar ;' Comparative pur- ° J J posts, Trubner, .872; p I4 Thus the K asdim would be the possessors of the not the later Assyr. >■ r *■ cam., Bagster. i anc j w h ere they dwelt : the lords, and not the subject race. The kings and suzerains of ancient Babylonia were far from being always mere despots and tyrants, in the evil sense of those words. We may be sure that their power was limited in many directions by the established strong customs, the " common law " of the generations ; the opinion and will of priests and princes, by whom they were sur- rounded ; the exigency of precarious and troubled times, of a very exposed country, and restless royal neighbours. But there are evidences of high aims and beneficent designs for the public good. Doubtless we shall soon know more of the polity and laws of early Babylonia, and the precedents of legal decision in the courts. Mr. Sayce has published in 2 voi. in., P . =1. Records of the Past 2 a few memoranda of decisions so M. Lenormnnt has also given and ex- laconic in expression as to be vague and uncertain in import, for the most part ; but there are some landmarks, and his comment is valuable : " The patriarchal character of society implied by them (the laws) will be noticed, as well as the superior importance possessed by the mother, denial of whom by the son involved banishment in contrast with the milder penalty enjoined for renunciation of the father. This importance of the mother in family life is still a distinguishing feature of the Finnic Tatar race. The slave, it will be seen, was already placed to some extent under the protection of the state, and the first step on the road towards the amelioration of his condition had been made." One of these rules regards the " portion of goods," in the shape of real property, to be given to a child. " In every case let a married man put his child in possession of property, provided that he does not make him inhabit it." plained these law Chald.Magic, ch.xxxi, FAMILY LIFE AND ITS PROTECTIVE LAWS. Three bear witness to the predominant religious feeling in family life. " For the future a sanctuary shall be erected in a private demesne." ' This law, one would think, might have been made an instrument of religious persecution, such as that which Abraham was said to Jiave undergone, as we shall hereafter notice. But the next and the following decision seem to secure at least the undisturbed right of property : " (A man) has full possession of his sanctuary in his own high place. The sanctuary (a man) has raised, is confirmed to the son who inherits." Then we find laws to secure the honour due to father and mother ; and the penalties of denial or family treason. " His father and his mother (a man) shall not (deny)." " A decision. A son says to his father : Thou art not my father, (and) confirms it by (his) nail-mark (on the deed)." That is, I suppose, he formally repudiates the authority of his father by deed duly signed in the usual way by " his mark "with the finger nail on the clay. The penalty fol- lows : " he gives him a pledge, and silver he gives him." The Assyrian version gives it thus : " he recognises his pledge to him : " he enters into security for the future, and pays a fine. Next follows the parallel case of denial of the mother, with its severer penalty of personal disgrace and seclusion, or banishment. " A decision. A son says to his mother : Thou art not my mother; (in this case nothing is said of a formal deed, yet) "his hair is cut off, (in) the city they exclude him from earth (and) water, and in the house imprison him." (Assyrian version, " they expel him.") In the converse cases, where a father or mother repudiates a son, the father is the more severely visited. i The original, both Akkadian and Assy- rian, is given by M. Lenormant, Etudes sur guelques p. des Sylhxbaires, p. 79. 34 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. " A decision. A father says to his son : Thou art not my son. In house and brick-building they imprison him." " A decision. A mother says to her son : Thou art not my son. In house and property they imprison her." This seems as if she had the range of her garden or other premises. A married woman has her property secured to her. An unfaithful wife who repudiates her husband, " into the river they throw her." " A decision. A husband says to his wife : Thou art not my wife. Half a maneh of silver he weighs out in payment." With regard to the preference given to the wife, M. Lenormant remarks : — " This peculiarity .... is so much the more worthy of attention, not only because we find nothing similar in the Semitic world, but because it is directly opposed to the spirit of some posterior Babylonish institutions as revolting to morality as they were degrading to womankind, yet consecrated by religion, and as far as I can see of Kushite origin." These laws show a very advanced social polity, after- wards exceedingly impaired among many or most of the ruling nations. The "wild justice" of personal revenge is here well broken in, and life and property efficiently protected. Even the slave is not subject to the irresponsible power of his master ; witness : " A decision. A master kills (his) slaves, cuts them to pieces, injures their offspring, drives them from the land and makes them sick ; his hand every day a half-measure of corn measures out (in requital)." Such were some of the laws of Akkad. In Kouyunjik Mr. G. Smith found half of a curious tablet, copied from a Babylonian original, giving warnings 2 Trans. Soc. Bib Arch., Vol. I,, p. 91. AN AKKADIAN FAMILY LAW-SUIT. 35 to kings and judges of the evils which would follow the neglect of justice in the country. 1 They are most tAs^r-Ducv-m ° J J J Records of the Past, instructive. VoL vn - p- "* The administration of justice receives curious light from the tablets recording law cases in the courts. For instance: Mr. G. Smith gives the following account 2 of a family' law- suit in the time of Khammurabi (or Khammuragas) a great king of whom we shall have more to say by and by. " Zini-nana and Iriba-sin a dispute had. To settle it a judge they took, and to the temple of Samas they entered. In the tem- ple of Samas sentence he pronounced : the slave Lussamar- Samas and the female slave Lislima to be the property of Iriba-sin ; the slave Ipsinan and the female slave Ilamanna- lamazi to be the property of Zini-nana. A statute in the temple of Samas and the temple of Sin they proclaimed : brother to brother should be loving, brother from brother should not turn, should not quarrel, over the whole a brother to a brother should be generous, the whole he should not have. By the names of Ur, Samas, Maruduk and Sarkimuna (four gods, of whom the last was a deified king of old time), and Khammurabi the king they swore. Witness Davkina- seme son of Apiyatu. Witness Abil-sin son of Urmanse. Witness Sin-esses the priest. Witness Ibus-hea the dugab. Witness Samas-mubanit priest of Gula. Witness Nabi-sin son of Idin-sin. Witness Sin-uzili son of Zini-nana (one of the parties). Witness Inu-sin son of Sin-seme. Witness Sin- gimlaanni the .... of the judges. Tablet the witnesses impressed in the month Addaru, in the year when Kham- murabi the king Anu, Anunit and Nana (a god and two goddesses) adorned." Tablets of this kind, to record important business, are generally fabricated in duplicate. First a tablet of clay was moulded and inscribed ; then an outer coat of clay was 36 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. put over the tablet, and the same record (sometimes with variations of a merely clerical kind) inscribed on the out- side. Thus if the outer shell be injured, the same inscription is found on the kernel inside. In this case the record is " in Semitic Babylonian, but most of the other tablets in the collection " (in the British Museum), as Mr. Smith tells us, " are written in Turanian, although occasionally one copy will give a Semitic equivalent for the corresponding Turanian word in the other." There are about a hundred of these tablets belonging to the times of the early kings. They " relate mostly to sales of land ; but some are leases, others sales of grain, slaves, and camels, and a few are loans, wills, and law-cases." From such transactions Abram must have learned his knowledge of business, which we see in the acquisition of his wealth of various kinds, including " the souls which he had gotten in Kharran ;" that is, the servants whom he had acquired by purchase ; and especially in the solemn trans- action for " the possession of a burying-place " with Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite. The Semitic people were the great agents in these transactions of commerce, as the descendants of Abraham in particular have been ever since. In a religious aspect we must mark these judicial deter- minations as taking place in the temple, and being confirmed by oaths on the gods and the king. Here, again, the abominations of idolatry would press on the faithful servant of the One God, as he was earnestly striving to rise from the entanglement and manifold snares of the worship of innumerable " other gods." As in Egypt, so in Babylonia, it is not so much anything like absolute darkness as the multitudinous refraction and colouring of the light of heaven which meets our eyes. RELIGIOUS LIFE IN CIIALD/EA. 37 The soul of a man (how much more of a child) might on all sides be "secretly enticed," as well as outwardly " driven," to " worship and serve the creature more than the Creator ;" and at last to lose sight of the Creator altogether. In reading, even in their wreck and ruin, in a far distant age, and with the eyes of a Christian of perhaps the thirtieth generation, these heartfelt prayers, praises, adorations — these narratives so honestly believed, so carefully recorded, — we may feel in some palpable degree the spell, and verify to ourselves the necessity of a sharp and sudden breach, a stern renunciation of the entire order of familiar life. For these ancient people (like the Athenians of St. Paul's day, and with far more earnestness,) were "very religious." All that they did was sanctioned by the best they knew of faith and devotion. Their most costly efforts were devoted to the gods ; the temples, " the houses of their delight," were the prominent features of every city, and not, as afterwards in Assyria, mere adjuncts to the palaces. Their invasions of conquest, their magnificent public works of irrigation and the like, were all devoted to the gods. In their endless votive inscriptions, their psalms of adoration, their humble and penitent prayers, we have only to change the object, and all would be well. Only read Jehovah for Sin or Marduk, and we Christians stand rebuked by their devotion. The house of Terakh had turned to " other gods" as we know from holy Scripture. It is a strange thing to find in the Talmud that Terakh's wife is called "Amthela, or Amtelai, the daughter of Karnebo." There are names of Kassite kings compounded with Kara and the name of a god, as Kara-Kit, Kara-Indas, etc., meaning "servant of such and such a god." There was a town called by the 3§ THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. name Kar-Nebo (Kar-Nabu, fortress of Nebo) in Assyria, x Records of tut r«st. mentioned on the Paris Michaux Stone. 1 Vol. IX., p 94. The shades of the picture must be duly painted. Religion had turned to superstition, and superstition in its darker mood had brought forth magic, the great besetting sin of the Chaldaeans, by which the children of Abraham in the days of their captivity long afterwards became so deeply tainted. Earlier than the days of Terakh, we know that this malign and gloomy spell possessed the souls of his fellow-countrymen. The old Akkadian tablets bear witness to this. Rhyth- mic charms were sung, "non innoxia verba," to bring evil on an enemy. Thus the Assyrians, and the Babylonians before them, thought to utilize for their malicious ends the power of those swarming evil spirits who were (as they believed), the authors of every species of disease, and who might, as Mr. Sayce writes, " be swallowed with the food and drink that support life." They counted no less than 300 spirits of heaven, and 600 spirits of earth. The charms were in the old Akkadian tongue, and doubtless of most ancient date. They are bad enough for the hags in " Macbeth." This is the style ; and a little will suffice. The tablet is translated 2 vol in., P . 14& by Mr. Sayce in Records of the Past' and still more recently by Mr. George Smith in his excellent manual of s 3 p.c u S h p d x7; S ee the histor y of Assyria, 3 The case of the victim is thus ^c, t aU. Magic, "lively set forth":— " The evil curse like a demon fixes on a man " A raging voice over him is fixed " An evil voice over him is fixed " The evil curse is a great calamity " That man the evil curse slaughters like a lamb " His god from over him departs AKKADIAN SPELLS AND EXORCISMS. 39 " His goddess stands angry at his side " The raging voice like a cloak covers him and bears him away." It is evidently going hard with the poor victim. What must be done for him ? Two things were orthodox : — An exorcism must deliver him, and a counter-mine must be driven for him under the sorcerer, who must thus be " hoised with his own petard." First, for instance. An exorcism :— ' r Records o/au Past > Vol. I., p. 136, Second " From the cruel spirit of the head, from the strong spirit of the head, from the head-spirit that departs not, from the head- spirit that goes not forth, from the head-spirit that will not go, from the noxious head-spirit may the king of heaven preserve, may the king of earth preserve !" But perhaps this is rather a prophylactic than an anti- dote. So we will take the following : — " (On) the sick man by means of sacrifice may perfect health shine like bronze ; may the Sun-god give this man life ; may Merodach, the eldest son of the deep (give him) strength, prosperity (and) health : may the king of heaven preserve, may the king of earth preserve ! But next, as to the sorcerer. The counter-charm :' — „ 2 „f yce ' Bab ' Lit " > p. 4«. " Like unto this herb he is destroyed, and the spell shall burn with burning flame. To its severed stalk it shall not return ; to the dish of the god or the king it shall not be brought ; so shall it be with the man for whom this enchantment is used. The evil invocation, the pointing of the finger, the marking, the cursing, the sinning, the sickness that is in my body, my limbs, or my teeth, like this herb may it be rooted out, and on this day may the consuming fire consume. May the spell be driven out and return to its dwelling place." We must notice the symbolic actions which marked these magic rites, and the antiquity of the opinion that " curses fly home to roost." 40 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. i Records of the Vol. III., p. 153. 1 Anc. Chald. , Bayster, 1877. The following is a benignant spell ' of the kind apparently alluded to in the little harvest-song which we have already given. The translation is by Mr. Sayce. " The noble cup-bearer of Hea, the scribe of Merodach (am) I, " Like fire have I blazed (and) I rejoice ; " (Like) fire have I burned (and) I grow ; " The corn I purify and make heavy. " Like fire have I blazed (and) will rejoice ; " (Like) fire have I burned (and) will grow ; " The corn will I purify and make heavy. " O nadir (and) zenith, the light of god and man, " May the store he collected be delivered. " May the store of (his) heart whosoever he be, ye his god "And his goddess, be delivered. " May his gate be kept fast on that day, " May they enrich him, may they deliver him." This is in the spirit of many old staves of benediction in all ages, down to those still sung in country villages in England to bless the crops and apple-trees. The reader who is curious in this matter may find other formulae of the same kind in Records of the Past, Vols. I. and II. ; and an elaborate and learned work on Magic among the Chaldaeans has been written by M. Lenormant, and is now available to the English reader in a translation sanctioned and amended by the author. 5 The Egyptians were scarcely less given to the use of spells, amulets, exorcisms, and the whole armoury of magic. Such things must not be overlooked by those who would endeavour to estimate fairly the spiritual thraldom from which in all ages the divine Redeemer has set His children free. When we turn from these debasing superstitions, and all the pitiful apparatus of idolatry, to the amplitude of Abraham's single faith in Jehovah, who among us can FLOODS AND IRRIGATION IN CHALDyEA. 4 1 duly prize that "precious faith," the saving gift of God? Who can value aright the goodly heritage of Abraham's sons according to the promise ? Among the striking analogies between Babylonia and Egypt, it must not be forgotten that the annual rise and overflow of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris (Hiddekel), was a matter of the most serious and vital importance. The Tigris begins to rise in the early part of March, and reaches its highest level about the beginning of May. The Euphrates, which starts from the northern and opposite side of the same mountain range, begins to rise in the middle of March, is at its height in the beginning of June, and sinks from the middle of July till September. The one condition of successful cultivation was the care- ful observance, and skilful application of these natural provisions of the great fertiliser, water. And, accordingly, to this work the master-minds of Babylonia applied them- selves, perhaps from the time of Peleg in whose " days the earth was divided," which Mr. Cyril Graham considers to refer to " the first cutting of some of those canals which are found in such numbers between the Tigris and the Eu- phrates." x However this may be, the work of irrigation * Cambridge Essays, 1858. i")B means river can be traced to the remotest antiquity. The observation of the varying water-level was a solemn act of religious duty, like that of the Nilometer in Egypt, and seems at Babylon to have been entrusted to a special functionary. Mr. George Smith, in his work on "Assyrian Discoveries," 2 gives a translation from a tablet belonging to the temple of Bel, written in the Turanian and Semitic Babylonian languages : — " In the month Nisan (the first month, mostly in March) on the second day, one kaspu (2 hours) in the night : 42 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. " The amil-urgal draws near, and the water of the river he observes, " To the presence of Bel he enters and measures, " And in the presence of Bel "He marks it, and to Bel this prayer he prays : " ' O Lord, who in his might has no equal ; " O Lord, good sovereign, lord of the world ; " Executor of the judgment of the great gods ; " Lord, who in his might is clothed with strength ; " Lord, king of mankind, establisher of glory ; " Lord, thy throne is Babylon, Borsippa is thy crown ; " The wide heaven is the expanse of thy liver, (Lines 12 and 13 of doubtful meaning) , Lacum,. « Thy m [gh t thou " ' lord powerful, ' " Returning reward ' " To those cast down, do thou give to them favour, " Answer to the man who praises thy might. " O Lord of the earth, of mankind, and spirits, speak good. " Who is there whose mouth does not praise thy might, " And speak of thy law, and glorify thy dominion ? " O Lord of the earth, dwelling in the temple of the Sun, " Take hold of the hands which are lifted to thee, " To thy city Babylon grant favours. " To the temple of Saggal, thy temple, incline thy face, " For the sons of Babylon and Borsippa grant blessings.' " " There are," says Mr. Smith, " several of these tablets in the new collection, giving directions for similar ceremonies on different days of the month Nisan." The extreme necessity of these works of hydraulic engineering is marked mythologically by the fact of Hea, the great god of intelligence among the Babylonians, being the patron of irrigation ; as Hurki or Sin, the moon-god, of brick-making and building. M. Lenormant prefers the reading Nonah, formerly proposed by Dr. Hincks, for the THE PRESENT CONDITION OF CHALD^A. 43 ; Us fir}} [., p. 129. cuneiform name of this god Hea, and connects it with Noah and the deluge. 1 In the records the same lesson is read in the account of whole cities destroyed from time to time by floods, as for instance Mullias in the time of Khammuragas, perhaps in the lifetime of Abraham. This great conquering monarch, whose exploits we shall have to record, commemorates in an inscription these beneficent works. "The canal Khammuragas, the joy of men, a stream of abundant waters, for the people of Sumir and Accad I excavated. Its banks, all of them, I restored to newness : new supporting walls I heaped up : perennial waters for the people of Sumir . n 2 Records of 'the Past, and Accad I provided. vol. i., P . 7 . second Edition ; see also At the present time the destruction of dykes and canals Trans.soc.mb.Arch., r J VoL I., p. 58, etc. has resulted in the increasing ruin of the whole country, which is either a dusty desert or a mephitic marsh, or both by turns ; 3 and so complete is the subversion of all things that Mr. Layard found the bed of a great canal leading to Niffer, "whose waters had once been confined between two enormous embankments," dry in the midst of the surround- ing water. " Its solid banks now oppose the further spread of the marsh which reaches to their feet." " The greater part of the country below ancient Babylon," says this renowned explorer, " has now been for centuries one great swamp. It is, indeed, what the prophet foretold it should be, a desert of the sea." The great marshes, he tells us, " are yearly increasing, and threaten to cover the whole of southern Mesopotamia." The northern and drier parts of the country are described by travellers as intersected by the dry beds and banks of innumerable canals, which now present the appearance of turnpike roads : and the country after a flush of exquisite flowery verdure, which "withers afore it be grown up," 3 Layard, Nin. ah £at>.,p. 549, etpassi), 44 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. passes again into a hot dusty desert. In the old days, however, of which we have to tell, when it was densely populated by various industrious races in the state of civilisation we have been describing, southern Babylonia must have been a goodly spectacle of cultivated beauty, " as the garden of the Lord." Here and there a few descriptive touches in the narra- tives of our modern travellers will help us to picture this old-world beauty. Mr. Loftus, for instance, thus describes i amid, and sus., the rise of the water and the river scenery : l — " A great change was taking place in the aspect of the country ; many old channels and water-courses, which I had been accustomed to see empty and dry, were now rapidly filling with river-water." .... " Hennayin, as he walked by my side, broke out into frequent exclamations of delight at the sight of little runners of the vivifying fluid as it trickled along, gradually filling the canals. ' Is not this a beautiful country ? ' he continually exclaimed, while he looked up into my face with undoubted signs of gratification. While the em- barkation was being effected, I was in full enjoyment of the scene before me. After the dust and barren dreariness of the ruins (of Erech, which he had just left) nothing could exceed the beauty and luxury of that river side and its now verdant banks bee-eaters, king-fishers, herons, pigeons, hawks, and other birds, in all their bright and varied plumage, were flying about, uttering their several cries, and luxuriating in their native element, scarcely deigning to notice the presence of human beings." Lower down the Euphrates "a thick forest of luxuriant date-trees fringe the bank on either side of the noble river, which supplies innumerable canals for their nourishment, and for the cultivation of cereals, which flourish in large SCENERY AND HOME-LIFE OF ABRAM'S YOUTH. 45 quantities even beneath the shade of the palms. The ebb and flow of the tide is perceptible twenty miles above Korna, quite eighty miles from the Persian gulf." This then is the scenery in which we are to picture the childhood and rising life of Abram in the house of Terakh his father, in a city renowned and venerated with especial honour, the sanctuary of a splendid religion, the mart and haven of a thriving commerce, the walled fortress of a royal military system, of which indeed it was the exposed western outpost across the boundary of the great river, and, as we have before noticed, open to the pastures and the wild spaces of the Arabian deserts. Truly Abram, like his descendant Saul of Tarsus, was " a citizen of no mean city." We have given a rough sketch of the general state of things civil and religious in the Chaldsea of those days, in which Abram was brought up. His father's house must have been dignified by eminent station and virtues, and its records and traditions became the more dearly cherished by him and his after the breaking of tie upon tie which had bound him to his kinsmen according to the flesh. Whether these registers and family records could have been kept in writing at that early time, used to be a matter of vague conjecture. Now, however, we know that even the daily transactions of business, in which Abram's race were so especially versed, were perpetuated with the utmost punc- tuality and decorum by means of those contract, and sale, and even loan tablets of terra cotta which are still existing ; and it is now known that in Chaldaea among the Akkadians, as in Egypt, papyrus was used as a writing material 1 as well as clay, and more rarely stone. Signatures were made (as we have seen) familiarly by the impress of the finger-nail, and more solemnly by the beautiful seal-cylinders of jasper, carnelian, and other hard 1 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. I., p. 343 ■ II., 43°. 46 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. stones, of which the British Museum possesses such a magnificent collection, dating from a time before Abraham downwards. These cylinders were engraven all round, and being rolled across the soft clay of the tablets, set off their impressions in the manner of the modern calico-printing. The identical name Abram, has been found in the Eponym Canon, as that of a court officer of Esar-haddon, and it is an extremely interesting thing that other Semitic names of the same precise type, have been found both in Chaldaea and in Egypt. In the reign of Khammuragas, some contracts were witnessed by " Abu-ha son of Ismi- i g. smith, mtes el," 1 a name which approaches very closely to that of the on the Early Hist, of Assyria and Baby Semitic chieftain, whose visit to Egypt is represented in the Ionia, p. 23. Harrison, oy y x i8 ? 2 - celebrated picture at Beni-hassan, whose name is Ab-sha. Of this more hereafter : but the name of the father of Abu-ha is identical with that of the son of Abraham. For information on the cuneiform system of writing, we must refer to the excellent handbook of Ancient History of s Murray, 1871. the East by Mr. Philip Smith ; 2 the work so often quoted in 3 Manual 0/ .inc. these pages by M. Lenormant ; 3 and the more extended Hist, of the East. "tit Asher, j869. volumes of Professor Rawlinson, on the Ancient Monarchies * Ft™ Great Monar- of the East. 4 The student will use the Assyrian Grammars ckies. SecondEilition, Murray, i8 7 i. of Mr. Sayce, and the reading-book of Mr. Boscawen ; and an excellent vindication of cuneiform research is given by the Rev. William Turner, in his volume entitled, Studies 5 Edm. a. and c. Biblical and Oriental* Black, 1S76. Of the domestic architecture little has as yet been re- covered. The better kind of houses were built of brick, plastered and ornamented in a very singular way by cones of coloured clay thrust into the plaster in varied patterns of lozenges, squares, and zigzags, with much the effect of Norman ornamentation in our early churches. The leading ARCHITECTURE AND SEPULTURE IN CHALD/EA. 47 architectural forms appear to have been derived from wooden buildings constructed of palm-trunks. The houses were probably covered with vaults of brick and terraced roofs, and very likely may have included some subterranean chambers for retreat in the hot seasons, such as are still used in the towns on the Euphrates and Tigris, where in the extreme heat the days are spent in the cellars, and the nights on the roofs. The graves of the departed were most carefully-con- structed vaults of brick, not arched, but closed by gradually approaching courses meeting at the top ; or the body was laid beneath a very large and strongly-constructed covering of baked clay of oval ground-plan and arched form, or enclosed in two very large jars whose open mouths were carefully joined together. Ur and Erech were the great sacred burial-cities, where the dead were gathered in innumerable multitudes around the walls for many ages, as at Abydos in Egypt, and as at the present day they are brought on camels from great distances to the Mohammedan cities of Nedjef and Kerbela. The deceased were interred with great care and devotion, and most ingenious means used to secure the best drainage of the vast sepulchral mounds. The body was generally laid on its left side, in the left hand was deposited a copper bowl with some small provision of dates or other food, on which the right hand was trained to rest as if in the act of taking food. The seal-cylinder was worn in the usual manner round the wrist, and drinking vessels were deposited in the tomb. The usual metal for all instruments and weapons was bronze. Gold was used for ornaments, and silver as current metal in traffic, iron seems to have been , . . , , 1 Rawlinson, Ai so rare as to be accounted a precious metal. Monarchies, vol. It is clear from subsequent events that Abram was trained 48 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. to military exercise, "his hands to war and his fingers to fight," probably first in the dangerous warfare of the chase, to wield the bow, the spear, and the sling: and like his great descendant David, to slay the lion, still in Chaldaea a powerful beast and held in sore dread, and the more terrible lioness in her wrath. He must also have learned the use of the boat and the craft of fishing on that " great river " whose ample stream was the one grand feature of his father- land ; and in the harbour he would grow familiar with the " ships of Ur," and the seafaring people of other races. The days of the years of his life were divided into twelve hours of day and twelve of night, as by us at present, and seem to have been marked on dials. Abram was a married man, but not a father. His wife Sarai is identified by Josephus and other Jewish writers with Iskah a daughter of Haran, and sister of Lot and Milkah. If this were so, when Abram said to Abimelech, " Indeed she is my sister ; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother," he must have used the word sister in that larger acceptance in which the term " brother " i Gen. xiv. i& j s applied to Lot, 1 and " daughter " in the very usual sense of descendant ; and in this case we also learn that Haran's mother was a previous wife of Terakh, and not the mother of Abram. Sarai" was ten years younger than her husband. Her familiar name seems to me to indicate dignity of birth, the final -ai, or -i having the same kind of import which it possesses in Gentilic or patronymic words. Sarai would thus be " Sar-born," and the more dignified " Sarah " (the feminine of " Sar "), the princess. Milkah is a name of similar import. It has been suggested that " Abram " may be the same title, " Abi-aram," " Father or Ruler of Aram," MIGRATION OF ARYANS INTO INDIA. which was afterwards borne by Abram's nephew Kemuel the son of Nakhor ; ' " Arami " was the word applied to Jacob in the great saying, 2 "A Syrian ready to perish was my father." It is worthy of notice that the Hebrew Chronology gives us all the ten generations from Shem to Abram as living together, with the one exception of the shortlived Peleg. The lifetimes of the patriarchs overlapped in manifold parallels ; so that family life was a many-stranded cord compared with the slender line of these latter days ; and tradition in every sense must have been correspondingly ample, strong, and accurate. We have now seen something of the land and city in which Abram was born and grew up in his father's house : a man of rank surrounded by all the conditions and in- fluences of civilized life ; in the centre of the world's interests and rivalries ; the hive which had thrown off the strong swarms of Assur, of Canaan, and it may be, before that, of Mizraim ; a land thick with conflicting powers, where his own kindred the sons of Shem had been in the ascendant, but were now for a while once more thrust down by the Cushite lords of Susa, who in their turn were perhaps troubled on their eastern frontier, where the Aryan race may have been feeling its way into India, as Professor C. E. de Ujfalvy dates the arrival of the Aryans in the Panjab about the year 2000 B.C. 3 We have spoken of the social conditions of mingled good and harm ; of the religious life in its strong and rank growth, where the ill weeds were springing up on all sides, and choking the good seed of pure primaeval faith in the Living God. There is not only presumptive evidence that a staunch upholder of the uncorrupted creed would be on all sides beset by danger as well as temptation, but the 49 Afercu general ■ les Migrations , p. 19, 1874. 50 THE FATHERLAND AND CHILDHOOD OF ABRAHAM. 4 Malan, Phil. Truth, p. 93. 5 Chap. V., v. 8. 6 Antig., Lib. power appears to have been asserted to compel a private citizen by order of the judge to build a heathen sanctuary on his own property. Thus there is nothing unlikely in the general sense of Jewish tradition that Abram was persecuted by the ruler of Chaldaea, and that he and his father were expatriated on account of their faith ; 4 which is the story told by Achior to Holofernes in the book of Judith. 5 Josephus mentions as a motive for their quitting Ur that Terakh hated Chaldaea on account of his sorrow for his lost son Haran, 6 without, however, omitting the paramount cause, Abram's faithful obedience to the divine command, when " the God of glory appeared unto ' him ' when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charran." II. Kkarran. T is the faith of Abram, not his mere migration, on which the reverence of man and the approval of God will rest for ever, to mark him out from all the sons of men. We will now consider some indications of a westward drift of races, apart from the divine and separate destiny of Abram and his seed. "This age," says Sir H. C. Rawlinson, 1 "seems to have been in a peculiar sense the active period of Semitic colonization. The Phoenicians removing from the Persian gulf to the shores of the Mediterranean, and the Hebrew patriarch marching with his household from Chaldaea to Palestine, merely followed the direction of the great tide of emigration which was at this time setting in from the east westward. Semitic tribes were, during the period in ques- tion, gradually displacing the old Cushite inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula. Assyria was being occupied by colonists of the same Semitic race from Babylonia, while the Ara- maeans were ascending the course of the Euphrates and forming settlements on the eastern frontier of Syria." In thus writing of Abram we are certain that this eminent scholar did not intend to derogate from the supreme and unique import of the call which summoned him forth. Among all the strangers who passed through the borders of i Her., Vol. I., p. 365; see also Anc. Mori., Vol. I., p. 54. 52 KHARRAN. the king of Salem, among all the patriarchal clans who "went down into Egypt," whether pressed by famine or led by ambition of conquest, yea, among all the sons of Adam, there was but one Abraham, " the father of the faithful." The general aspect of the great races is sketched by Professor C. E. de Ujfalvy in his Aperqu general sur les Migrations des Penples. " The Aryans, the Semites, and the Chamites remained much longer neighbours (than other races before mentioned) as the intimate relationship which exists between their religious and national traditions proves. Even after a first separation of the Aryans, the Semites and Chamites dwelt contiguous and lived in the strictest union. This union existed during the development of their language, and ceased not till the moment when a new shock from the hordes of higher Asia threw the Aryans a second time on them, and finally separated them ; the one ex- tended themselves in the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates, the other turned away constrained to invade Africa by the isthmus of Suez. " Throughout where the Semites appear, we see them succeed the Chamites who had preceded them in these different countries ; thus in Mesopotamia, in Palestine, in northern Africa, and probably also in Arabia, and even in Abyssinia, where they arrived by crossing the Red Sea. Almost everywhere the Chamites mingled themselves with the Semites, ethnologically speaking, they left some traces of their influence only in the character of the peoples ; thus in Europe (in Spain for example), in Meso- potamia, in Palestine, in Abyssinia, the Phoenicians were Semitized Chamites. It is only when one knows that the inhabitants of Mesopotamia were Chamites who had be- come Semites, that one can explain to oneself the agreement WESTWARD MIGRATIONS OF VARIOUS RACES. 53 existing between the Assyrio-Babylonian (Semitic) civiliza- tion and that of Egypt (Chamitic)." This very suggestive quotation must be borne in mind when we consider in a subsequent study the Egypt which met the eyes of Abram. " From the history of Egypt we learn," writes Mr. Kenrick,' " that about B.C. 2000 a great western migration of Palestinian and Arabian nomad tribes took place, in consequence of which all lower Egypt was subject to them for a long succession of years." Movers, B. I., Chap, viii., thinks " there are traces of a conquest of Syria and Palestine by Assyria first, B.C. 2000." ■ In surveying the swarming fields of history, as we see the highway cast up, and the stumblingblocks removed, and the bounds of their habitation marked out for the sons of men by an unseen hand, we must fairly take into our account all that meets our view ; and so shall we enter into the noble confession of Joseph : " So now it was not you sent me hither, but God." We read a more instructive lesson than that of simple shepherd-life, or the doubtful dignity of the " Bedouin Sheikh," in the life of Abram which now emerges to our sight from the busy haunts of men along the great roads of commerce and of war, and jostling with the hordes of keen seekers of some new city, whether Damascus, or Sidon, or Hebron, or Zoan, swarming westward to the " sea of the setting sun," and then southward to the land of Ham. When the God of glory appeared to Abram, and called him to his new destiny, the first migration of Terakh and his house was about 600 miles in length to Kharran. It is clear that Nakhor and his family followed him so far, for Kharran was afterwards called "the city of Nakhor;" and Nakhor called on Abram's God, as we learn incidentally from the lips of Laban. 3 The obedience of Terakh himself : Phan., p. 340, note. 54 KHARRAN. is evident from the position assigned to him : " Terakh took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife ; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan ; and they came unto Kharran i Gen. xi. 31. and dwelt there." ' At Ur they left Nakhor and the sepulchre of the de- parted elder brother Haran, who had " died before the face of Terakh his father," and " whose monument," says Josephus, " is shown to this day." And now began that great migration which for ever detached the pilgrims from their mother country. The early part of their way led through the rich warm Chaldsean levels ; and having, as we suppose, crossed the great river and passed by Larsa and ancient Erech, and seen the ruins of great Babel, they would come to the twin cities of Sippara : and by and by rising near the great place of bitumen-pits, Hit, to the higher undulating country already occupied by tribes who had gone northwards to found the great dominion of Assur, they would leave behind the more advanced cultivation of their native plains, and begin to encounter greater difficulties and untried dangers. But through whatever vicissitudes, in due time passing up the fertile valley of the Belik, the caravan, ascending towards the highlands, entered the resting-place of many years, a second home which became so familiar and dear to Abram, that we find him in his old age calling it " my country ; the house of my kindred." The region was called Padan- Aram, the plain of the highlands, or simply Padan, as in Gen. xlviii. 7 ; and this name Padan occurs in the very early Chaldsean record of Agu-kak-rimi, a Kassite or tAswr.Disc.p. 227: Elamite king of probably earlier date than Abram, as Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Q i. J vol. iv., p. .32. among his dominions. 5 In a celebrated inscription of //. Eg., p. ro8. 2 Trans. Sac. Bib. Arch., Vol. I., p. 303. 3 1 Sam. Whither DESCRIPTION OF KHARRAN. 55 Amenhotep III. at Soleb occurs the same name Patana, or Padan-Aram, among his conquests in Syria. 1 b^JT'^T^'Z Kharran (not to be confounded with Haran, the name of Terakh's son) is well known in secular history as a very ancient and important place : " the key of the highway from the east to the west," as Mr. Sayce calls it, 2 explaining the name as an Akkadian word meaning " road." It had also (like our word in former times, and still in Scotland) the military meaning of an " inroad," 3 and was familiar with the march of armies and the incidents of war. The town, ™dea wtodayv now a mere village of houses built, for want of timber, in the peculiar fashion represented in Assyrian reliefs, 4 with r 4 „^"' and l courses of stone gradually contracted so as to form a domed roof, lies on the slope of a low hill ending in a rocky vantage-ground, on which stand the ruins of a fortress of very ancient date built of large blocks of basaltic rock. There is an interesting sketch of the place by Mr. Malan in Churton and Jones's New Testament ; and the learned traveller has given the fullest description we yet possess in his work Philosophy or Truth? He approached it from the s p 93. Highland side, where "the green slopes of the lower hills of Armenia" have died away, coming from the ancient Edessa, which has claimed itself to be Ur. " At every step from Oorfa on the way to Haran," he writes, " which now lies as it did of old at about six hours' march from Ur (Oorfa), the hills on the right hand and on the left of the plain recede farther and farther, until you find yourself fairly launched on the desert ocean ; a boundless plain, strewed at times with patches of the brightest flowers, at other times with rich and green pastures, covered with flocks of sheep and of goats feeding together, here and there a few camels, and the son or daughter of their owner tending them. One can quite understand that the sons of 56 KHARRAN. this open country . . . the Bedaweens love it, and cannot leave it : no other soil would suit them. The air is so fresh, the horizon is so far, and man feels so free, that it seems made for those whose life is to roam at pleasure, and who own allegiance to none but to themselves. . . . The village of Haran itself consists of a few conical houses, in shape like beehives, built of stones laid in courses, one over the other without either mud or mortar ; these houses let in the light at the top, and are clustered together at the foot of the ruined castle built on the mound, that makes Haran a landmark plainly visible from the whole plain around. That same day I walked at even to the well I had passed in the afternoon coming from Oorfa ; the well of this the city of Nahor, ' at the time of the evening, the time that women go out to draw water.' There was a group of them, filling, no longer their ' pitchers,' since the steps down which Rebekah went to fetch the water are now blocked up, but filling their water-skins by drawing water at the well's mouth. Every thing around that well bears signs of age and of the wear of time ; for as it is the only well of drink- able water there, it is much resorted to. Other wells are only for watering the flocks. There we find the troughs of various height for camels, for sheep, and for goats, for kids and for lambs : there the women wear nose-rings, and bracelets on their arms, some of gold, or of silver, and others of brass, or even of glass. One of these was seen in the distance bringing to water her flock of fine patriarchal sheep ; ere she reached the well, shepherds more civil than their brethren of Horeb, had filled the troughs with water for her sheep. She was the Sheikh's daughter, the ' beau- tiful and well-favoured ' Ladheefeh. As the shadows of the grass and of the low shrubs around the well lengthened and grew dim, and the sun sank below the horizon, the FAITHFUL ABRAHAM AND HIS HEIRS. women left in small groups ; the shepherds followed them, and I was left alone in this vast solitude. Yet not alone : the bright evening star in the glowing sky to westward seemed to point to the promised land, as when Abraham took it for his guide ; the sky overhead, clear and brilliant as when he gazed on it, and the earth, the ground on which he trod, all spake a language heard nowhere else. The heavens whispered and the earth answered, ' walk by faith,' ' stagger not at the promise of God through unbelief,' but do as Abram did, ' be strong in faith, giving glory to God,' and ' by thy works make thy faith perfect.' There is also for thee a promised land — thy home. Keep thine eye thereon, and thou, stranger and pilgrim on the earth, believe Him that promised, as Abraham did ; ' seek,' as he did, ' a better country, that is an heavenly,' and it shall be counted unto thee for righteousness." These thoughts of a servant of Christ are veritable living proof of the work of faithful Abraham, who rejoiced to see the day of the Messiah aforetime as far off as we look back on it. It is through the grace of Him who " afore- time made known the glad tidings " to Abraham, that this son of the far-distant Gentile is thus blessed, according to the very "evangel:" "In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." " So then" as St. Paul reasons, 1 " they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham ;" " if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." The plain of Kharran was a very early and a very late outpost of Chaldsean power. Through it Kedor-la'omer and his tributaries must have marched to their distant conquests while yet Abram and his father were dwelling there, and Abram's eyes probably looked upon the long array of Elam, Larsa, Shinar, and Goim with which thirteen 57 58 Trans. Sue. Kit: KHARRAN. years later he was so suddenly to be engaged in conflict. The plain of Kharran was irrigated in the true Chaldaean style, by water-courses from the Belik river, which flows at several miles' distance from the hills southward to the Euphrates ; and to the west lies the plain of Seruj, fertile and thick with villages of the same kind of ancient houses as we may well suppose to have been seen in these regions in Abram's time. The indications of Chaldaean worship at Kharran reach back as far as the days of which we are writing, as Mr. Sayce has shown from cuneiform inscriptions: 1 " Sulpa- uddu (the messenger of the rising sun, the blue star Mercury) is called, ' the prince of the men of Kharran,' a very remarkable reference to a city which was closely con- nected with Accad in race and history from very early times, and whose laws are conjoined by Sargon with those of Assur, the ancient prae-Semitic capital of Assyria. The astronomical lore of the Kharranians is thus taken back to a remote period." Kharran was, in fact, from first to last, bound up with the worship of the sidereal pantheon. Its gods are mentioned in the Rabshakeh's message to Hezekiah/ among " the gods of the nations," with those of " Gozan and Rezeph and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar." In the British Museum is a seal representing a priest in adoration before an altar with a star above it. In the distance is a diminutive figure. Behind the priest is inscribed in cuneiform " the god of Kharran." Probably the star is the planet Mercury, which, as we have seen, was lord of the men of Kharran, representing the god Nusku or Nebo. It is a curious thing, by the way, that the Talmud gives to the father of Terakh's wife the name of Carnebo. " Here was situated," writes Mr. Boscawen, in a note he HISTORY OF KHARRAN, AND ITS GODS. 59 has kindly sent me, " a famous temple to the moon-god Sin" (the god of Ur), "apparently of very ancient date." " In an inscription K. 2701 of the British Museum, we have a mention of the temple in connection with an omen in the reign of Esar-haddon : — "When the father of the king my lord (Assur-bani-pal) to the land of Egypt went, into the plantations of the land of Kharran, the dwelling of the god of cedar-trees he went. The moon over the cornfields was fixed, having two crowns on his head (double halo) . . . While Nusku (the planet Mercury) stood at its side. The father of the king my lord went down . . . The crown on his head (Assur-bani-pal's) he placed. To rule the countries he appointed him. Then the road to Egypt he took." The omen was indeed a very intelligible one. The moon was seen from the " high place," the ziggurat or tower of stages of his own temple, with two crowns, and the attendant planet at his side. The portent suited the aged king's position and desire. Immediately the second crown is given to his son, who is to him as Nebo to the moon-god Sin. So tenacious was this idolatry at Kharran, that in the early Christian centuries it remained the metropolis of heathenism, while the neighbouring Edessa was the centre of the true faith. " In the fifth century," says Sir Henry Rawlinson,' " the Sabasans of Harran worshipped the sun ' Her - Voi - *•> p as ' Belshamin> the lord of heaven,' and at a later period they used the Greek name of r/ H?uo? ; and again Gula under the name of ' Gad/at,' and Tar'ata (Atargatis or Derceto), are given by St. James of Seruj as the tutelary goddesses of Harran in the fifth century of Christ:" and still later are records of the same idolatry, and we even find that in this city the Sabians had a chapel which was dedicated to J c 2 Kitto. Bib. Cyc, Abraham.' " Hmn -" 60 KHARRAN. Thus then the " father's house " was still within an outpost of the old Chaldaean rule, a very imperfect approach to the land which Jehovah would show them ; still in the highway of the caravans and line of march of the armies, still surrounded by the worship which they had renounced. But Terakh was well stricken in years, and here he was minded to abide and end his days, without crossing the great river into the land of the stranger and the unknown regions of Martu, toward the sea of the setting sun. And hither came Nakhor and Milcah and their house, and they prospered and became great in the fertile and beautiful land, where the tender mercy of God allowed Abram to bury his father at the age of 205 years, perhaps in one of the rock-hewn tombs of Urfah. 6i III. The Land of Canaan. was T does not appear that the tent-life of the nomad Abram's portion until his departure from Kharran. Porter's editi Up to that great decisive point we may seek our example of the mode of life in the book of Job, where we find the honoured patriarch dwelling in his house and sitting worshipfully among his fellow-citizens of dignity in the gate, while his flocks and herds were sent afield under the charge of his servants and the members of his house, duly accompanied by the faithful dogs. We will now try to picture to ourselves the fashion of the new life of the tent. And here we will avail ourselves of the accurate judgment of the late Dr. Kitto :'— " There ^/j-j*-* are probably few readers who conceive further of Abra- ham's establishment than that it consisted of one, or at most two or three tents, with some half a dozen servants, and flocks of sheep or other cattle feeding around. Now this is altogether wrong. His encampment must have formed, so to speak, quite a village of tents, with inhabitants equal to the population of a large village or a small town. " Great numbers of women and children were to be seen there, and some old men, but not many men in their prime, these being for the most part away, from a few to many miles off, with the flocks, of which there was probably less display immediately around the tents than the lowest 62 THE LAND OF CANAAN. of the common estimates of Abraham's station would assume. "We are told that Abraham was very rich, and it is stated of what his riches consisted, but we are not told of the amount of these riches which he possessed. However by putting circumstances together we may arrive at some notion not far from the truth. We have the strong fact to begin with, that Abraham was treated by native princes and chieftains of the land as a mighty prince, and equal, if not superior, to themselves. Then we learn that his house- born slaves, able to bear arms and to make a rapid march followed by a daring enterprise, were not less than three hundred and eighteen. A body of such men can be fur- nished only by a population four times its own number, including women and children. We cannot therefore reckon the patriarch's camp as containing less than 1272 souls; and this number of people could not well have been accommodated in so few as one hundred tents." This is further illustrated with regard to the flocks, by the statements as to Job, and the present wealth of the Bedouin tribes ; and there is no doubt that this estimate is a very moderate one. The tents were probably, as they now are, of wool or goats' hair dyed black; or in broad stripes of black and white, and made of cloth woven by the women from the produce of the flocks, mostly of an oblong shape, and eight or nine feet high in the middle. " The principal members of the family had each a separate tent, as Sarah, Leah, Rachel, and the maidservants." But the greater part of the daily life is out of doors, and the tents are but little used except for sleeping in, and as store places, and for similar purposes. " So Abram departed, as Jehovah had spoken unto him ; and Lot went with him : and Abram was seventy and ABRAM CROSSES THE EUPHRATES. 63 five years old when he departed out of Kharran. And Abram took Sara'i his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Kharran ; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan." So he went forth childless, but with a faithful wife, and a great retinue, and much wealth, and above all " rich in faith." The route by which he and his train were led into the promised land cannot perhaps be clearly ascertained. Dean Stanley indicates the usual present route of travellers and caravans, crossing the Euphrates at Bir, where there is a much frequented ferry. But Mr. Malan contests this, and argues for a line from Kharran to Thapsacus, the Biblical Tiphsakh, some forty-five miles below Balis, where the Euphrates changes its course from south to south east by east, 1 and where there is a very celebrated ford west- ward of the junction of the Belik with the Euphrates. If this were his track he would have descended the fertile country down the course of the Belik, have crossed the desert to the oasis of Tadmor, and thence probably to Damascus. And this course I observe Mr. Allen indicates as without doubt that of Abraham.' But if Abram had flocks of sheep, it does not seem likely that he would have crossed the desert ; and the easier travelling, and the traditions, make it, I think, more probable that this was not his route, nor the way by the ferry of Bir. The recent discovery by Mr. Consul Skene, and the lamented George Smith, of the true Carchemish at the modern Jerabolus, about seventeen miles south of Bir, and on a much more fertile track of travel, and straighter line towards Canaan, makes it to my mind far most likely that this was Abram's way across the Euphrates. The most ancient form of the name appears to be " Gargamis." 1 Speak* Comm. i K\, i Rambles Deserts, p. i 64 THE LAND OF CANAAN. It is earnestly to be desired that this ruined metropolis of the Hittites should be thoroughly explored without delay. Here then Abram had fairly " crossed the Rubicon," and found himself " Among new men, strange faces, other minds." It is doubtful whether the ruined city now called Mum- butsh, a little distance southward, occupies the site of any town so ancient as the days of Abram. But Aleppo is a very ancient city, and retains a quaint tradition of the patriarch, who is said by the inhabitants to have stopped there on his way to Palestine, to milk a famous white cow * which he had. 1 This is, however, as it seems, to be under- stood as a figurative story of his having taken contribution from Aleppo. Mr. Malan quotes from Ibn Batutah the statement, that " Haleb, Aleppo, takes its name from Abra- ham's new milk (Haleb in Ar. ; Heb. 3^n), the milk of his 2 Phii. or Truth.?, flocks, which he gave to the poor." 2 This is an Arabian notion of etymology, but it connects Abraham with Aleppo, a very ancient city, which lay on his probable route from Carchemish to Damascus. " The castle of Aleppo is a tumulus on a large scale, raised by enormous labour, like the pyramids," we are told 3 p. 35- by the author of the interesting Rambles in Syrian Deserts? Here George Smith found an inscription in the ancient ♦ Assyr. Disc. pp. hieroglyphic commonly named from Hamath; 4 and here, alas ! his worn-out body found its resting-place, side by side with Burckhardt. Hamath (Hamah) is the next important place on the way to Damascus, " in the deep glen of the Orontes, whose broad rapid stream divides it through the centre. Hamath takes rank among the oldest cities in the world, having been founded by the youngest son of Canaan some 4000 Soc. Bib. V., p. 22. 3 Trajis. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. IV., p. 336. 4 Cities of Basha P- 307- KADESH ON THE ORONTES. 65 years ago." " Here have been found most of those im- portant incised stones of which I have just spoken, in a character which is now the subject of close study by Mr. Sayce * and others ; and which is supposed to be the writing of the great Hittite nation. One of these inscriptions has been found by the Rev. E. J. Davis so far west as Ibreez in the Taurus. 3 The Orontes runs through a deep and beautiful ravine, where " you see the yellow river shooting along far below between rows of willows that stoop to kiss its murmuring waters." 4 At length the caravan would reach Horns, the ancient Emesa, where there are still huge mounds of ruin after the manner of the Assyrian heaps. This place is very near the site of the celebrated capital of the Kheta (Hittites), Kadesh, where afterwards the chivalry of Egypt dashed itself against the formidable Syrian alliance. The lake westward of Horns, formed by a great dyke across the Orontes, is still called Bahr-el-Kades, and on an island of this lake, doubly moated and strongly fortified, stands the stronghold in the Egyptian picture of the campaign of Rameses II. 5 We may hope soon to know more of the Hittites, and perhaps to ascertain whether they were already in possession of these northern regions, which Mr. Sayce regards as their cradle, or whether, as Prof. Lieblein believes, they were afterwards driven by the Egyptians hither from the south, where at least some of them were dwelling when Abram was at Hebron. Following still the great route, he would pass on with the grand range of Anti-Lebanon rising to his westward side, until he descended into the lovely plain of Damascus. Nicolaus of Damascus, who was secretary to Herod the Great, says : " Abram ruled at Damascus, a foreigner who had come with an army out of the land beyond Babylon S Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt* Vol- I.i P- 400. 66 THE LAND OF CANAAN. (virep Ba/3v\. writes Dean Stanley, 1 "by those who have visited those parts, that one remarkable effect produced is the changed aspect of the hills of Judah and Ephraim. Their mo- notonous character is lost, and the range when seen as a whole is in the highest degree diversified and impressive. And the wide openings of the western hills as they ascend from the Jordan valley give such extensive glimpses into the heart of the country that not merely the general range, but particular localities can be discerned with ease. From the castle of Rubad, north of the Jabbok, are distinctly visible Lebanon, the sea of Galilee, Esdraelon in its full extent, Carmel, the Mediterranean, and the whole range of Judah and Ephraim. ' It is the finest view ' (continues Dean Stanley), to use the words of the traveller from whom most of the information contained in this chapter is derived, ' that I ever saw in this part of the world.' " The same view is thus described by the Rev. A. E. Northey : 3 — "We could clearly discern the north end of the Dead Sea as well as part of the Sea of Galilee, with the whole extent of the Jordan valley, the river gleaming here and there at its windings. In front of us, a little south of west, were Ebal and Gerizim, and directly opposite to us we could distinguish Mount Tabor, with the ridge of Carmel stretch- ing into the far distance, and the wide plan of Esdraelon, narrowing into the Wady Farrah which debouches on the Ghor. Farther north we could see Jebel Safed behind the Sea of Galilee, and far away in the blue haze we were gladdened at last by the sight of the snow-sprinkled peaks of Hermon. It was a glorious panorama, embracing many points of interest, and withal most lovely in itself. Im- mediately in front were fine forests of oak covering the rounded hills that trend down westwards towards the Ghor. Behind us lay the undulating heights of Gilead, P. E. F., Ap. 187:?. DESCENT OF THE YABBOK. 7 1 the valleys of Kefrenjy and Zerka making wide land- marks." The greater part of the route to which we have referred is noted by the late Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, in the quarterly statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund for October 1872. It is much frequented by large caravans of camels bearing corn and barley to Damascus, and on their return sometimes apples or apricots, or rude agricultural imple- ments. It seems to be well watered, and from Sunamayn to Mezayrib lies "over a monotonous plateau." This village is built in the centre of a " lakelet, on a small tell of basaltic boulders." The country changes its character with rocky wadys, and hills excavated into caves, and passes one of the ancient Arbelas, where there remains "the large circular basaltic mound which formed the old fortress. It is about 300 yards in diameter, with a depression in the centre containing several ruins built by old materials. On the outside a wall of large unhewn stones is in places visible." Subsequently the route lay through a woodland country, such as we have described, and the view, so wide and lovely, seen from the height of Rubad, was in the main the very prospect which must have presented itself to the eyes of Abram, Sarai, and Lot as they descended from these summits on their way. The last descent would bring the long train down into the "fine wide valley" 1 of the Yabbok (now the Zerka); "a rapid stream only to be waded at certain spots," fringed with oleanders and other shrubs, and with " beautiful level meadows " on its banks ; and at length on the deep green valley of the Jordan, where they must have passed the waters of the rushing river probably at the ford of Damieh, "just below the junction of the Zerkah and Jordan." 2 Once across the stream, Abram stood at length on " the land that Jehovah would shew him." [ P. E. F., Ap. 1872. 2 Capt. Warren, R.E., Our -work in Pales- 72 IV. The Place of SicJiem. pFTER the halt and muster, and the calling on the name of Jehovah, began the exploration of the land of promise. " Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the oak (not p/ain) of Moreh." * Although the Septuagint version has, " Abram travelled through the land in its length unto the place of Sychem," and even the English expression might suggest a more extended journey than from the Jordan across to Sichem, there is no such difficulty in the Hebrew, which is quite indefinite in its purport, and does not suggest any particular direction or extent. We are therefore at liberty to follow the usual opinion that Abram travelled from Kharran by the same course, as to the latter part of his journey and his entrance of the promised land, which was afterwards fol- lowed by Jacob. His way would now be up the long valley called Wady Far' ah, the lower part " a broad plain on the south of which rises the block of the Kurn Surtabeh," but straitened in its upper course " through two narrow rocky gorges." This picturesque and fertile valley, well watered with springs, would lead the patriarchal train to the lovely "place of Sichem ; " and most interesting it is to think that it was here that the law was proclaimed by Joshua, and the tribes stood on Gerizim and on Ebal to affirm the blessings and the curses. POSITION AND SCENERY OF SHECHEM. 73 It was hard by in the upper course of the valley, as it would seem, that the forerunner John the Baptist received the penitent crowds in "ALnon near to Salim," where still the name of Ainun, a few miles from Salim, the " much water " of the " copious springs," and the " open valley on one of the main lines through the country from Jerusalem to Nazareth," afford their testimony to the spot; 1 and it «***.!**«■ was here at Sychar that He whose day Abraham rejoiced to see first revealed himself as the Messiah. This place is therefore hallowed in association with " the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after," the " baptism of John," and " the Seed, which is the Christ." These green places must have been the grazing-ground of Abram's flocks and herds while he abode in peace under the spreading canopy of the " oak of Moreh," where after- wards Jacob hid the "gods of the strangers;" 2 "its ^a,™.*. situation," writes Major Wilson, "with easy access to the Mediterranean on the one hand, and to the Jordan valley and Transjordanic district, marking it as a place of im- portance from the earliest period." 3 "The situation of Shechem is soon described." I am here quoting from Dean Stanley. 4 " From the hills through which the main route of Palestine must always have run . . . the traveller descends into a wide plain, the wildest and the most beautiful of the plains of the Ephraimite moun- tains, one mass of corn unbroken by boundary or hedge, from the midst of which start up olive-trees, themselves unenclosed as the fields in which they stand. Over the hills which close the northern end of this plain, far away in the distance, is caught the first glimpse of the snowy 'hill of Hermon.' Its western side is bounded by the abutment of two mountain ranges running from west to east. 5 These «** 3 P. E. F., Ap. 1873, 4 Silu tine, p. 5 See a contour-map Recovery of Jeru- 74 THE PLACE OF SICHEM. ranges are Gerizim and Ebal, and up the opening between them, not seen from the plain, lies the modern town of Nablous" (the older Shechem probably lay further east- ward down the valley). "A valley green with grass, gray with olives, gardens sloping down on each side, fresh springs rushing down in all directions ; at the end a white town embosomed in all this verdure, lodged between the two high mountains which extend on each side of the valley, that on the south Gerizim, that on the north Ebal, this is the aspect of Nablous, the most beautiful, perhaps it might be said, the only beautiful spot in central Pales- tine. The general situation of the place must have been determined then, as now, by the mighty burst of waters from the flank of Gerizim. Thirty-two springs can be traced in different parts. Here the bilbul delights to sit and sing, and thousands of other birds delight to swell the chorus. The inhabitants maintain that theirs is the most i Thomson, Land musical vale in Palestine." ' and the Book, p. 470. Major Wilson, R.E., gives the actual width of the val- ley as only about 500 yards between the bases of the mountains ; the height of Ebal above the sea as 3029 feet, or 1200 feet above the valley ; Gerizim 2898 feet above the sea. It is at the watershed point that the mountains are recessed on either side into a grand natural amphitheatre, = /•. e. /-., a p . 1873. the scene in all probability of the ratification of the law. 3 It seems clear that " the place of Sichem " means the city: the word being used as equivalent to city in other 3 smith, met. 0/ passages, 3 and the place was in the possession of " the Bible, "Shechem;" and see Gesen. Lex., Canaanite," as we are expressly told. p. 503. Bagster, 1847. "At the foot of the northern slope of Gerizim," says Major Wilson, " is one of the prettiest cemeteries in the country : consisting of a court-yard, with a well, and several masonry tombs, one of which was said to be that of Land of Israet, VIEW FROM GERIZIM. 75 Sheykh Yusuf (Joseph). The place is called El 'Amud (the column), and the Rev. George Williams has with much probability identified it with 'the pillar that was in Shechem,' where Abimelech was made king ; and with the ' oak of Moreh,' near which Abraham built his first altar to the Lord after entering the promised land, and Joshua set up a great stone." From the rocky platform on the summit of Gerizim, more than a thousand feet above his encampment, Abram could command " a prospect unique in the Holy Land. That from the summit of Nebo surpasses it in extent, that from mount Gilead perhaps in grandeur of effect, but for distinctness and variety of detail Gerizim has no superior." "We thought," writes Canon Tristram, 1 whom we are quoting, "we had bid adieu to Hermon, but once more it rose before us in spotless purity far beyond and above Tabor, Gilboa, and the lesser hills of Galilee. On our right we could trace the Transjordanic range from the sea of Galilee, Bashan, Ajlun, Gilead, down to Moab. On the left the Mediterranean formed the horizon from Carmel perhaps to Gaza ; while Joppa and Caesarea could be distinctly recognized. " The southern view was more limited, being shut in by the hills of Benjamin. At our feet was spread the long plain of Mokhna, into which the vale of Shechem de- bouches, where Jacob pastured his flocks, and where there was ample space for the tents of Israel when gathered thither by Joshua. All central Palestine could be taken in at a glance." Hither, then, into the midst of the land of Canaan, Jehovah had led that faithful servant whom He con- descended to call His friend, and here began fresh trials y6 THE PLACE OF SICHEM. of Abram's faith. Here, indeed, was the land, but the Canaanite was already in it. Sturdy Amorites held the fastnesses, roving Perizzites were scattered afield, Zidonians and Arvadites colonized the coast, the powerful sons of Kheth, rivals of the Egyptians, were strengthening their hold. Beyond the rushing Jordan lay robust Rephaim, terrible Emim, un- couth Zamzummim, barbaric Khorites in their dens and caves of the earth ; and Abram still was childless among men. iGen.xii.2. Yet the Lord had said: 1 "I will make of thee a great nation, .... and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed"; and now again in this first resting-place at 2 Gen. xn. 7 . goodly Sichem 2 Jehovah appeared unto Abram, and said, " Unto thy seed will I give this land : and there builded he an altar unto Jehovah, who appeared unto him." 77 The Canaanite. ALESTINE is called by no other name in the book of Genesis than " The Land of Canaan." We are told " the Canaanite was in the land ; " and again, " the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled (were settled) then in the land," by which it seems we must understand that they were not the original inhabitants, but had already colonized the land before the time of Abram's arrival. They came from the shores of the Persian Gulf, bringing with them the names Arvad and Tyre (Zur) from their old settlements on islands near the western coast. 1 Whatever the derivation, the name was known in Pales- tine, both to the Egyptians and Assyrians, as Kanana. Cloth of Kanana is mentioned, 2 with cloth of Martu (Syria), in an Assyrian tablet ; and Kanana occurs as the personal ^ y^ name of an Egyptian on a heart-shaped amulet in the *>., Kan. a - na . British Museum, 3 but is better known as a local name in 3 Birch, cat. e s . Rooms, p. 78. the representations of the conquests of Seti I. at Karnak, 4 4 M ariette-Be y , m- where a fortified place bears the name of Kanana. In the genealogy of the sons of Noah, in the tenth chapter of Genesis, we are told that " Canaan begat Zidon his first-born, and Kheth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Gergasite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Ha- mathite." 1 Rawlinson, Her., Vol. I., p. 121; Lenor- mant, Man., Vol. II., Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch.,Vo\. III., p. 524. p. 173- 78 THE CANAANITE. Of these the sons of Kheth (Hittites) and the Amorite are especially important, both in the life of Abraham and in the history of Egypt. It would seem that several old-world races of earlier date were vanishing away on the east of Jordan, such as Rephai'm, Zuzim, Zamzummim, Emim, of whom we shall have more to write. The many circles and dolmens of rough stone which have been found by travellers and surveying officers may be memorials of these early races. The earliest of all records of Palestine hitherto known are found among the historic documents of Egypt, and deserve still more minute attention than they have yet received, since they carry us back to times much more remote than those of Abraham. The first of these is the inscription of Una, an officer of high rank under the Pharaohs Teta and Pepi Merira pr^lnTl xa'T of the sixth dynasty. 1 This important tablet, found at Abydos, and now in the Museum at Bulak, reports among other services the repeated reduction of tribes of the Amu and Herusha. Am-u is the usual Egyptian word for the Shemitic races of Asia (from ny, people), and Heru-sha signifies the dwellers on the sand, and appears to designate those tribes (the Amalekites for instance) who led mainly a nomad life, as the Bedouin hordes do now. Five times in the reign of Pepi did these lords of the desert require chastisement. On the last occasion it is said that the barbarians of the land of Khetam ( ^ ^^\ o^y: ) had revolted. This, according to Brugsch-Bey, 2 would be the desert to the east of the delta, which agrees well with the passage cited by Chabas from an inscription of Rameses III., in which the Herusha-u inhabit the red land (to-tes/ier), which is the designation of the same tract. Brugsch, Hist, a Eg., p. 71 ; Chabas, Etudes, etc., p. 114, Second Edition, Records of the Past, Vol. II., p. 3. map. THE LAND OF TA-KHISA. 79 But in Una's time this people possessed a very rich region to the north, with corn-crops, figs, and vineyards, and bordering on the sea. This is called by a name read doubtfully as Takhisa, or Takheba (by Dr. Birch), Terehba by Brugsch. Takhisa appears to be the most likely read- ing, and the region thus named may be identified, by data to be mentioned presently, in accordance with the view of M. Chabas, as the fertile southern country to the south and west of Hebron. Here, then, we find long before Abraham's time the inhabit- ants and the products of southern Palestine and the desert brought before us in a lively and graphic manner, and the power of Egypt already lording it over these tribes, occupy- ing outlying fortresses and laying these lands under tribute. Another most interesting point is that the history of the great Asiatic colony of Zoan (Tanis, and now San), which, as Scripture tells us, was built seven years after Hebron, is carried back to the same era by a monument found among its ruins, bearing the name of Pepi Merira, on which occurs the name of the god Set or Sutekh, identical with the ill-omened Baal, the especial object of worship among the sons of Kheth, 1 to whom, however, there was a temple in Memphis even in the times of the fifth dynasty. 2 2 Meyer^-r^o P- 47- There is also in existence, as Dr. Haigh informs me, an Egyptian cylindrical seal of the Babylonian type of the date of Pepi of the sixth dynasty just mentioned. These came into fashion in Egypt at the later time of the great twelfth dynasty. 3 The early reigns of this dynasty are 3 Bird,, cat. b marked by the next important mention of Palestine, in the story of Sineh (or Saneha, or Saneham as read by Dr. Haigh). A translation of this romantic story, from the papyrus at Berlin, is given by Mr. C. W. Goodwin in Records of the Past, Vol. VI. Aich.,\'o\. i Adema Chabas. 80 THE CANAANITE. We are still before the date of Abraham, as I believe, and now we find significant changes. A strong fortified wall had just before been constructed by Amenemha I., the founder of the twelfth dynasty, to secure his eastern frontier against aggressive Asiatic neighbours. The hero of the narrative was himself one of the Amu, " a son of Mehi (the north), a Petti born in the land of Egypt," but a highly trusted officer of the Pharaoh's court, like Joseph in after times. Led apparently by home-sickness to seek his fatherland, he ran away, and after exciting adventures he was brought on his way to Aduma. Atima, 1 that is Edom, or possibly Admah in the Jordan valley, which had a separate ruler in Abram's time, and was invited by Ammu-Anshi king of Upper Tennu, who had fugitive Egyptians at his court, to enter his service. This he did, preserving still a strong feeling of allegiance to Egypt ; and received to wife a daughter of the king. Now we gain traces of the land of the Herusha some centuries later than Una's campaigns, for the country of the Upper Tennu seems nearly identical with the scene of that old warfare. We must here remark that M. Harkavy reads the word Temcnuu, and assimilates it to the Teman of Scripture; but this will not affect the locality, only the name. I had fancied that it might be connected with the Zin of the Bible, if Tennu be the right reading. However this may be, the Upper Tennu in all probability, says M. Chabas, "corresponded with the maritime part of Palestine, and Aea" (Aam, as read by Goodwin, the fertile and choice region committed to Saneha's rule), " should be found in the triangle marked by the towns of Hebron, Askelon, Hft«fer,etc., P .io2. and Joppa." 2 The inhabitants were settled and civilized, and accordingly were at war with the Petti or roving SOUTHERN CANAAN BEFORE ABRAHAM. Si barbarians. 1 They are called by the generic name of Sakti or Sati, of whom Amenemha I. boasted that he could ; " make them come to him like a whelp." a The name of the king Ammu-Anshi in part resembles that of a king of Kedar in the time of Assurbanipal, Ammu-ladi. 3 We do not here encounter the Herusha by name, although they are mentioned in an inscription of the eleventh dynasty, 4 and recur in a triumphal tablet of Thothmes III. at Bulak, and afterward ; but the Nemma- sha are mentioned here in much the same connection as the celebrated thirty-seven Amu at Beni-hassan, who brought " mestem {stibium, or black paint for the eyes) from the barbarous Petti-shu ; " for these Nemma-sha brought rich garments, unguents, and cosmetics " from the country of clothes " to the court of Egypt. This may remind us of the "cloth of Martu, and cloth of Kanana" before mentioned, and this country of clothes may well have been Palestine. Indeed the package borne on the ass in the procession of the Amu appears to consist of ornamental stuffs intended for clothing. "The Nemma-sha always have appeared to me," writes Dr. Birch in a letter to the author, "to be possibly the nomadcs of Herodotus." In this case they would be the ancestors of the Numidians, their descendants having drifted farther west like other^ in- habitants of Canaan ; " No/xdSe-75- 88 THE CANAANITE. In the reign of Amenhotep I., (the successor of Ahmes who drove out the shepherds) the only war in the north was directed against some tribe called Amu-Kehak, but his successor Thothmes I., came into conflict with the Rutennu. This name requires some explanation, as it affects the whole question of the races of Canaan. IeT ^ ^ Ruten, or Rutennu. " The ethnic name of Rutennu, given in the hieroglyphic portion of the text of Tanis (before cited) as a translation of the name of Syria- Ashur, is adopted in preference to designate in quite a general way the great nation which, to the east of Egypt, inhabited the regions of Palestine as far as the plains of HM. aE S ., p. is?. Mesopotamia." Thus writes Brugsch-Bey, 1 adding that the lists of Thothmes III., at Karnak, discovered by Mariette- Bey, prove incontestably that the name Ruten (or Luten) was applied not only to the peoples who inhabited the country north of Palestine, but also to all the races who occupied Palestine proper as far as Arabia Petraea. But the Southern Ruten were specially designated " the people of Upper Ruten," whilst the same nation towards the side of the Mesopotamia!! plains were called " the people of Loiver Ruten." 2 Les lute* Geog. des Now these invaluable lists of Karnak' give a vast Pylones de Karnak, " A i U L^ a T r i e ," e ' number of names, many of which are certainly identified ; and the land of the Upper Ruten extends as far south as Gerar, Kiriath Sannah, and Rehoboth, and includes the mountain region of the Amorites, and the country occupied by the sons of Kheth about Hebron in the time of Abra- ham. It is clear, therefore, that these peoples were included among the Ruten before they were distinguished by name (as far as we yet know) in the Egyptian annals. The Upper or Southern Ruten are mentioned in the title above the group of prisoners at Karnak as " Chiefs of Bey. Leipzig. 1875. orris o/ the Past, ... p. 45, Second GRANDEUR OF THE HITTITES. 89 Ruten, of all the unknown races, of all the lands of the Fenekh-u," ' that is, the Phoenicians. This would suggest that the word had some collective meaning distinct from an ethnic purport. In the records of Thothmes III., we find the "Chief of the great Kheta " distinguished by his tribute of gold, slaves, and cattle. 3 Thus in a few centuries after Abram had bought the Makpelah from the sons of Kheth, they were a great and powerful people. This was the time when the descendants of Jacob were settled and increasing in lower Egypt, and before the Exodus the Kheta had become the terrible rivals of Egypt, and had mingled their genealogy with that of the renowned Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, and their gods had reared their heads above the ancient divi- nities of the land of Ham. The history of the Kheta in connexion with their personal and local names has been elaborately studied by the learned Dr. Haigh, 3 and Mr. Sayce has more recently treated the indications of philological affinity, 4 concluding from the names given in Egyptian and Assyrian records that their language could not have been Semitic. The Hittite names in the Bible, as it has been remarked, may generally be explained from Semitic sources, but it is possible that they may have been either conformed to Hebrew names, or translated from the Hittite tongue. The element Sar in Kheta-Sar etc., is an Akkadian word in the first instance, and also used in Egypt. It is remarked by Dr. Haigh in connection with the kindred of Kheth and Mizraim, that one of the chiefs who fell in the celebrated battle at Kadesh on the Orontes, bore the name of Matsrima ; the name is given by M. Maspero as Mizraim. 5 It is now thought very likely that the so called Hamathite 3 Zeitschrift fur ■rEgyptische Sprache. 1874. 4 Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. V. 90 THE CANAANITE. lapidary inscriptions are the records of the Kheta ; and if so, it is to be hoped that the language may ere long be recovered, and take its place by the side of the Akkadian and Elamite. The last achievement of the lamented George Smith, on the suggestion of Mr. Consul Skene, was the recovery of the real Carchemish of the Hittites in the ruins of Jerabolus on the western bank of the Euphrates, whose mounds await the exploration which is so earnestly to be desired. It is surely not unnatural that the Phoenicians should have adopted a Semitic language as fitted to their purposes of commerce. Their kinsmen the sons of Kheth, and the Amorites, may also have been able generally to converse and bargain in such a tongue, although remote from their own native language. Thus there may have been no difficulty to Abraham and his family in holding necessary intercourse with them. Some two or three centuries (probably) after Abraham, the Kheta gave tribute to Thothmes III. of golden manu- factures, the vessels proceeding from their country being most artistic in form and elaborate in design. In fact, it is clear that the ruling races of Syria and Palestine were in a high state of civilization and wealth by this time, although their glory has so faded from the face of the earth that in their own land scarcely the smallest relic has been found ; and it is on the temple-walls of their enemies that the memory of their prowess, refinement, and luxury is perpetuated. The extremely graceful vases and tazze of the Canaanites bear witness to the objects of their idolatry in the figures and heads of the heifer (often with the horns surmounted by a disk), which doubtless represents their Astarte (Ash- toreth, called in Egyptian Astaratd), and the ibex, and the CANAANITE RELIGIONS. 91 crested head of the hawk, bird of the sun-god to them as well as to the Egyptians. Their greatest god was Set or Sutekh, identical with Ba'al, whose cultus, supreme during the rule of the Hyksos in Lower Egypt, was revived by the lords of the nineteenth dynasty, as we shall explain in treating of a later episode in the life of the patriarch. The same god was localised as tutelary of this and that city : " Sutekh of the city of Ta- aranta, Sutekh of the city of Pa-iraka, Sutekh of the city of Khisa-sap," etc. An account of the Canaanite religions will be found in Lenormant's Manual of the Ancient History of the East: * VoL n "' p ' 2I9, The conclusion is equally applicable to the whole group, although written with regard to the religious system of the Phoenicians. " It will be understood how well it has been defined by the learned Movers, who has scientifically studied the subject ; 'an apotheosis of the forces and laws of nature, an adoration of the objects in which these forces were seen, and where they appeared most active.' Around this religious system gathered, in the external and public worship, a host of frightful debaucheries, orgies, and prosti- tutions, in honour of the deities, such as we have already described at Babylon, and which accompanied all the naturalistic religions of antiquity. The Canaanites were remarkable for the atrocious cruelty that stamped all the ceremonies of their worship, and the precepts of their religion. " No other people ever rivalled them in the mixture of bloodshed and debauchery with which they thought to honour the deity. "As the celebrated Creuzer has said: 'Terror was the inherent principle of this religion ; all its rites were blood- stained, and all its ceremonies were surrounded by gloomy 92 THE CANAANITE. images. When we consider the abstinences, the voluntary tortures, and, above all, the horrible sacrifices imposed as a duty on the living, we no longer wonder that they envied the repose of the dead. This religion silenced all the best feelings of human nature, degraded men's minds by a superstition alternately cruel and profligate, and we may seek in vain for any influence for good it could have exercised on the nation.' " The personal appearance of the Kheta, their clothing, arms, and equipment in the field, military formation, and style of war, may be gathered from the broad battle-pieces which celebrate the achievements of Seti I., and Rameses II. They brought into action chariots of a light and graceful construction in considerable numbers, and had mounted warriors as disciplined cavalry, and to carry orders on the field. The horses and chariots of the Egyptian armies were evidently introduced from Syria, and were unknown under the ancient empire. The dress of the Kheta was a short kilt, and over this a long and rather close tunic ; and, in full dress, a mantle or kind of cape covering the shoulders, and worn by many races of Syria. They had oblong shields, or else of convex outline at the top and bottom and inwardly curved at the sides. Their arms were the spear, bows and arrows, and a short sword. For the most part they wore a close-fitting skull-cap, which perhaps was quilted in squares, or diamonds. From the beautiful panels in relief of the palace of Rameses III., before mentioned, we give two very interesting, although broken, representations of a Kheta chief, and, as it appears, a lady of the same nation ; the latter has a profile of very delicate outline, not unlike the features of some types of the Jewish race : she is represented as of fresh and fair complexion, and wearing a full robe. THE PRESENT CANAANITES. 93 The warrior has the close tunic, the skull-cap, and dirk, and his hair appears conventionally to represent rows of curls. The countenances are worthy of attentive study. The profiles of the Kheta are generally of a high type, and bear the expression of refinement and intelligence. It has long been thought by travellers that some of the tribes of Lebanon are descendants of the Canaanites of old time, and that their strange and heathenish observances, so tenaciously withheld in secresy, but known to include the worship of the sun and moon, are relics of the old- world idolatry ; but more recent inquiry has led to the conclusion, indicated by the late Mr. Consul Finn, that the mass of the settled peasantry of Palestine (fellahin) are in reality Canaanites by descent, and still retain their ancient religion, thinly veneered with Mussulman compliances. These points have been explained in a most interesting way by M. Clermont-Ganneau, and in Lieutenant Conder's article on the Mukams or high places of Palestine, in the Quarterly Statement of the Exploration Fund for April, 1877. 1 "The peasant dialect proves to be much nearer r ^ to Aramaic (which Jerome says was the native language in his time) than to modern literary Arabic." 3 That the Canaanite population still reaches, as of old, even into Lower Egypt, we shall have occasion to show hereafter. The very ethnic names still linger, we are told, in the old haunts of Hittite, Amorite, and Phoenician ; and legends of Abraham may still be heard from the lips of the children of Kheth, who show where he watered his flocks, and tell how his dogs wore collars of gold, a very credible tradition to those who recal the elaborate adornment of their favourite hounds by the lords of Egypt. The important treaty between Rameses II. and the prince Khetasar was engraven in the Hittite counterpart July 1876, 6, and July 1877, p. 138. 94 THE CANAANITE. on a plate of silver, " of which," says M. Chabas, " the Egyptian text gives us the form M : an oblong surmounted by a ring which served to suspend it. M. Renan has met in the Higher Lebanon with monuments where may still be distinguished the points of attachment of plates of metal on which they wrote the sacred records. No doubt the decrees intended to be brought into public notice were exposed in the same manner on movable tablets of wood or metal, instead of being engraven on monuments as in Egypt. This explains the extreme rarity of ancient i voyage tun E Sy p. inscriptions in Syria and Phoenicia." ' lien, p. 345. *■ Some authors hold the opinion expressed by M. Lieblein, that the Kheta had their earliest abode in Palestine, to the south, in the neighbourhood of Hebron, but were driven thence to the Orontes. It seems, however, much more credible that they were among the tribes who came down by the way of northern Syria, and that the kinsmen of Ephron were the advanced portion of the migration, an opinion which is confirmed by the mention of their con- a ^-.yce, Bab. lu., q Uest ty Sargina the first, 2 before narrated. This accords with the westward drift of races in the earliest times, of which perhaps the first great wave brought the dominant and historic race of the Egyptians to the Lower Nile, for from its origin Egypt was rather Asiatic than African. Stopped in their migration by the "great sea of the setting sun," the Zidonians, who had erewhile tried their wings over the waters of the Persian gulf, took flight in those adventurous voyages which made them the " hardy Norsemen " of the ancient world. They built their nests on the narrow ledge of the Phoenician plain, and took the wide waters for their dominion, and the spoils of commerce were their treasure. To them ministered the inland- TURANIAN TRACES IN PHCENICIA. 95 trading sons of Kheth, guarding their traffic by their chivalry. The sea gave its splendid Tynan dye, and the sand its crystal for the costly vessels of glass ; good ex- change for gold, silver, copper, and, most precious of all, the indispensable tin. The Turanian element in these colonies is marked by the names of Martu (Marathus, now Amrit) and Usu. These names are explained by Mr. Boscawen in the notes to his Assyrian Reading Book. Martu means the path of the setting sun, which (as I have before mentioned) was regarded as a god (Tu) by the Akkadians, as also by the Egyptians (Turn). The name Martu (and its Semitic equivalent Akharrie) was given to Phoenicia, and in an especial locality to the city Marathus. Usu, which also means the sunset, or west, 1 was a city ^~l:S" a ' divinities of the west, 3 and there is a strange Phoenician fable in Sanchoniathon of Usoiis, a giant who was the first to venture to sea on a tree from which he had torn the branches, reminding us in its rugged form of the beautiful Egyptian imagination of the sacred westward-steering bark of the sun-god, departing to the regions of the nether ocean ; which fable, however, was itself, I think, brought from the borders of the Persian gulf. For there is a hymn in the magical collection, says M. Lenormant, which turns entirely on the ship of Ea (the god of the abyss) adorned with " seven times seven lions of the desert," in which are voyaging Ea and Davkina, Silik-mulu-khi, Mun-abge, and Ningar the great pilot of heaven. 4 This hymn is written only in Akkadian, and appears to indicate the origin of the sacred arks, or ships, which were dedicated to the gods in Chaldeea as well as in Egypt, ofTyre. Cory.Hodge'i edition, Index. 3 La Magie, p. no. La Ma^ie, p. I4r. 96 THE CANAANITE. and of which, Mr. Boscawen says, long lists are given in W. A. I. II. But we must not be enticed into the lore of the Phoeni- cians, since the destinies of Abraham did not lead him across their borders, as far as we know. We have taken a hasty survey of the Canaan which Abram found, availing ourselves of the sources of infor- mation at our disposal apart from the Biblical narrative itself, and leaving unnoticed neither the brighter spots nor the deep shadows of the scene. We mark the westward streaming races, the continuity, the variety, the trodden highways down into Egypt, into Sinaitic Arabia, for ages an appanage of Egypt although contested by Amalekite hordes ; the busy cities with their daughter-villages and settled culture and traffic, as islands in the wide untilled pastures of the desert, whither the wandering clans of marauders come up from the sandy wastes. We see the patriarchal clan compact in a common destiny apart from all, and above every other characteristic blessed in a pure and holy faith, a veritable fellowship with the living- and true God. 97 Land of Israel, VI. The Canaanite and Egypt. ROM the shady tree of Moreh by Shechem, Abram journeyed southwards. It must have been in the spring that he " plucked up his tent-pegs " in the green valley, and " pastured on " his leisurely way " unto the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east." It took Canon Tristram ten hours ' to ride from Shechem to Bethel, but doubtless Abram must have gone more softly. Perhaps the patriarch chose this new post not without reference to its defensible character. It is widely different from the first camping-ground, being "almost the central spot of the 'hill-country of Benjamin,' which, itself a little territory bristling with hill-tops, each one a mountain- fastness or a 'high place' for worship, was the central heart of Palestine." * 2 Tristram, Sunday at Home, p. 215. 1872. " The hill " seems to have been well identified, and there are still ruins of a Christian Church, "as if the primitive Christians had been aware of the sacred associations of the spot where Abraham raised his altar ; " and from it the north end of the Dead Sea, and the barren tract which extends from the oasis of Jericho to it and the Jordan, are distinctly visible. That this plain, now covered with salt and brimstone, was once well watered and cultivated, we have abundant evidence in the traces of former irrigation 98 THE CANAANITE AND EGYPT. and aqueducts. Near this is a circle of large rough stones, are Tw Ltdon r ed ,rC by possibly of earlier date than Abram's altar. 1 S^SSE'i^ Hai, the royal town on the east, was the same as the 2 with the article,^. Ai 2 afterwards destroyed by Joshua, and made into a heap {tell) for ever, and the only name of the place now identified 3 a*.*, 1874, p. &; w i t h } t j s Et-Tell, the ruin-heap. 3 Long before Joshua's Our IFork m Pal., ' r ° J p - 203 - time it was recorded among the conquests of Thothmes III. 4 Mariette, Lutes. a t Karnak as KhaiT. 4 Lieut. Kitchener, R.E., has, indeed, met with the name of Khurbet Haiy, one mile east of Michmash (Mukhmas) which he considers to mark the site of Ai". This is some distance from Et-Tell, and is men- s p- e. f., 1878, P . 10. tioned in the notes published in January 1878.* Bethel became a memorable place. But on this first occasion of Abram's sojourn there he does not seem to have lingered long. He "journeyed, going on still toward the south," that is, toward the tract between the mountains and the sandy desert which was called the Negeb. " He moved southward, 6 leaving the hills over which his flocks and herds had fed, and where the pasturage must have been exhausted as the summer advanced. The hill country of Judaea, south of Jerusalem, and in the Hebron district, even now affords pasture for sheep and goats who browse upon the undergrowth of wood, and upon the aromatic plants that clothe these mountains. " Flocks are sent there towards the end of summer, when the heats of the dry season have parched up the grass and flowering plants. Abraham went on from Bethel (going on journeying still toward the south). The rolling plains and downs of the south country, or Negeb, so well described by Messrs. Drake and Palmer, from Beersheba onwards, are excellent winter quarters for tents and for cattle, as the Tiyahah Bedaween of our own day know by experience. Upon the mountains the climate is suitable for summer, for FAMINE IN CANAAN. 99 there the cool breezes temper the heat ; but in winter shelter is needed from the driving blast, the snow, and the rain-storms to which the hill-country is exposed. Abraham consulted the comfort and the safety of his people, and of his cattle, when he took them to the south ; for he had no landed property whereon to build houses or stabling for their protection. " His journey to Egypt must also have been made in the cool season, when the short desert can be comfortably crossed. He went because of the famine in Canaan. Now the pressure of famine is in this country most felt in winter. We had several instances," continues Mrs. Finn, from whose instructive pages I am quoting, "when scarcity of the grain-crops caused a good deal of distress, almost amount- ing to actual famine. Even though a harvest may be bad, there is sure to be some corn produced ; and the summer fruits, the melons, figs, grapes, and the different kinds of vegetables, yield a very large proportion of the provisions needed for summer consumption. But it is in winter that the stress comes. What little grain can be spared must be reserved for seed, and then there are no fruits to take the place of corn. Then is felt the want of bread for man, and of fodder, grain, and straw for beast. Then do those who are near the south country go down into Egypt. We have known this to happen ; and when, two years ago (viz., in 1870) the distress was very great, the Philistine country was almost depopulated, the inhabitants having gone into Egypt for food." This extract is valuable, bringing, as it does, the light of present experience to illustrate the descent of the patriarch into the great home of harvests and abundance of food. We know, indeed, that evident marks have been lately discovered of the ancient fertility of this now comparatively 100 THE CANAANITE AND EGYPT. barren region of " the south." But then the same explora- tions have shown that in the earliest times a large population demanded these resources for their sustenance. Probably many of those cairns, and rude stone circles, and inclosures of the primaeval shepherd-folk {JiazerotJi) may have been made by the Sati, the Herusha, the prae-Canaanite occupants of the land of Tennu in the days of Ammu-anshi the king, or in the still older times of Una the Egyptian general of the sixth dynasty, of which we have written. When Abraham was there, however, the land had been already over-run by the Amorites. South and west of Beersheba (the place afterwards so named), the patriarch must have passed through the terri- tory of Gerar (the name appears in the lists of Thoth- mes III., as "Kerara"), with whose ruler, Abimelech, he had afterwards so much to do, and where the Philistines had already established themselves. So Abram went down into Egypt, pressed by sore famine, although he well knew that his destined lot was not in Egypt ; and his purpose was simply to sojourn, not to dwell. In general, however, it was not likely that any tribe of the sons of men should stay in Palestine without seeking to go down into Egypt. Canaan was a highway to Egypt. The Delta was as an antechamber thronged by motley company. The strong chain of fortresses built by Amen- emha I., with its connecting wall, to keep out the marauding hordes on the east, had not been effectual. Whether it were before or after Abram's visit that the rule of the Hyksos Pharaohs was established in Lower Egypt, at all events we may be sure that the power represented by them had already strongly developed itself, and was dominant, perhaps, in fact, if not in form ; for the pressure HEBRON AND ZOAN. IOI came on Egypt, not as an organized military invasion but, as a gradual pacific immigration ; not a deluge, but a stealthily-rising tide. We will now examine some of the indications of early and increasing connection between Western Asia and Egypt in their relation to the history of Abraham. And first, a strong link is shown in the incidental state- ment, 1 " now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in ' Num ' xiiL 22 ' Egypt" The builders of Hebron doubtless pressed on, and founded their colony in Lower Egypt as an advanced post in their progress, probably a commercial settlement estab- lished and carried on with the goodwill of the strong Pharaohs of the old empire'; for among the vast ruins of San have been found an inscription of Pepi Merira of the sixth dynasty, and colossal statues of Amenemha I., and his contemporary Usertesen I., the earliest monarchs of the grand twelfth dynasty. In their time, as we have said, the great wall of defence was constructed, passing some forty miles to the east, of which remains are still existing, " a long rampart defending the entrance from the eastward." 5 p 2 ®8 USSCh ' Histoire ' Zoan appears to be a Semitic name, implying departure for a journey. But it is more interesting to find it known to the Egyptians by the identical name of Tyre 3 (Zor, in Egyptian Zar, or Zor: even under the twelfth, or perhaps as early as the sixth dynasty, the curious eulogy of learning is written by "a person of Zaru"). This reminds us of the Phoenician coast settlement of Mount Casius at no great distance to the east, a twin-mountain with the Casius on ^^^,Hist.A p- 230. the Syrian coast, 4 Hazi, or Hazion, 5 " land of the asylum," 5 Bmgsch, vbxocu, identical (I suppose) with the " Azion " of the Mohar's travels. 6 The date of old Tyre was given by the priests as about B.C. 2750. 7 3 Brugsch, Hist., pp. 134, 148; L'Exode, p. 21 ; Records of the Past, Vol. VIII., p. 147. P- 3i. 6 Records of the Past, Vol. II., p. 109, Second Edition. 7 Maspero./fiW.Wxc, p. 192. 102 THE CANAANITE AND EGYPT. The truth is that this eastern country swarms with Asiatic associations. The Biblical name, " Mazor," probably means the region of Zor just mentioned. The plain crossed by Saneha beyond the line of forts, is called by the name Paten, that is, Padau, familiar in Mesopotamia, and again to the west of the Euphrates in the Hittite country ; and the land of Khetam, where the Herusha had revolted, further to the east, may be connected with the name of the Kheta. To return to Hebron. It was built by the Anakim, who called it Kiriath-Arba', after the name of Arba' the father of Anak. The passage (Josh. xiv. 15) is very curious : "and the name of Khebron before (was) city (Kiriath) of Arba' the great, man among the Anakim;" the force of the title " the great {Adam) man" apparently being "the founder of the race of the Anakim." Now Arba' simply means " four," and was thus taken by the Rabbinical interpreters, who made the four consist of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Adam. But it seems clear that somehow Arba' was an individual founder. How could such a hero be called " Four ?" A possible solution has occurred to my mind as at least worthy of consideration. The Anakim are considered to be a tribe of the Hyksos, 1 and probably came from the regions of Chaldsea. Now it was the regular system in Babylonia to give numerical symbols to the gods. Thus the numeral of Sin the moon-god was thirty, the number of days (approximately) in the month. There were two Ishtars, each fifteen, moon- goddesses, making the number of the month between them ; and the like. The system had a special example in Syria, where Eshmun, eighth and greatest of the Kabirim, simply 1 Speaker's Comm., Vol. III., p. 74. SIGNIFICANCE OF ARBA'. IO3 means " eight.' Might not Arba' be the god " four," and either a deified hero, or a god regarded as a race-father in the olden fashion ? At first no god appeared answering to the number four, but Mr. Boscawen found the number given as that of the ancient god Sar-turda on a tablet in the Britsh Museum. Sar-turda means in Akkadian " strong king." He was worshipped at Erech by the now celebrated hero of the cycle of legends made so famous by the late Mr. G. Smith, Gisdhubar, or Dhubar (as his name is provisionally read), and had his sacred ark ; and in his honour Sin-gasit, a very early king of Erech, built a temple there. He was also worshipped at Amarda or Marad in Chaldaea. " His name appears to have been given in Assyrian as Sarru-ikdu," ' says M. Lenormant. I fancy that traces of the name Arba may be found, as for instance, in Arba-ki (Arba-land) in the north of Mesopotamia conquered by Assur-nazirpal, with its "strong cities," 2 as well as in " Kiriath-arba', which is Hebron." But the matter does not end here : for Arba' was claimed as the father of the Libyans, as Pleyte has shown, quoting Movers 3 3 ReU des f re - Israel - itcs, pp. 63, 212. This would agree well with the ancient belief that the Canaanites were, to a great extent, driven far westward into North Africa. Now these points indicate the track of the great migra- tions from Chaldaea to the borders of Egypt, and even beyond : and it would appear that the worshippers of Arba' brought the name of their deified founder into these distant settlements. Thus, perhaps, the mystery of Arba' may be made clear, quite consistently with all that we know of the Hyksos and the Anakim. It is also worthy of notice, that the name of the god 1 Lenormant, Les dicux de Bab., p. 16. 2 Records of the Past, Vol. III., p. 62. 104 THE CANAANITE AND EGYPT. i Trans. Soc. Arch., Vol. Ill Vol. II., p. 33, ! Edition. Nebo (whose worship was certainly planted on the border- Bib - country of the Jordan) was written in Akkadian An-ak, 1 .pp. ' God; and this may be the explanation of the Biblical name of the " Sons of Anak." The land of Anaka in the south of Palestine is mentioned past, in an inscription of Thothmes III. 2 Dr. Haigh considers ;cond the name Khebron (alliance) as probably referring to the league between the three Amorite chieftains Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, and Abram ; and thinks that these consti- tuted the " four." I have given some reasons for another conjecture as to "Arba' ;" but it seems possible that this memorable confederacy may have originated the other name, Hebron, or rather Khebron. We have seen indications that the mixture, and even fusion of races, so characteristic of the Chaldsean country had extended itself in the tideway of migration through Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, and even into the Delta. We shall not be surprised to find, if so be, even a Turanian element in Egypt when we treat of the " Shepherd-kings." Meanwhile, let us well mark the conditions of the life of Abram, when brought at last into the land of promise. However his appointed lot, as a " stranger and pilgrim," enabled him to keep his house and his faith clear of the evil tribes and corrupt religions around him, he was still, nay, more than ever, in the way of seeing and hearing, and even sharing too, the great movements of prime races that were shaping the world's destinies through the chain of nations, which from Elam was radiating its forces into Eastern and Northern Asia at one end, and at the other from Egypt into Southern and Western Africa. He was soon to be brought into close intercourse with the Pharaoh of Egypt, and into sudden battle with the king of Elam : not at all the mere simple shepherd swain whose converse REAL POSITION OF ABRAM. 105 was with the bleatings of his flocks, and whose sole studies the reveries of a mystic piety. Such thoughts have been suggested with good warrant by the Rev. G. S. Drew, in his very able and useful work on Scripture Lands in Con- nection with their History* Very justly does he remark : " It is surely a great error to confound the patriarchs with the Bedouins as they are now living in those parts The true parallel of the modern Bedouins was seen in the Amalekites of Abraham's days." The detailed inquiry into the conditions of the life led by Abraham, of which the results are given in these pages, will surely deepen this impression. 1 London, Henry S. King and Co., p. 18. Second Edition, 1871. io6 VII. Egypt. lfl|j|E will try to represent to ourselves the Egypt that llllUl met the eyes of Abram, Sara'i, and Lot. First, in giving entrance through the guarded portals of the great wall built by Amenemha I., the methodical Egyptian officers wrote down their names, and the number of their clan, and reported their arrival at head-quarters. This was the strict custom of that business-like people, literally the « See Lepsius' inventors of red tape. 1 Then they would pass on, well- Denkm., Vol. II., pp. r J r m - --■ pleased, into the region of Goshen, and find pasturage in flat reaches of rich land, which must surely have recalled to their memories the broad plains of the Euphrates, and the well-known scenes of childhood. Here were the glistening straight lines of the canals from sky to sky ; here the flaming sunsets reached down to the flat horizon ; the rosy dawn suddenly struck across vast spaces, and woke a thousand screaming water-fowl among the marshes. And now was opening before Abram the grandest, most perfect civilisation of the world, and a religion mysterious, elaborate, refined, and of captivating power. In the Delta he would, at all events, and with whatever latitude we view the chronological problem, be coming once more into a mixture of races and influences, of interests and views, which singularly corresponded with the condition of the other great centre of the world's doings EASTERN DEFENCES OF THE DELTA. 107 in the region where his younger days had been passed, on the shores of the Persian Gulf. If (as seems most likely) the sojourn in Egypt was during the earlier times of the Hyksos domination, then the interest and excitement of the time would be at a still greater height than before. What we have to see hereafter in our study of the warfare of Kedor-la'omer will agree very well with the threatening aspect of things to the east ; and we may well picture to ourselves the defences on the side of the desert as per- fectly fortified by a strong line of moated wall, with bastions at frequent intervals, and thoroughly guarded night and day by the well-disciplined Egyptian troops, the great military station of Avaris swarming with soldiers of various races and arms-: the sacred city of Zoan, some forty miles' journey to the west, where the worship of Set, or Baal, would be in full force and splendour of observance; about a hundred miles from this was the city of Turn (the sun-god), An (On, or in Greek, Heliopolis). About thirty miles farther south lay the ancient capital Memphis, across the river, with its groups of pyramids indenting the sky ; and still further up the Nile on the same Libyan, or westward side, the beautiful expanse of highly-cultivated land surrounding the great artificial lake with its water- works, enormous labyrinth, and sacred city, the seat of the ancient worship of Sebek the crocodile-god. We will give some account, then, of the Egypt of the great twelfth dynasty as the back-ground, and then endeavour to fill in the picture with the personages and court of the conquering shepherd-kings, The lore of Egypt has in all ages had a mysterious influence of attraction for inquisitive and reflective minds. 108 EGYPT. But not until the present century has any sound critical knowledge been reached ; and Egyptology has its crowning victories yet to win. Even now great elementary questions await their solution : and especially, notwithstanding all the learning and sagacity devoted to the study of the frag- mentary records hitherto discovered, the framework of chronology has yet to be constructed on some indubitable basis. Like most of the world's rulers, the Egyptians were a mingled race, drawing fresh contributions from very different and distant quarters; but these ethnic accretions did not result in the development of a higher form of * mrch. Rede Lecture, civilisation from a savage beginning : rather the reverse. 1 p. 12. 1876. Bagster. » » o In his recent history, Brugsch-Bey has expressed a very positive opinion that " the ancestors of the Egyptians do not belong to one of the races inhabiting Africa, properly so called. The formation of the skulls and the proportion of different parts of the bodies, studied from a great number of mummies, demonstrate that the ancient Egyptians must have belonged to the great Caucasian ra ce," — "but not of the Pelasgic or Semitic branches, but of a third, Cushite. However it may be, it is certain that the cradle of the Egyptian nation must be sought in central Asia." The annals of Egypt are broken by strange and dark chasms. Such a one succeeds the pristine glory of the old empire, which fades suddenly with the sixth dynasty, and from its mist emerges the dimly-discerned outline of the eleventh, passing on by a distinct connection into the "high and palmy" splendour of the great twelfth dynasty, a second Egypt ; as if the phcenix had arisen from its pyre. M. Lenormant has noted a very remarkable point of voL^pfasT "" difference. 2 " If you study the precious collection in which EGYPT UNDER THE TWELFTH DYNASTY. IO9 M. Mariette has brought together five hundred skulls of mummies, all belonging to ascertained periods, you prove to your surprise that the heads of Egyptians, earlier than the sixth dynasty— which we find, by the way, in the state of skeletons, in their sarcophagi, and which appear not to have been mummified,— belong to another ethnographic type than those of Egyptians later than the eleventh dynasty. The former are dolichocephalic (long-headed), the latter brachycephalic (short-headed)." M. Lenormant suggests that an influx of population from above the cataracts may have descended on Egypt, whose original inhabitants were purely Asiatic, and that the Theban princes of the eleventh dynasty, the Entefs and Mentuhoteps, had an Ethiopian origin. " The ancient traditions," writes Mariette-Bey,' " are p ] £T de rHL forgotten. The proper names used in families, the titles given to functionaries, the writing itself, and even the religion, all would seem new. Thinis, Elephantine, Memphis, are no longer the favourite capitals : it is Thebes which for the first time becomes the seat of sovereign power." But after the obscure reigns of the eleventh dynasty, in the Thebaid blossoms at once the glory of the second great Egypt, from the Mediterranean and the Sinaitic peninsula to the new fortresses of Kumneh and Semneh, higher than the second cataract. Singularly enough, the memorials of this period no longer exist above ground like the pyramids of the earlier age (with the exception of some ancient buildings at Kar- nak, a few scattered pyramids, and an obelisk or two), but in the unrivalled subterranean chambers and galleries of Beni-hassan, covered with the beautiful pictures of agricul- tural and domestic life ; of field-sports, fishing, and marsh- Bible Educator, . I., p. 105. 1 10 EGYPT. fowling ; of festivals, games, processions, and the endless humours and conceits of daily doings, which afford us in the pages of Wilkinson almost a cyclopaedia of Egyptian manners. Beni-hassan is not far from midway up the river between Memphis and Thebes. It is in one of these tombs that the ever-memorable procession, at first identified with the sons of Jacob, is iseechabas.f«&* still seen. 1 This will always deserve the closest attention, p. no; Brugscn, Hist. J ' tfhfie sceneTs' giVen especially from those who study early Semitic life. For it is the oldest group which can be identified as clearly representing a Semitic race. The lord of the tomb is Khnum-hotep, an officer of rank under Pharaoh User- tesen II. He stands, colossal and majestic, staff in hand ; an attendant behind him bears a pair of sandals, the prince, however, wearing his own ; and around his feet wait three favourite dogs. To him approach two scribes bare-footed, of whom the foremost holds out a tablet inscribed in true official style : — " Sixth year of the reign of king Osortasen II : 2 report of the GAmu brought by the son of the prince Khnum-hotep, bring- __J_~~*EL J ing mestem from the barbarian Petti-Shu ; their number is thirty-seven." Above the group is written : — " Come to bring mestem, he brings thirty-seven Amu." The second court-scribe has his office and name also written : — "The inspector of these, Khiti by name." He approaches empty-handed, but ushering in the chief of the Amu, who bends with outspread hands in an attitude of Oriental courtesy, holding in his right hand a curved throwing-stick which was used by the Egyptians themselves in the fashion of the Australian boomerang. It was also 2 This spelt var THE XXXVII. AMU OF BENI-HASSAN. Ill familiar to the Assyrians, and is still in use by tribes of Central Africa, and by the Bisharin of Sinaitic Arabia near the Red Sea, descendants doubtless of the Amu of old. 1 ^J""* NM The great richness of the garments worn by these Amu would suggest that they were brought (as we have before hinted) from "the country of clothes," especially if con- trasted with the light and simple white linen of the Egyptian courtiers. The chief is distinguished by a magnificent coat, elaborately bordered and fringed, and covered with ornamental stripes in designs of zigzags, reversed chevrons, and circular spots, recalling the curious ornamentation of the old Chaldsean buildings at Erech by coloured cones, in patterns resembling Norman mural decoration. Doubtless the chieftain wears beneath his robe of state a kilt from the waist to the knees, as do three of his followers who have no such upper garment. He leads a large and handsome ibex from the Sinaitic mountains, whence the barbarous Petti-Shu had procured the stibium (western) or black antimonial paint for the eyelids. The ibex is muzzled and collared, and over and under his head is the title of the chief, " hag (chieftain or sheikh) of the land Absha." 2 The last word has been £j%£ generally taken as the Semitic proper name of the man, but it may (as M. Chabas says) be that of the land, () J BM I . Is it not possible, however, that this word under the head of the ibex, may be after all the name of the animal itself ? for it is given by Pierret, on the authority of Brugsch, as " a species of gazelle," 3 (jjBM^ • It is clear that these Amu are received with signal marks of honour, for they come into the presence of the monarch variously armed, with music playing. The chief and his immediate attendant only are unshod, the other men wear strapped shoes, and the women boots. Diet. Geog., p. 13. 1877- 3 Vocab. Hierog., p. 112 EGYPT. The haq, whose splendid robe is wrought chiefly in red, blue, and white, is followed by a kilted attendant leading by its collar and horn an antelope. Then come a group of four men clad in long tunics reaching midway down their legs ; two of them white, the other two with stripes and cross-bars and zigzags and spots, red and blue and white. They are variously armed with spear and bow and throw- sticks. Then solemnly paces an ass, unled, loaded with bales or panniers, apparently of brightly patterned cloth, above which quaintly protrude the heads of two children ; and between them rises some object difficult to identify, of shape rather like a shuttle, but apparently as much as two feet long, which curiously reminds me of the form of the remarkable block of tin discovered at Falmouth, and described by Sir Henry James. 1 A similar object, but longer, is carefully tied on the back of the second ass in this procession. These objects seem to be coloured brown, but they may have been wrapped in some covering. The form is this ;=> j^ <=; , while that of the block of tin is in the main quite similar, ^ <^ , although not bulging so much in the sides. The Cornish block is two feet eleven inches long, by eleven inches wide. It is reported that Captain Burton has lately discovered tin-workings in the ancient land of Midian, on the east of the Red Sea ; while, in Num. xxxi. 22, this precious metal is mentioned among the riches of the Midianites. This would bring it quite into the region of Petti-Shu ; and it might well have been brought with the mestem by the Amu. And if (as has been supposed) the shape of the block is that adopted by the Phoenicians, the subject may deserve further inquiry. Behind the ass come four women clad in garments of similar style and pattern to those of the men, but rather 1 Arch. Journal, p. 196. 1871 ; also p. 39. 1859; and Rawlinson, Her., Vol. II., p. 418. SEMITIC OCCUPANTS OF THE DELTA. 1 13 longer. Their hair is abundant and long, bound round with fillets. They wear red ankle-boots bordered with white round the tops. With them in front marches a young boy holding a spear, and clad in a short frock. Behind the women paces the second ass laden with bales or panniers, and on its back, bound tightly by crossed straps, a spear, with the before-mentioned shuttle-shaped object, which is apparently as much as three feet in length. Then follows a kilted man playing with a plectrum a lyre of simple and antique form, and having a shield slung on his back ; and lastly, another man similarly clad, but armed with a curved club of red wood tipped with black, in his right hand ; in his left a bow of elegant curvature, and a quiver slung on his shoulders. The persons of the whole party are of a strongly-marked Semitic type, their complexion light and sallow, their hair black : that of the men bushy, and their beards pointed, their features prominent, noses aquiline, distinctly con- trasted with the countenances of the Egyptians. We give the head of the first man of the procession as a specimen of the type of these Amu. The importance of this scene can scarcely be overrated. It shows distinctly the honourable reception accorded to these eastern clans, even in the highest ascendant of the great twelfth dynasty. Indeed, Brugsch-Bey considers that we should perhaps even except from the limits of the government of these sovereigns the parts of the Delta situate on the eastern side, on the shores of the lake Menzaleh, and inhabited by a nation of mingled Egyptians and Semitic immigrants, whose influence prevailed soon after in a manner so disastrous to the Pharaohs and their country. The picture in the tomb is about eight feet long, and one 1 14 EGYPT. ; Letters from f-x'yft, 2 Nineteenth dyi\ p. 107. 3 Speaker's Comn and a half high, says Dr. Lepsius ;' and the same high authority concludes : " I view them as a migrating Hyksos family, who pray to be received into the blessed land ; and whose descendants, perhaps, opened the gates of Egypt to the Semitic conquerors, allied to them by race." It is manifest that this tableau represents a parallel case with that of Abraham. The wives are admitted with their husbands, unveiled, and seen by the " princes of Egypt." The same formal and business-like reception of Sliasa and other Asiatics, with their cattle, was observed as a regular custom, and is found (for instance) in the time of Meneptah the son of Rameses II., usually identified with the Pharaoh of the Exodus ; the actual certificate of such a case still being extant in Papyrus Anastasi VI., of which M. Chabas gives a translation. 2 If this were so under the truly Egyptian rule of the twelfth dynasty, then we may be sure of it under the Asiatic Hyksos. Since it is believed and argued by some writers, as, for instance, by Canon Cook, in his very able excursus on Egypt and the Pentateuch, 3 that Abraham was in Egypt during the dominion of the twelfth dynasty, it will be best to sketch the Egypt of that epoch before treating of the Hyksos. Under the Amenemhas and Usertesens Egypt was in full activity. Not only were the frontiers vigorously protected, but the land was admirably cultivated, the administration of public affairs organized with perfection of detail, gigantic engineering works carried out for the storage and distribution of the all-fertilising Nile-water by the formation of a vast artificial lake, as a reservoir to equalize the effects of the annual floods, and provide irriga- tion for the district to the west of the river, still called Fayum (E. Pi-om, the sea). i "Wilkinson, Anc. ££■-> VoL II., p. 43- EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION. 115 Pastures and fields were channelled, and innumerable trickling rills drew the water pumped by the shadoof over all the thirsty land. The plough was drawn by oxen, which also threshed the corn to the music of the cheery song which still remains to us. 1 The abun'dant harvests were stored in long ranges of vaulted granaries. Orchards, vineyards, gardens, were exquisitely cultivated. Flowers were everywhere, indoors and out : in the hand, on the head, on the altar of offerings, wreathed round the sacred vessels ; above all, the exquisite lotus, which has almost disappeared with the papyrus from the waters. Grand cattle were carefully tended and housed in majestic ranks ; large flocks of sheep were among the ample possessions, of which the inventories were duly presented to the lords of the soil. Asses of fine breed were used for riding and burden, and in litters of state, but the horse seems as yet unknown. Dogs of various kinds, for the chase, the flock, the house, were petted and depicted with their masters. The cat, first honoured in Egypt, and from which even ladies were named, was whimsically trained as a retriever of wild- fowl in the marshes, where whole families were wont to glide about in their light skiffs of papyrus to enjoy their beloved sport. The crocodile and hippopotamus afforded more formidable prey. The love of animals equalled that of flowers. Solemn apes, nimble ichneumons, and quaint creatures from foreign regions, were among the pets of the family. In their paintings all kinds of animals are de- picted with a spirit and fidelity worthy of Bewick. As a curious contrast, it is well worthy of notice that, as Sir Samuel Baker has remarked, a negro has never been known to tame a wild animal. The African tribes never make pets. The Egyptians, on the other hand, were Il6 EGYPT. probably more addicted than any other ancient people to this kindly and pleasant practice. The Rev. Henry Rowley has confirmed to me the observation of Sir Samuel Baker. The inference as to the different origin of the Egyptian race is as interesting as it is legitimate, and corresponds with a previous notice in these pages as to their religion. The people were hospitable, cheerful, fond of music, singing, and dancing; and games of every kind enlivened their festive hours. Captives, dwarfs and deformed persons, made sport in their presence. They were clad mostly in linen, shaved their heads and faces, and wore wigs, and ornaments many and beautiful. It is worthy of note, that in that very important personal adjunct the private seal the form of the Babylonian seal-cylinder (of which Dr. Haigh tells me an Egyptian specimen exists of even the date of h, cat. E g . th e s i x th dynasty) came into fashion during this period, 1 an interesting token of connection. The precious lapis- lazuli, always so highly valued, was brought from Babylonia. The " learning of the Egyptians " was carefully culti- vated, and the education of the scribe was the high-road to all departments of state-employment alike. The British Museum possesses a curious relic of the schools in a wooden tablet or lesson-board (prototype of the modern slate) still covered with successive inscriptions in grammar and rhetoric. It dates from the period of which we are treating. For portable documents papyrus was the Dr. B.rch, zdt- common material, but leather was also used. 2 For more Hft. 1871. formal and durable records the Egyptians resorted to the walls of their temples and tombs, and erected stelae or stone-tablets beautifully carved in relief. Although, as Brugsch-Bey notices, " the ancient ground 1 Birch Rooms, THE RELIGION OF EGYPT. Iiy on the two shores of the Nile is covered with debris be- longing to this time," ' so great has been the devastation of ' «* <«sr-. p- 84. successive ages, that the monuments remaining above ground are very few. An ancient part of the vast temples of Karnak, the celebrated obelisk of Usertesen I. at Heliopolis, marking the site of the great temple which has utterly perished, another fallen obelisk at Begig in the Fayoum, and some pyramids, especially the brick pyramid of one of the Usertesens at Dashur, with fine colossi, more or less broken, from Thebes, Abydos, and San (Zoan), are the principal remaining monuments of the grand twelfth dynasty, the glories of whose separate reigns are well recounted by Brugsch-Bey in his recent history. We will now turn to the religion of Egypt. We will try to draw near this great and mysterious subject with a fair and earnest mind, and with that deep fellow-feeling due to the faith in which the generations of the highest of primaeval nations lived and died, and trusted to live for evermore. For they were the very contrary of fastidious sceptics, and however remote, unimaginable, grotesque and despicable may be the details of their religious life, it was at least earnest ; it swayed the whole being under the sceptre of the world to come, and we shall find them, amidst the absurdities of their own "many inventions," holding some of the supreme truths of revelation, truths that strike like beams from heaven across the lonely spaces, and on the fantastic imagery of their painted tombs : — " At which high spirits of old would start, Even in their pagan sleep." " Such thoughts, the wreck of paradise, Through many a dreary age, Upbore whate'er of good and wise ■ christian Year, r ° Fourth Sunday after Yet lived in bard or sage." 2 Trinit y- Il8 EGYPT. The results of our inquiry into the religions of Chaldaea will suggest the question : " Is the Egyptian religious system homogeneous and consistent, or compound and incongruous ? If the latter, can we disentangle the various elements which were woven into it ? " I think a partial answer to such reasonable questions is attainable; but better results may be expected from the labours of M. Naville in collating the texts of the great Ritual, or Book of the i A new translation T) Prlr li of the Ritual by Mr. ■*~'*<*U" %£S£T£££ We have seen in studying the religions of Babylonia that the ideas of the Akkadians attributed a living spirit (Zi) to the elements and objects of nature, and that thus a very ancient cultus arose of invocations and deprecations of these potent spirits. Now M. Lenormant expressly asserts that these elemental spirits were utterly unknown to the Egyp- tians, although that profound and subtle race were devoted to the study and practice of magic, using spells, exorcisms, magical amulets, and an endless apparatus of the " curious arts." * 2 La Magie, p. 97. Yet Mariette-Bey oTThTspwts'of °he This is a most important contrast, and would lead to the earth," whose bronze figure, represented as adoring the Sun, is in the Museum of Boulak. He does not give the - 1 . - - date. Prindp.Monu- not formed any portion of the complicated system which and see PieWet, Diet, grew up in Egypt. This is the more remarkable, since the a" Arch. Eg., p. "Genies." conclusion that the pristine Turanian religion of Chaldaea, in respect at least of the worship of elemental spirits, had barbarous African tribes of the present day seem generally 3 see (for example) given over to a devouring dread of elemental spirits. 3 It Rowley, Rel. of ° ° * Africans, p. ss- is, I think, to be doubted whether, as some have supposed, the substratum of the old Egyptian faith was derived in any appreciable degree from Nigritic sources. The magical usages of the Egyptians arose, says M. Lenormant, from the corruption of a higher religion and more pure in its tendencies than the naturalistic system of Akkad. MONOTHEISM. 119 It was a tJicurgic system, intended to invoke or even compel, divine assistance, in however unworthy and super- stitious a manner. This distinction is, I believe, as well- founded as it is important. Setting aside, then, the notion that Egypt derived its oldest germs of religion from any such imagination of elemental spirits, we come to the great question whether the belief of the One God was the real fountain of faith. That this was indeed the case is strongly affirmed by writers who have deeply studied the subject. " The fundamental doctrine was the unity of the Deity, but this unity was not represented ; and he was known by a sentence, or an idea, being, as Jamblichus says, 'wor- shipped in silence.' But the attributes of this being were represented under positive forms ; and hence arose a multiplicity of gods that engendered idolatry, and caused a total misconception of the real nature of the deity, in the minds of all who were not admitted to a knowledge of the truth through the mysteries." So writes Sir Gardner Wilkinson; 1 and to the same effect M. Lenormant. 2 M. * Amc - Eg - VoL J - ' P- 3=7- Pierret expresses himself with remarkable precision : " that 2 Ane - Hist - Vo1 l - - 1 p. 318; La Magie, which is out of doubt, that which to every one is clearly p- ?*■ disclosed by the texts, is the belief in one only God. The polytheism which the monuments seem to argue is only apparent ; the numberless gods of the pantheon are only the disguise of the one being in his different characters {roles)" 3 And M. Maspero declares : " All the divine types 3 o&t. JArch. e?., interpenetrated and absorbed themselves in the supreme God. Their division, pursued even ad infinitum, in no way broke the primitive unity of the divine substance : they might multiply at will the names and the forms of God ; they never multiplied God." 4 * Hist - Ahc -< p- »» Some of the most ancient texts on this topic have been 120 EGYPT. treated by M. Robiou in his interesting lecture on the Paris'" vfew" d \lfo S ' transition from monotheism to polytheism; 1 and very re- cently the great theme has been eloquently expounded by 2 J<*> a ******* M. l'Abbe Ancessi. 2 Paris, Leroux. 1877. I need not linger on this point. But next emerges a question not less significant. Was the one "self-existent God, who had no second," such as we find Him in holy Scripture, a true Creator of all ? or was the complex of all the visible manifestations of his power regarded as a part, or identical extension, of his own being ; the god of the pantheist ? The solution may be easily confused by a regard to the innumerable derivative gods, triads, and couples ; but these must all be excluded from the true line of inquiry, as not creatures (although the terms used in Egyptian texts may appear literally to bear the sense) but manifestations, as above explained. When, however, we come to the creation properly so called, the aspect of things is very different. zHist.Anc.,?.^. L et us ] iear -yi Maspero. 3 After speaking (as above cited) on the real unity of the godhead, he continues : — " His action, reaching over the primordial chaos, reduced it to order without effort. He says to the sun, ' Come to me,' and the sun, coming to him, began to shine. At his com- mand Shu, the luminous, levels the land, and divides the waters into two distinct masses. The one, spread on the surface of the ground, gave birth to rivers and ocean ; the other, hung in the air, formed the vault of heaven, the ' waters on high,' on which the stars and the gods, swayed by an eternal current, behold themselves floating. But in establishing the laws which regulate the harmony of the world, the Ordainer of all things had, by that very work, excited against himself the maleficent forces of nature." Then arose the protracted struggle between the Creator CREATION. 121 and the " sons of rebellion " under their chief, the long twisting serpent Apap. This account of the Egyptian cosmogony will, I think, sustain the opinion that the works of God were viewed as proper creations, having an existence given to them separate from their Maker; although ever dependent on his sup- porting power. Indeed the last passage stirs up the quite contrary doubt: "Have we here a system of original dualism: an independent eternal creator and master of evil, parallel with the eternal Creator and lord of good ? " This must, I believe, be answered in the negative. There can be no reasonable doubt that the great serpent Apap was viewed as one of the works of God. The retractation of M. Mariette, published in 1872/ in ' /i "" mi '- f - p- «■ which he intimates that the true view is not that of Jamblichus, but that of Eusebius, is, I am aware, quite contradictory to the views here cited, and would lead to the conclusion that the Egyptians acknowledged that " the universe is God, formed of many gods who compose his parts." But the Ptolemaic temples of Dendera and Edfou, to which M. Mariette refers, set forth a late and debased form of theosophy. The terms implying self-existence and unique deity applied to Ammon at Thebes, Ptah at Memphis, and the like, are explained to us when we regard them as expressing in various manifestations the being of the One God ; and we adhere after all to the exposition of Jamblichus, and the original views of Mariette-Bey. But although the fresh fountain-head of Egyptian faith may have been never so pure, long before the time when Abram went down to sojourn and found himself at Zoan, and perhaps at Memphis, the city of Ptah the great Creator and Father-god, the system of religion had become in 122 EGYPT. many ways as complicated and corrupt as that which he had left behind by the great river in the plain of Shinar. The local worship of the different characters and phases of the godhead, as tutelaries of the various nomes, had ripened into the strange system of separate and almost rival triads. The gods stood wrought in stone, or painted on the walls, quaint and monstrous, with their symbolic beast and bird, frog and serpent-heads, and weird equipments. Worse than this, the degrading worship of the pampered brute (which, we happily know, was not older than a king of the second dynasty, and may have been adopted from some Nigritic tribes), and the divine honours paid to the living or departed Pharaoh, with multiplied worshipping and serving of the creature more than the Creator, had fearfully blocked up the way of access to the living and true God. If, as we have before explained, the sidereal pantheon had been fully developed in Chaldaea, no less in Egypt was the elaborate system of solar worship exalted to its full lordship. Turn, the nocturnal sun, giving himself fresh birth as Har-em-khu (symbolised by the sphinx), and culminating in his course as Ra, may well have recalled to Abram's mind the Nindar, the Duzi, the Tutu, of his native skies. Memphis was, however, devoted to the supreme worship of Ptah the creator. An (Heliopolis) was the grand seat of the sun-god, whose priest in a later age gave his daughter in marriage to Joseph. There was one god who had the distinguished honour of being venerated with peculiar affection throughout the whole land, and whose name was the golden key to the most hallowed recesses of the Egyptian heart. This was OSIRIS. I2 3 Osiris, kindred to the gracious helper of mortals Silik- mulu-khi of the Akkadians, and to Marduk of Babylon, mediator and raiser of the dead. "The peculiar character of Osiris," writes Sir Gardner Wilkinson, 1 " his coming upon earth for the benefit of man- * £* Es - v kind, ' with the titles of manifester of good and truth,' his being put to death by the malice of the evil one ; his burial and resurrection, and his becoming the judge of the dead, are the most interesting features of the Egyptian religion. This was the great mystery ; and this myth and his wor- ship were of the earliest times, and universal in Egypt. He was to every Egyptian the great judge of the dead ; and it is evident that Moses abstained from making any very pointed allusion to the future state of man, because it would have recalled the well-known judge of the dead, and all the funeral ceremonies of Egypt, and have brought back the thoughts of the 'mixed multitude,' and of all whose minds were not entirely uncontaminated by Egyp- tian habits, to the very superstitions from which it was his object to purify them." Osiris was from the first the local god of Thinis and Abydos. The spot where his body (dismembered of his limbs) was buried became the centre of such an immense stratified mass of sepulture as that which still marks the site of ancient Erech. The Kom-es-sultan is a tumulus of the most rare interest, which has been partly examined, but still awaits more perfect exploration. 2 M. de Rouge ^^\__ has noticed the promise of resurrection implied in the title ^ftaSta of a pyramid of the fifth dynasty, which means " the soul JJJ " arises, or appears." The force of the word ba (soul) will be explained hereafter. It is interesting also to find that the tomb (pyramid) of Pepi's queen, of the sixth dynasty, bore the name of Men-ankh, abode of life; and at the Amelia Thou- ■nd Miles on the Nile. 1876. 124 EGYPT. same time the sarcophagus is designated "the coffer of [ De Rouge, Six the living." ' rem. dyn., pp. 81, *• I3fi - It appears to me that common sense refuses to believe the theory which would derive these mysteries of human destiny, united essentially with the name, and work, and even the person of Osiris, from any observation of the phenomena of the mere visible luminary. How could the immortality of man, and the resurrection of the flesh, and judgment of the dead, and retribution for the deeds done in the body, have been learned from the most intense and superstitious contemplation of the sinking, the rising, . jot, it VEgypu, the blazing sun ? Thus very reasonably argues M. Ancessi. 2 The idea could not arise from the natural imagery, but might well clothe itself in such investiture, if previously revealed to mankind. In the times of the twelfth dynasty, the weird and monstrous forms which cover the chamber-walls of royal sepulchres of the later empire had not yet taken possession. The scenery of the subterranean chamber was still that of "the warm precincts of the cheerful day," and the tombs of Beni-hassan have the same character as those of Gizeh, where the homely and out-of-door doings of the fourth dynasty are so " lively set forth." Nevertheless the coffins of the eleventh dynasty are Mariette, Princ. covered with wings, 3 symbolizing the protecting care of o?ium., p, 37. Isis over the Osiris within ; for the mystic identification of the deceased with the beneficent god was already established even in the time of Men-ka-ra (Mycerinus), whose cedar coffin in the British Museum contains a touch- Birch, H^t. E g . % ing apostrophe to him in that character. 4 "Before the time of Menkaura," says Dr. Birch, "the god Anubis is mentioned in the tomb as the special deity of the dead, to the exclusion of Osiris ; but the coffin of Menkaura p. 40. Speaker's Comm., >1. I., p. 450. CORRUPT DEVELOPMENTS. 125 marks a new religious development in the annals of Egypt." The custom of preserving the body as a mummy, the abundant use of amulets, the identification of the deceased with Osiris, the deposit of portions of the ritual, and engraving them on the stone sarcophagus which contained the coffin, the continual offerings of food to the dead, and recital of prayers for their happiness, were all long established. There was a strange intermixture of revealed truths and wanderings of the imagination. "We have abundant notices on the monuments of that (twelfth) dynasty," ' writes Canon Cook, "which agree with the intimations of Genesis ; proving, on the one hand, that the forms of wor- ship were purely Egyptian ; and, on the other hand, that the fundamental principles which underlie those forms, and which belong, as we may not doubt, to the primeval religion of humanity, were still distinctly recognised, although they were blended with speculation and superstitious errors : they were moreover associated with a system which, on many essential points, inculcated a sound, and even delicate, morality." And in a note the same learned author adds : "The earliest known text of the seventeenth chapter of the Ritual belongs to the eleventh dynasty. It undoubtedly indicates the previous existence of a pure monotheism, of which it retains the great principles, the unity, eternity, and self-existence of the unknown Deity. Each age witnessed some corruption and amplification of the ancient religion, and corresponding interpolations of the old texts. The very earliest has several glosses, and the text taken apart from them approaches very nearly to the truth as revealed in the Bible." M. Lefebure gives a curious specimen of a Melanges Eg., Vol. development. He mentions a theory "that the heavenly n., P .a37. 126 EGYPT. soul, or .Ra, returned every evening to its earthly body, or Osiris, and that in like manner the soul of the deceased, rising to heaven with the luminary, left and rejoined its body alternately. This doctrine appears not very distinctly till after the expulsion of the shepherds, but on the sar- cophagi, and not in the compositions, generally earlier, of the Book of the Dead, where it scarcely enters." In this interesting essay M. Lefebure has traced the advance of fabulous invention in a very instructive way : " First of all the deceased, thanks to the efficacy of the ceremonies ful- filled by him or on his behalf, of the sacred texts which he possesses, and of the judgment which makes him ' veridiqiie] revives, resumes his organs, and, become immortal, enjoys the blessedness of the nether world, where he constructs himself a dwelling. But Hades, the abode of the wanes in all the primitive mythologies, was also the desolate realm of darkness ; and so they end by bringing back the dead on the earth, there to begin afresh their daily life with more liberty and power, and even with the faculty of taking all possible forms." And more strange speculation follows, of a later date. A very interesting account of a sepulchral stele of the eleventh dynasty, commemorating the artist Iritisen, has been given to the Society of Biblical Archaeology by M. Maspero. It is well worthy of study as bearing on the view of the subject under consideration, which was enter- , Tra,,s soc. Bib. tained before the time of Abraham. 1 Arch.,Vo\. V., p. 555. It is exceedingly interesting to notice the keen appre- ciation by the Egyptians of the complex nature of man. thaVtaASL*^ The bod y (^ /ia > B »ci>.//». .' /., p. 115. detailed information to the pages of Brugsch-Bey, and hasten to the still more troubled times of the mysterious " Shepherd kings," only premising that the distinguished historian has proved that at least the kings of the thirteenth dynasty, down to the twenty-fourth monarch, Sebek-hotep V., who erected his statue in the Delta, and probably much later, must have maintained the sovereignty of Lower Egypt ; and that the Hyksos domination conse- quently cannot have begun till towards the end of the thirteenth dynasty. Indeed, Zoan is said to have been one of the favourite residences of these sovereigns. 3 X,r M p S "9°' The centre of power was displaced from Thebes to the Delta, and this may in itself afford an indication that danger was perceived in that quarter. Another portent of harm was the abandonment of the important mining stations of Sinaitic Arabia. Thus decayed the power of the thirteenth dynasty : " As it shrinks," writes Dr. Birch, " the Shasu, and their kings, the ever renowned Hykshos of Manetho, come forward." 3 3 RaU Ltchtn - p - ** Notwithstanding the great ability with which Canon Cook has advocated the opinion that Abraham was in Egypt under the twelfth dynasty, there is a general I30 EGYPT. agreement of Egyptologists in placing his sojourn there during the dominion of the Hyksos. It is, therefore, very necessary to give the most careful attention to the data which at present enable us in some sort to estimate the character of these conquerors, and the effect of their rule in modifying the condition of the country and people as we have described it. The approximate dates assigned to the beginning of the Hyksos domination by some chief authorities are these : iAhAr.etc.iKi4. Lepsius (quoted by Chabas) B.C. 2101 ;' Mariette, 2214;' IhZ'.sZ, p. iso. Brugsch, 2200 ; 3 Naville, cir. 2200 ; 4 R. S. Poole, cir. 2081 ;« Lenormant, 2214; 6 Lauth, 21 85.' Now since all the ordinary systems of Biblical Chronology make Abram's entrance into Canaan occur between B.C. 2078 (Hales) and Eg., p. 8. 5 Smith, B. D Egypt. 6 Anc. Hist., Vol. p. 197. 7 ^.cAnw., p. 129. b.c. 1 92 1 (Ussher) we must surely be right, without at- tempting to dogmatize in so difficult a matter, in the course we arc pursuing by proceeding to give a view of the Egypt of the Shepherd kings. 3i VIII. TJie Hyksos. 1^'^lHERE is a very strange interest in the study to IPt^JI which we now apply our minds. If mystery be the atmosphere of Egypt in general, it is most of all characteristic of the Delta. If her history is a series of enigmas, the reconstruction of the Hyksos period is the most puzzling task of all. The best picture we can produce must be tessellated with fragments from the most various sources. We have already brought many together, and arranged them in a rough outline. We have seen the western migration of different races, Turanian, Hamitic, Semitic ; have traced the line of their smouldering camp-fires from the Persian Gulf to the eastern branches of the Nile, the names of their stations, the titles of their gods, the records of their con- quests, and, last of all, their very presence with living tradition on their lips from point to point, along their old time-honoured highway. We must now add fresh and more lively colours to the mosaic. And our first materials must come from " the field of Zoan," Ma-zor, 1 the land of Zor, or Tyre, for, as we have before said, the Phoenician builders of old had moved their name from the Persian Gulf to the sea-border of the Zidonians, and thence to Egypt : a name still in use : Masr, to wit, the name of Cairo, and Mushra, the stream which still waters the 10* 132 THE HYKSOS. ancient plain, and on which floated the canoe of the , Rob Roy on the adventurous MacGregor towards the ruin-heaps, 1 " lying Jordan, p. 74. # bare and gaunt, in stark silent devastation. It is here that the monumental evidence has been dis- covered, chiefly by the skilful exploration of Mariette-Bey. But let us first notice with Meyer that the red crown of Lower Egypt, probably, itself bears witness to the foreign and eastern character of the population there, the desert and eastern lands being called by the same name, Tcshcr, that is, red. The earliest royal name and titles found at San are those of Pepi-Merira of the sixth dynasty, whose general Una engaged in repeated campaigns against the Herusha, 2 Ante., P . 78. as we have before narrated. 2 These titles on a block of stone in the midst of the ruins of San are of singular 3 mst. ctm^.p. 70. importance, since, as Brugsch-Bey has said, 3 they carry back the date of the city to so remote a period. "The sanc- 4 princip. mous., tuary of the Great Temple," we are told by Mariette-Bey, 4 p. 272. "existed from the sixth dynasty; the kings of the twelfth and of the thirteenth dynasties vied with each other in adorning it. At this epoch Phtah appears to have been its principal god," to whom was dedicated a colossal statue of Amenemha I., of which " the face is well preserved, and recalls in its type the Ousertasen I., of Abydos ; the nose is short and flattened (cpatc), the lips are thick, the mouth large and smiling, the cheeks very full." The ethnic types of the Pharaohs of various periods form so interesting a study, that I quote the description given by Mariette-Bey of the statue of Usertesen at Abydos just mentioned : " The eyes are large, the nose straight and short, the mouth thick (cpaisse) and good- natured : . . . . Ousertasen is one of the few Egyptian STATUARY AT SAN. 133 princes who betray in their physiognomy an origin indisputably Egyptian." I do not doubt that this is the very type of countenance exhibited by the sensible, kindly, and unaffected-looking " short-faced gentleman," bearing the royal name of Amen- emha, who sits in the northern vestibule of the British Museum, and of whose head we give an illustration. At San were found also two colossal statues of Usertesen I., and a smaller statue of a princess royal, his daughter Nefer-t Next we come to a splendid colossus erected in the great temple, representing Ra-smenkh-ka Mer-mesha, whom Brugsch-Bey places as the eighteenth Pharaoh of the thirteenth dynasty. The fellow statue has been found also. His title Mer-mesha designates, in the lists of the nomes, the high-priest of the principal temple of Mendes. And here we find the handiwork of the Hyksos, who, far from destroying these grand monuments of the legitimate sovereigns, were content in the Egyptian manner to set their mark on them. Thus, on the right shoulder of Ra-smenkh-ka's statue Apapi inscribed his own royal legend. This is not the only memorial of the thirteenth dynasty at San. There is also a statue of a Sebek-hotep, and a mutilated stone inscribed during the same period. Before proceeding to describe the original sculpture of the Hyksos, we will mention one or two further instances of their adopting previous monuments. At Tell-Mokdam, not far distant from San, was found a sitting colossal statue of a king of the thirteenth dynasty, engraved with the cartouches of a shepherd-king. 1 These - contain, as it seems, the titles of the first shepherd-king, ^ ^ ,„ , . , die B. M.. p. 202. Salatis. 134 THE HYKSOS. " The good god, the star of both worlds (Upper and Lower Egypt) son of the Sun (Ra) Set Sha(l)ati, beloved of Set lord of Hauar (Avaris.)" Professor Ebers gives a woodcut of the exact state of the word Shalati, from which it appears that the only letter utterly erased is the <=>, which stands for r or /, indifferently. The mention of Avaris is especially interesting, since it i Cory's Fragments, agrees with, Manetho's statement, 1 that Salatis rebuilt this p.126, Hodge's edition; ° see the original in Bun- c jty an d strongly fortified it with walls, and garrisoned it sen, Egypt's Place, J ' => J ° vol. i., p. 645. witli a force of 250,000 soldiers. "To this city Salatis repaired in summer-time to collect his tribute, and pay his troops, and to exercise his soldiers, in order to strike terror into foreigners." Manetho asserts that " Salatis dwelt at Memphis, rendering both Upper and Lower Egypt tributary" which agrees with the full title assumed in this inscription. Brugsch-Bey gives Tell-el-Her as the site of Avaris, which would be within and near the great line of defence. The title " star of both worlds," or " lands," " quite distinctly belongs to the Hyksos," as Professor Ebers remarks. Its origin we shall notice hereafter. Again, a sphinx at San and its companion in the Louvre, and other sphinxes in the same museum mentioned by Mariette-Bey, bear the inscriptions of Hyksos monarchs. The authentic memorial sculptures of the conquerors are not numerous, but they possess in every point of view a startling power of attraction, and are so precious that each deserves to be described : — I. A pair of statues on a common base, utterly unlike anything Egyptian. Two men standing side by side, in a very unheroic attitude, behind two tables of offerings which are entirely covered above, in front, and on each side with the spoils of the watery wastes. On the flat top are large fish ; a similar fish hangs in front. . Beneath the STATUES OF EARLY SHEPHERD-KINGS. 1 35 fish a close mat of parallel depending lotus-stems, with unblown buds, and the lovely sculpturesque flowers grace- fully disposed in successive rows. On each side hang four pairs of the large venerated geese of the Nile, the most esteemed of sacrifices. These quaint potentates rather resemble fishmongers in their bearing than conquerors : scantily clad in short kilts of linen, the familiar Egyptian skenti, their arms, adorned with plain bracelets, resting on the tables, the outspread hands supporting the fish; their heads burdened by the most enormous weight of hair, divided by the shoulders and falling in four great rope-like tresses over the breast, and in still longer twists down the back. Long beards they wear in curly rows, having much the appearance of the ring-mail hauberks of old crusaders, but with shaven upper lips. The visage, sooth to say, is singularly plebeian, and as unlike as possible in its type to the pleasant ingenuous look of the earliest European-like Egyptians of the pyramid-age, or the stately calmness, or the attractive kindliness, of the courtly twelfth dynasty. The noses are pitifully marred ; the cheek bones are high and prominent, the upper lips long and drawn downwards, the mouth sad, heavy, and anxious, the lower lip projecting beyond the chin, which is poor and ignoble, the eyes small, but not near together : the whole aspect severe, but not without a sorrowful earnestness and force. It is affirmed by Mariette-Bey that the same race still inhabit the country. 1 " There is not a traveller but is » Rea - Arch < p- « struck with the foreign type which characterizes the popu- lace of the villages scattered through all the north-east part of the Delta, and especially in the borders of the lake Menzaleh. The Egyptian fellah (peasant) is tall, slim, light in his step ; he has well-opened and lively eyes, short and straight nose, mouth well formed and smiling : the mark 136 THE HYKSOS. of their race among this people is above all in the ample- ness of the trunk, the leanness of the legs, and the slight development of the hips. The inhabitants of San, of Matarieh, of Menzaleh and the other neighbouring villages, have quite a different look, and from the first meeting in some sort make the observer wonder where he is, " They are of tall stature, although thickset ; their back is always a little bent, and what is remarkable before all is the robust build of their legs. " As to the head, it betrays a marked Semitic type, and not without surprise one recognises here the faces of the four sphinxes which Tanis has yielded from amidst its 1 see on this question ruins. 1 The inferences from this fact are self-evident: Wilkinson, Modern r a t' vTf "" d - s i nce these Shepherd-kings are still in Egypt, it is because Thebes, Vol. I., p. 409 Bulletin de Vlnstitu :. No. 3, pp * the war undertaken by Amosis did not end in the radical 17. 4". 4-- expulsion of the conquered. The Semites, who for more than five centuries inhabited the north of Egypt, finished by becoming dwellers on the shores of the Nile ; and an agreement consequent on the peace doubtless permitted the bulk of the population to abide in the places they occupied." II. Extremely similar to these figures is the invaluable fragment (described and figured by M. Lenormant) pre- 2 Frammento di served in the Villa Ludovisi at Rome. 2 Although the face Statua di uno dsi pastori di Egitto. is injured, this is otherwise well enough preserved to give a Roma, Salviucci. 1877. perfect view of the singular head-gear. Apart from the monstrous wig, we have a still more quaint resemblance to an early crusader's effigy in the regular curved rows of the curly beard, and the hair closely brought down over the forehead in similar rows. But on the upper and lower lip the mouth is shaven quite clean, so as to expose the face in a perfectly regular curve, as if it were showing through the opening of a mail-coif. LUDOVISI HEAD. COLOSSUS IN THE FYUM. 137 The wig looks as if superinduced on the natural hair, and is most elaborately constructed. From the middle parting above, four huge twisted locks on each side drop down to the breast. Behind on each side four twists fall flatly down the back, and in the midst of these a great gathering of hair is plaited into a long " pig-tail," which descended below the side-locks, till its original length is lost in the fracture of the statue about as low as the bottom of the shoulder blades. The photograph does not, I think, give any indication of the royal uraeus-ornament having ever been sculptured on the front of the head. Perhaps the earlier Hyksos- monarchs may not have assumed the Egyptian symbol of royalty. As to the countenance, it may have been rather more well-favoured than those of the twin statues of San. The eyes appear as if larger and better formed, and the mouth less grim ; but in the main the resemblance of the heads is very close and striking. III. Thirdly, we must consider the upper part of a broken colossal statue of a standing king, 1 found (not in the Delta, but) among the ruins of Crocodilopolis, the sacred city of the god Sebek in the Fyum. This shows that the Hyksos had at least included this garden of Egypt, with the magnificent works of the twelfth dynasty, the great lake, the labyrinth and sepulchral pyramids of the Amenemhas, within their conquest ; and, as Mariette- Bey has remarked, that Memphis must have been theirs, as indeed Manetho informs us. This fragment, like the San statues and the Ludovisi head, has unhappily no inscription, but is that of a Shepherd-king. "We remark the general form ol the head," says :tle. Princ. 56. 138 THE HYKSOS. Mariette-Bey, " the prominent and bony upper cheeks, the thick lips, the wavy beard covering the lower part of the cheeks, the whole aspect which gives to the physiognomy of the monument a character of individuality so decided. The unusual ornaments disposed on the breast should also fix our attention. The king was clad in panther-skins, two heads of these animals appear on the shoulders." This dress indicates a full compliance with Egyptian customs : for it was the robe worn by the Pharaoh as sovereign pontiff, and must, one would think, imply initiation into the mysteries. IV. The next group of statuary gives us the uninjured contour of the face. Four sphinxes of unique type were uncovered at San, one of which is in the Museum at Bulak. These are sculptured with extreme vigour, but quite different in style from the Egyptian treatment. Instead of the fully developed human head royally adorned, the faces are compassed by a vast and shaggy mane, rayed round the visage with a hairy fringe, from out of which look the stern features, royally distinguished by the Egyptian basilisk-crest above the fillet or diadem bound across the hard brow, and by the square-cut beard below ; both marking, I imagine, a later Hyksos-date than the fish- offerers and the Ludovisi head. And what a front is this ! as full of gnarled strength, as the great sphinx of Gizeh is instinct with superhuman serenity. The brows are knit with anxious care, the full but small eyes seem to know no kindly light ; the nose, of fine profile curve, yet broad and squared in form, has its strongly-chiselled nostrils de- pressed in accordance with the saddened lines of the lower cheek. The lips are thick and prominent, but not with the unmeaning fulness of the Negro ; quite the opposite. The curve is fine, the "Cupid's bow" perfect which defines so SPHINX OF SAN. 139 boldly the upper outline: the channelled and curved upper lip has even an expression of proud sensitiveness, and there is more of sorrow than of fierceness in the down-drawn angles of the mouth. " To look at these strange forms," writes Mariette-Bey, " one divines that we have under our eyes the products of an art which is not purely Egyptian, but which is not exclusively foreign either, and one concludes that the sphinxes of Avaris (San) may well offer the immense interest of being of the time of the Hyksos themselves. See the inscriptions on the right shoulders, erased. Sutekh at the head ; then the title of ' the beneficent god ; ' then the illegible cartouches of the king ; and the whole recalls so well by the manner in which the inscriptions are placed, by the length of the lines, by the style of the hieroglyphics which remain, the legend of Apophis on the colossus of Ra-smenkh-ka, that I do not hesitate to read the same legend on the new monuments. According to the Sallier papyrus Apophis raised a temple to Sutekh. I doubt not that our sphinxes are due to the piety of this king towards the god of his nation." This appears the more clear since the papyrus seems to refer distinctly to an avenue of sphinxes. 1 "The king taa.baa,LaPa J r & teurs, p. 17. See tl Apepi (established) feasts and days for sacrificing daily footnote - victims to Set ; and statues of the king, with fillets (bandeaux, such as these sphinxes wear round the head), as is the case with a temple having (statues of) Phra- Harmakhis (that is, sphinxes) facing one another." We have, then, here the very countenance of Joseph's royal master, if the tradition reported by the Syncellus be true, as argued by Brugsch-Bey in his recent history. 2 2/r«.«r^r..p.i7s " I stand quite astonished," says Dr. Ebers, " before these outlandish features, which in their rough earnestness form 140 THE HYKSOS. the sharpest contrast to the smiling heads of the Egyptian 1 **- "■ die BYcchtr Colossi." 1 Moses, p. 207. V. There is yet another sphinx, at the Louvre, bearing the name of Meneptah, but formerly inscribed by Apepi, whose name M. Theodule Deveria has succeeded in deciphering on its base. VI. We have seen that Apepi's sphinxes at San, and the statue of Crocodilopolis, bear the insignia of Egyptian royalty. This is also the case with a very valuable figure at the Louvre, thus described by M. Deveria in a letter to zRev.Anh., p. 257. Mariette-Bey : = "A magnificent fragment of a royal statuette of green basalt, which bears the character of the race which you have recognised in the heads of the four sphinxes. The eyes are small compared with the Egyptian type ; the nose vigorous and arched, but flat (your own expressions) ; the cheeks bony, and the muscles of the mouth strongly marked ; the lips thick, and the angles (of the mouth) not raised ; the chin, unhappily broken, seems to have been projecting. . . . The character of the figure is Egyptian ; and the personage bears the uraeus, is vested in the schenti (linen garment round the loins) finely plaited, and a dagger with hilt in the form of a hawk's head is passed through the girdle." M. Deveria adds, that although this statuette has no inscription, it evidently belongs to the same art as the figures at San. It has the purely Egyptian head-dress commonly called Klaft, formed of a striped cloth in the manner so ingeniously 3 Tra„s. soc Bib. s hown by Mr. Sharpe to the Society of Biblical Archceolosry? Arch., Vol. IV., p. 248. J r J J OS VII. It remains to notice the small lion of granite from Baghdad, which at last happily rests in the North Vestibule among the more ancient Egyptian statues in the British Museum. It is figured in Pleyte's Religion ties Pre- 4 pl i., fig. » Israelites? and noticed by the late Mr. George Smith (by SMALL SPHINX OF BAGHDAD. 141 whom it was purchased) in his Assyrian Discoveries. 1 Its ip-4*>. face looks as if it had been anciently re-chiselled and diminished in size. May it not have been a human face of the same type as the San sphinxes, the face of the king whose name is on its breast ? For it bears a cartouche which (although now difficult of discernment) was de- ciphered by M. Deveria in 1861 2 as NTR NWR RA- £**-">*.*•* ST-NUB, "the good god (usual title of Egyptian kings) Ra-Set-Nub." We give photographs in opposite lights from a cast recently made. Now this is a very important king, if he be the identical monarch from whom a celebrated stele at Bulak, found at San, dates four hundred years to some year in the reign of Rameses II. 3 This would 3 *««*««*«/(«*, J ° \ ol !\ ., p. 33. bring the Hyksos king in question to about the year B.C. 1750, as Brugsch has remarked. 4 Mna.*Eg., 9 .vH, A reviewer of G. Smith 5 has corrected his identification 3 ■»«*<&«* j an . . 3 . 1875. of Ra-Set-Nub with the founder of the Hyksos rule (Salatis), and proposes a much later Hyksos Pharaoh, Sethos, who " figures both in the Egyptian and Assyrian lists of Syncellus, in both of which he has the same length of reign, which in both instances starts from the same year of the Syncelline mundane era. . . . The Hykshos Pharaoh Sethos was the chief, not of the first but of the last of the three Shepherd dynasties of Egypt. 6 It bore sway, 6Mariette-Bey makes the Set of the tablet according to Manetho, for eighty-six years. . . . These of *» >' ears t0 be the ° J J first king of the severr- eighty-six years. . . . added to the 263 of the eighteenth teenth dynast >; , th ? o J J ~J O is, of the last Hyksus dynasty, and the fifty-one assigned to the first reign of the * masty - ***"»> p- nineteenth, exactly make up the four hundred which we find on the San tablet." If, with Manetho, cited by Josephus, we take 511 years for the duration of the whole Hyksos rule (as Mariette does), and deduct eighty-six for the last dynasty, we shall have 425 years after Salatis for Sethos. 142 THE HYKSOS. 2 Chabas, tents, p. 15 Now if 425 years after Salatis was the date of Sethos (Ra-Set-Nub), which was also about 1750 years before v£P&,Bu.*Bg. Christ, 1 the Hyksos rule must have begun about B.C. 2175 ; which, as far as we can tell, may be very near the truth ; being, in fact, within ten years of the date given by Dr. Lauth. But to the 5 1 1 years we may, perhaps, add some :es p„s- j-j me f or f-j-jg war f liberation. 2 This would put back the date of Salatis for so much time as the war lasted, but would not make any difference so far as affects our supposition, that Abram visited Egypt during the earlier time of the Hyksos. We are not concerned here to adduce the interesting fragments which afford some tantalizing glimpses of the patriotic and strenuous conflict that issued in the final expulsion of the enemy. It is more to our purpose to open our eyes to everything which may help us to identify their race and country. The name Hyksos, by which they were known to the Egyptian priestly historian Manetho, is generally believed Bmgsch, to be compounded of Shasu? the usual word for the Arab hordes, and hyk king ; and may have been a mere nick- name used after their expulsion. But the Egyptians call them in their records Menti (Syrians), 4 Sati, the roving Asiatics armed with bows, or by a word of hatred or contempt. Manetho says they were of ignoble race, " some say Arabians ; " and also uses the term Phoenicians for the earlier monarchs. Africanus calls them Phoenicians. It is clear enough from what quarter they came. As we have seen, the few sculptures yet discovered show a type, most strongly-marked, common to all the royal heads. 3 Birch Maspero, Brugsch, Hist. may display a Turanian element : " a race which is not even purely Semitic, and must be pretty strongly mixed with c, p. 13. ETHNIC TYPE OF THE HYKSOS. 143 those Turanian elements which science reveals to-day as having borne so large a part in the population of Chaldsea and Babylonia."' "The anthropological type of the V V, ,f"7' Ci °'' statues of the Museum of Bulak, and of that of the villa Ludovisi, a type which may yet be studied alive on the shores of lake Menzaleh, differs radically as much from the Semitic, as from the Egyptian." 2 The learned Professor , then proceeds to indicate a similar supposition to that above quoted, and adds that his friend and fellow traveller Dr. Hamy proposes to treat the question from an ethno- logical point of view in a forthcoming publication. It is worth while to study the profile of the San sphinx in comparison with that of the Amorite king from Tel-el- Yahudeh ; remembering that the former is full of proud self-possession, and well favoured, while the latter is the face of a cruelly-treated captive, lean and woe-begone, and probably in bodily as well as mental anguish. The high cheek bones, arched nose, prominent mouth, receding forehead, are common to both. Since the Anakim built Hebron, may they not have furnished the rulers of the Hyksos ? The continuity of the great movement from Chaldaea identified with the names of Kudur-Nakhkhunte, Kudur- Mabuk, and Kudur-Lagamar (Kedor-la'omer) streaming downwards in the Hyksos conquest of Lower Egypt, is also ably expounded by M. Maspero in his recent his- tory, 3 and will be treated by us in a future study in this work. It is not difficult to discern many minor points of support to this theory, and I cannot but think that the Turanian element will become more apparent on further inquiry. For instance, the curious Hyksos-legends on the Tell- Mokdam colossus give us the composite title :— 144 THE HYKSOS. Arch., Vol. V., p. 442. Rev. Arch., p. 231. " The good god, star of the two worlds (or lands) Set Sha(l)ati, Ebers. Hapten, beloved of (Set) lord of Avaris." ' :. ; and Meyer, Set- v ' ■Mo, t ,p. S 6. -^ a y. nQt t j lis « new ffi c i a i title," as M. Deveria calls it, be the familiar eastern designation of a divinity, actually applied to Babylonian kings? Professor Sayce has shown that Naram-Sin, the son and successor of Sargina the first, who boasts of having conquered the Egyptian dependency of the Sinaitic peninsula, Magan (which some believe to be Lower Egypt itself) was deified in his life-time, as was the case with Amar-Agu. 3 The star, then, would be the Chaldaean equivalent title to the usual Egyptian " good god." M. Lenormant has pointed out a striking similarity to the Hyksos heads in a very rude broken statuette of alabaster, found by Mr. Layard at Babylon. 3 It appears to be extremely ancient, and bears some inscriptions contain- ing the name of the god Nebo ; its beard and hair are arranged in the same fashion as those of the Hyksos, with the remarkable difference that the long tresses part behind and come forward, leaving the back of the head (as Mr. Sayce has kindly ascertained for me) with " no pig-tail ; in fact, no hair at all : " a very strange variety of fashion, for which I cannot at present account : the ancient Babylonians being remarkably fond of ample back-hair and strongly- developed " pig-tails," as the seal-cylinders will show. The same ornamental feature appears in the representation of the Kheta king at Medinet Habu, among the prisoners of Rameses III. He wears a long " pig-tail," curled up at the end. The curious little statuettes of metal in the British Museum bearing the name of Gudea, a very ancient viceroy of Zergulla, should be noticed in this connection. They have high cheek-bones, gaunt faces, long peaked beards, SET, THE GOD OF THE HYKSOS. 1 45 and wear pointed head-dresses ornamented with horns on the sides. Mr. Boscawen has described them in an inter- esting paper read to the Society of Biblical Archeology on the 4th of December, 1877. We have treated with some care whatever may throw light on the personal characteristics of the Hyksos. The next great topic is their religion. This is stamped with the image and superscription of their god Set, Sut, or in fuller form, Sutekh, identified with the Ba'al of the Canaanites. With regard to the form, I would compare Saf, Safekh, goddess of learning, figured with a star above her head (an Asiatic deity ?) venerated in very early times at Mem- phis. 1 (Compare Heb. nsD> nBD-) lDe J Rouje ' Six tr \ 1 - I frem. dyn., p. 43. Set was the god of the Hyksos, the especial deity of the Kheta, and under their influence his worship was revived in great splendour by the Pharaohs of the nineteenth ■dynasty. His name was the basis of royal designations during both periods: as in the Set-Nub, and perhaps Asseth (? An- Set, god Set) of the Hyksos, and the Setis of the later time. The history of his cultus is both interesting and difficult, and has been treated by many authors : of whom we may mention the late Vicomte de Rouge, M. Pleyte, and Dr. Ed. Meyer in his recent monograph. The worship of Set dated from the very earliest times in Egypt. As early as the fifth dynasty a temple was dedicated to him at Memphis. 2 His name occurs on the Turin altar-legends of Pepi Merira (sixth dynasty) 3 in a J„£ very interesting way as correlated with Osiris, and having for his goddess Nephthys, as Osiris had Isis : so also " Set in the city of Pa-neham," the place from which (as Dr. Haigh has remarked 4 ) Saneham received his name, viz. the p«' 11 2 Meyer, Set-Typhm, P- 47- 3 Trans. Soc. Bib. I46 THE HYKSOS. modern Ben-ha in the Delta. But still earlier, during the fourth dynasty, M. de Rouge has found abundant traces of 1 De Roug^ six s et > || — -« Hj B aa i i s equivalent to 1 2 A Sutekh, and /ran. dyn., p. 9, etc. J) <=> £r * T ^ U. (1 ^ J), Set, and bears the same determinative sign, of which we shall have something to say. " If we will compare these early documents," writes M. de Rouge, "we shall convince ourselves that the comparative study of the form of the language of ancient Egypt, the sacred traditions of a neighbouring people, and the authentication of one and the same religion, common from the first to certain peoples of Syria and the Delta, all brings us back towards the primitive kindred of Mizraim and Canaan, a kindred which various traits equally indicate to us as between these two races and their Arabian, Libyan, and ^Ethiopian neighbours." To these weighty remarks of the late illustrious Egypto- logist, we must now add a still further extension of the affinity through Syria and Mesopotamia to Chaldaea, and probably Elam. But it is very needful to follow him in his admirable caution and discrimination : still, the affinities between Babylonia and Egypt must now be carried many centuries farther back than the time covered by M. Oppert vRapportsteVEgyptc [ n fa s valuable treatise. 2 et de VAssyrie. Pans, i86 9- M. de Rouge considered that Horus and Set typified respectively the monarchies of Upper and Lower Egypt, like the vulture of the goddess Nekheb, and the uraeus of the goddess Uati, or the bended reed and the bee. As regards the hieroglyphic sign nub (gold) (rsn), it is used equally beneath Horus and Set, and with the former is interpreted by the Rosetta stone as " conqueror of his 3 six pm„. dy,,., enemies." 3 If this be right in the case of Horus, why not also of Set ? Then Set-Nub would be Set the Victor. In the epitaphs of the mothers of the king Khufu THE ANIMAL SYMBOLIC OF SET. H7 plana.!,,! is , verted by Meye Typhon, p. 31. kJ (Cheops) and his successor Khafra (Cephrenes) those royal ladies dignify themselves as "beholding Horus and Set;" which M. de Rouge explains as referring to the Pharaoh in his double monarchy. 1 \ Si TT^' w ' J 45, 58; but tins ex- These evidences clearly establish the joint worship of Osiris (or his son Horus) and Set in these very early times of the fourth dynasty by the builders of the great pyramids. It seems that the san above the horizon was regarded as Horus, but in his nocturnal course as Set ; * thus identified with the power of darkness, the brother and destroyer of Osiris, and himself destroyed by Horus the avenger: the rising sun of the morning slaying the destroyer of his father. If Set was the especial type of the kingdom of Lower Egypt, and god of the hostile Asiatics, he would naturally become identified by the expelled Egyptian refugees and patriots of Upper Egypt with everything evil and oppressive ; and moral evil would be associated with what we call physical evil. This would lead to the hatred and contempt with which after the Hyksos had been driven out, their symbol, the ungainly Set-figure, was chiselled from all the monuments. The origin and meaning of this figure have been very variously explained. In the later times it was represented as an ass ; but nothing could be farther from the first meaning of the solar symbol, which I believe to have been really an eagle-headed lion. Such forms are familiar both in Babylonian and Egyptian sacred art. 3 Among the relics of Egyptian 3Seewiiwnson,^ Eg., Vol. I., p. 226. origin found by Mr. Layard at Arban on the Khabour with archaic Assyrian sculptures, 4 is a scarabaeus with a 4 ay«. and Bat hawk-headed lion seated in the usual attitude of the Su- tekh-animal, with a flying hawk above. May not these be rortheHorus. Horus 1 and Set? The next scarabaeus figured has the the relief & I48 THE HYKSOS. 1 see for the Horus, Horus 1 and Set? The next scar; for instance, the relief of Menkahor: six same hawk-headed lion walking, with the uraeus before it. prem. dy/i., p. 9K. & ' Set and Uati, the god and goddess of Lower Egypt (?) Above the former is inscribed =jg, which reads " lord of two worlds," the usual title of the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt. Is not this equivalent to the =§=- . " star of two worlds," the title of the Hyksos king before given? and have we not possibly in these two scarabaei on the Khabour, memorials of those monarchs ? Among the antiquities found by General di Cesnola in Cyprus is a similar scarabaeus, of which we give a photograph. The horns or ears of the Set-monster may be conven- tional representations of rays of light. The same are found on the black bird (eagle) which is used as a hiero- 2 see Meyer, set- giyphic in the name of the Negroes, 2 1k, and on the ryphon, p. 7. note ; i=> J f fc> ' JjjV 7rlJsr!tL*T™" gryphon of Ba'al 3 which is hawk-headed, the same animal, Bnnsen's Egypt, j think, as that sacred to Mentu, if not the same god also. They quite agree with the head of Set as an eagle's head. This is evidently the case in Pleyte's plate x. fig. 17. More- over, the Set-monster is occasionally represented with wings. 4 On the whole, I think it is an eagle-headed lion. In the Museum of Leyden is a remarkable statuette of 1 Set, having a human figure, seated on a throne. 5 It has the head of the monster (the horns broken off), which seems to have terminated in a beak, but unfortunately it is much injured. We give photographs of this very inter- esting figure, specially taken for this work. A similar e Mariette, Bouiaq, s t a t U e is at Bulak. 6 The Leyden statue is said to be at >. 107. least as old as the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty ; but, if so, surely it would be older. The date of the Bulak porcelain statue is not given. The eagle-headed lion, crested and winged, is identified with Mentu the solar war-god on the blade of the beautiful p- 51 5 Pleyte, pi p. 91. ORIGIN OF THE NAME SET. 149 axe of Ahmes, found with the splendid jewels of queen Aah- hotep, 1 and photographed in Mariette-Bey's Album of the « w«* «»*■• p. 260. Bulak Museum. The same gryphon occurs in the N.W. palace at Nimrud, 2 and in the bronze ornaments of the ■ naw*JWfc.v«* II., p. 459- throne from Nimrud : and has been found sculptured on a rock in Phoenicia, 3 and it figures among the monsters in the 3 Renan, Mission of Deuteronomy (xxxii. 17). From the root tie?, which expresses originally power, and then violence and devastation, is derived the name of the Almighty, ^W, on the one hand, and, on the other, that of the 0*1$, which signifies the mighty ones, the lords ; which became afterwards false gods and daemons like the DyS*? ; thus Gesenius well explains the matter with regard to the word &!$. The root lit?, "HE? agrees won- derfully with the character of Set, the god of power or of devastation." In support of this view we may adduce the name "Shed" 6 Six prem. p. 9. 150 THE HYKSOS. in Assyrian, given to the genii, or demi-gods, who wielded the powers of nature, represented by the winged bulls which guarded the portals, sometimes replaced by winged 1 i.a Magic p. 23. u ons w hj c h symbolized a similar genius. 1 This is indeed both in name and meaning identical with the " Shedim " 2 Deut.xxxii.i 7 ;and <« devils " in our version) of Deuteronomy/ and the plural form well agrees with the local multiplication of the Sutekhs in the treaty of Khita-sar the Hittite king with Rameses II. Indeed it seems likely that these "Shedim" are those very Sets, the d sound being absent from the Egyptian language : " they sacrificed to the Seds (Sets)," (for the article is given in the Hebrew) identical with the Ba'alim. A similar name appears as the god of the east, answering to Martu of the west, among the Chaldseans, 3 Maspero, Hist, a nd called S/iad-u, 3 a solar deity who might well be identi- kit-., p. 152. fied with the conquest of eastern nations in the west, and 4 Lcnormnnt, Man., k e the very god Sed or Set 4 of the Hittites, their tutelary Vol. II., p. 219. J ° genius. It is characteristic of the religion of the Canaanites that human sacrifice should be attributed to the Hyksos in Egypt : and that Ahmes, who expelled those rulers, should 5 pieyte, aw., p. ufi. have the credit of abolishing it. 5 If it be true that the Hyksos burned human victims in the fire, particularly during the dog-days (as Manetho e pieyte, Rci., P s 3 9- says), 6 when the solar god would be especially honoured, the intense hatred of the Egyptians afterwards would be very natural. The author of Psalm cvi. says, that the children of Israel " sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto the Sets" (Shedim), and identifies these with the "idols of Canaan." It is interesting to notice the identification of the colour red throughout with the Canaanite country and worship. REAL CHARACTER OF THE HYKSOS. 15 1 As we have said, the eastern land was called " the red " by the Egyptians, the crown of the lower kingdom was red, and so called ; the Set-animal was of red hue, red animals and red-haired men were devoted to Set as victims. We may compare the connection of the colour with Phoenicia, and with Edom. And now we will endeavour to estimate roughly the extent and nature of the influence exercised by the Hyksos in Egypt. First, we must set off from the notion of sudden and violent change the gradual rising of the tide from the east in the Delta. Dr. Ebers does not hesitate to say : ' "at the end of the thirteenth dynasty the Delta swarmed with foreigners. . . . The fourteenth dynasty is already thrust out of all Lower Egypt ; Memphis falls into the hands of the intruders, and the proper Hyksos period begins." Some such inference we might surely draw from the admission of Manetho himself, that the conquerors won the land easily and without fighting. Whatever cruelty or destruc- tion may be laid to their charge by Egyptian chroniclers, we must take into account the evidence of the monuments which remain. " The Shepherds possessed themselves of Egypt by violence," writes Mariette-Bey, "but the civili- zation which they immediately adopted on their conquest was rather Egyptian than Asiatic, and the discoveries of Avaris (San) prove that they did not even banish from their temples the gods of the ancient Egyptian pantheon." : In fact the first shepherd-king, Salatis himself, employed an Egyptian artist to inscribe (as we have seen) his title in Egyptian style on the statue of a former legitimate Pharaoh. " They did not disturb the civilization more than the Persians or the Greeks, but simply accepted the higher Rev. Arch., p. 337. 152 THE HYKSOS. i Rede Lecture, p. 24. 3 Les prem. Civ., Vol. II., p. gsjetsegq.; and Chabas, Etudes, p. 427. et seqg. one they had conquered." So our revered scholar Dr. Birch has summed up the matter ; ' and Prof. Maspero has very happily described it thus : ' " The popular hatred loaded them with ignominious epithets, and treated them as ac- cursed, plague-stricken, leprous. Yet they allowed them- selves very quickly to be domesticated. If they held a higher rank in military and political status, they felt them- selves lower than their subjects in moral and intellectual culture. Their kings soon found it more profitable to cultivate than to plunder the country, and, as none of the invaders, in the perplexity of finance, knew where he was, he must needs employ Egyptian scribes in the service of the treasury and administration. Once admitted to the school of Egypt, the barbarians progressed quickly in the civilized life. The Pharaonic court reappeared around these Shepherd-kings with all its pomp and all its following of functionaries great and small. The royal style and title of Cheops and the Amenemhas were fitted to the out- landish names of Jannes and Apapi. The Egyptian religion, without being officially adopted, was tolerated, and the religion of the Canaanites underwent some modi- fications to avoid hurting beyond measure the susceptibility of the worshippers of Osiris." Let us recall the invaluable earlier story of the Amu court-officer Saneha on the one hand, and the parallel later biography of Joseph on the other ; and we can well understand the fusion of elements in the Egypt of the Hyksos. It is curious to find among the imports of the Hyksos into Egypt, according to M. Lenormant, 3 the noblest and the basest of domesticated animals. The horse, unknown before, is first mentioned by implication in the time of Ahmes, the first Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, who expelled the Hyksos, and who drove his royal war-chariot; : Gen. xlvii. 17; ]. 9. THE HORSE, PIG, AND CAMEL, IN EGYPT. 1 53 from which it is naturally inferred that the horse, which came from the east, had been introduced before the war of liberation. The same thing is clear from Scripture if Apapi was the master of Joseph. 1 The humbler animal is the pig, which was unclean among orthodox Egyptians, but appeared in the train of the barbarians, and was afterwards restricted to Lower Egypt. It was viewed as an adherent of Sutekh, who is even symbolized in an Egyptian wall-picture as a vermilion- coloured pig. The animal brought his name with him, in Egyptian JyftT jj^ Q \ ^> shaau, which in English we spell sow. On the other hand the domestication of some beautiful species of gazelles and antelopes, formerly herded with the sheep and goats, ceased from the land. The coincidence of holy Scripture with the evidence of the monuments is to be observed. No horses are men- tioned in Abraham's time, but they were common when Joseph was in office. On the other hand asses, given to Abram, were extremely numerous even when the pyramids of Gizeh were built. The subject of the camel in Egypt has been treated with his usual ability by M. Chabas. 2 Although unknown as far as graphic representation is concerned, it is mentioned in several most interesting texts of the nineteenth dynasty, when it was well known : and the gift of camels to Abram would in all probability be natural to the Shepherd-kings. Professor Owen remarks 3 that " if the miraculous incidents , 3 7 ~ of Anthr °p- Inst., p. 253. 1874. of the narrative did not exclude it from use in the quest of scientific truth, the incidental notice of ' camels ' among the gifts to Abraham by the Pharaoh whom he deceived, significantly indicates the date and other conditions of the incident (Gen. xii. 16), and consequently the earliest period of Egyptian history to which it can be referred, viz., after 2 lilndes, p. seqq. Motis.i pp. 261, 264. p. 272. :54 THE HYKSOS. the introduction into Egypt of that Asiatic ruminant by the nomad invaders." It is characteristic of early times that silver is mentioned before gold among Abram's possessions, for it was very much more rare in Egypt, and was known as " white gold." I do not know what, is the earliest date of any silver vessel or ornament preserved in the Museums, but among the celebrated jewels of queen Aah-hotep at Bulak (of the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty) are several beautiful T" c £ works in silver ; ' and Prof. Ebers mentions a diadem, wrought of gold and silver, of one of the several Pharaohs named Entef of the eleventh dynasty, long before the time 4r.«.«cff.jfi>«*, Q f Abraham, 2 which is in the Museum of Leyden. The subject of marriage in Egypt has been treated by Prof. Ebers. The wife held a very honourable place in the oldest times, as the monuments clearly show. This agrees well with the Pharaoh's view of the matter, which, indeed, was quite as characteristic of the old Turanian people of Chaldaea, and also guided the conduct of Abimelech king of Gerar. Abram's unworthy misgiving equally beset him when about to visit this latter potentate, and does not therefore bear any especial relation to Egypt, whether under native sovereigns or conquerors. In a letter which I have received from M. Chabas, 3 that eminent Egyptologist thus writes : " In my opinion no hieroglyphic record can be surely referred to Abraham's times. The peaceful visit of a family of thirty-seven Amou in the reign of an Amenemha only shows that Asiatic tribes could find in Egypt a favourable reception at this time. " It is, moreover, very likely that the Egyptian officer who introduced them had prevailed upon them for that visit to the Nile-countries, in the hope to obtain the favour of the Pharaoh by this unwonted exhibition. Saneha also 3 Dated Chalons, s.S, April 1, 1877. The Ln-libh. PROBABLE DATE OF ABRAM S VISIT. 1 55 seems to have been a native Amou, as was Joseph, and, like him, became a high officer of the king. But the pre- sents made to Abraham by Pharaoh on account of Sara'i (Genesis xii. 16), are not such as might be expected from a prince adorning with gold and lapis-lazuli the walls of his palace. The respect for marriage-ties evinced by the king of Egypt belongs to the usual rule of morals of the Egyptians, and does not belong to any particular period." These lately expressed opinions, so kindly communi- cated in reply to questions on my part, appear fully accordant with the conclusion formerly expressed by M. Chabas, as quoted by the Rev. S. C. Malan :' " Chabas,' a *£* or Tr "<"' very safe and equally able and learned Egyptian scholar, *Ji™ • f* h -< XVe - places Abraham under the Hyksos, about B.C. 1900, con- cluding from the similarity of manners at the court of Abimelech and at that of Pharaoh, that the two kings were of the same race." A light is thrown on Abram's dread, however, by a Ber- lin papyrus, which records the seizure of the wife and chil- dren of a foreigner by a king of the twelfth dynasty. The bearing of this text on our subject has been shown by M. Chabas. 3 ^J- *2S The word used in Genesis xii. for the officers of Pharaoh's ^'"•■ VoII -p^. court, is the correct Egyptian title (Sar), which is in fact common to the Turanian and Semitic Babylonian, Egypt- ian, and Hebrew languages. But in Babylonia it was the titfe of the sovereign himself, and not even of his viceroys, whereas in Egypt the same word was applied to subordi- nate functionaries, such as those who spoke of Sara'i to the Pharaoh. Thus, for instance, Una, the distinguished officer of Pepi-Merira, whose achievements in Southern Palestine we have before recounted, after detailing the ranks and 2 Vocab., p. 434. 56 THE HYKSOS. honours bestowed upon him, boasts that he had satisfied De Roup-, six t ^ e heart of his lord more than any " Sar " besides. 1 in. dyn., p. 119. * The royal title of the " Pharaoh " is thus explained by M. Pierret. 2 "Just as the Turks say 'the Porte' (gate) for the court of the Sultan, the Egyptians, instead of speaking of the king, said 'the Palace,' the great dwell- ing* £ii!> per-aa, whence the Hebrew n'jris," etc. Thus in English we say, " the court," meaning the judge. The inscriptions mentioned and elucidated by M. de Rouge in his work on the six first dynasties, show in an interesting way the transition from the literal sense to the royal title. Thus an officer speaks of having been put by Menkaura (Mycerinus) among the royal children in the palace (pcr-aa) of the king. 3 But by the time of the eleventh king of the same fourth dynasty (Sahura) the word appears to have been used in the sense of the familiar title Pharaoh. 4 With that absolute candour which marks the word of God, the mutual behaviour of Abram and the Pharaoh is set before us. In all points the Pharaoh dealt honourably. Touched by the hand of Jehovah, to save himself no less than Sarai" and Abram, he did not turn in revenge when he knew the truth ; he did not even in word offend ; but he remonstrated as an injured man who knew how to rule his own spirit, and " commanded his men concerning him ; and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had." The Abram of Scripture is certainly no ideal he*ro. Whatever good we might have gained by contemplating the picture of a faultless saint we must be content to forego. Far higher lessons were in store for the children of faithful Abraham. But doubtless he had learned great things in Egypt. It CONTRAST OF ABRAM'S FAITH WITH RELIGION OF EGYPT. 1 57 was not Egypt with all its wisdom, refinement, luxury and art that should inherit the blessing. Egypt, like Chaldaea, was corrupting her way. Those only who have tried to penetrate the labyrinth of her religion can appreciate the " sweetness and light," the " liberty of the glory," in which Abraham " walked with God." Gladly with him we turn our back on goodly Goshen, pass out through the garrisoned gateway of the long sentinelled eastern wall, plod the weary waste, rise to the breezy uplands, rear the unhewn altar, and " call on the name of Jehovah." Egypt was on the downward way, multiplying idols and drifting away from the living God. But in the person and house of Abram the great reformation was being brought to pass. All was onward and upward, through many a sorrow, but towards the light. Saving, strengthening, cleansing faith was the heart of Abram's religion, and he would add to it nothing of all the philosophy or ceremonial of dazzling Egypt. " Abram believed Jehovah, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." 158 IX. Back to Canaan. 2 Nineteenth dyn., P- 97- 3 Pierret, Voc. Hier., p. 287. ND Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south." ' M. Chabas has remarked that the expressions " to go up " to Palestine, " to go down into Egypt," were just as much in use among the Egyptians as in the mouths of the Hebrews. 2 He cites passages from the papyri. For instance, Seti I., when he set out to attack Kodesh and the land of Amaor, made an ascent ; and in papyrus Sallier I. the officer must " go up into Syria," and in the very in- teresting despatches of papyrus Anastasi III., the ex- pression repeatedly used is that this and that officer is " gone up." " The South " is, as we have said in our last study, the proper name of the region between the hill-country of Judah and the desert. It is the " Negeb," 3J3, and this very name occurs (Nekeb 3 ) in records of the conquests of Thothmes III., and later times among the Egyptian annals. Here also is a little touch of truth in the progress of the family, as one after another rises up to man's estate in the separate responsibility of his position. When the clan left Ur, " Terakh took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai' his daughter in law, his son PROPERTY OF ABRAM. 1 59 Abram's wife." When they left Kharran, after Terakh's death, 1 "Abram departed, and Lot with him And Abram took Sarai' his wife, and Lot his brother's son." In going down to Egypt Abram alone is mentioned. But while there Lot must have grown into separate importance, and doubtless the generous Abram had cared for this, for after " all that Abram had," is mentioned " Lot with him ;" and soon after came the need of dividing their encamp- ments and parting company. " Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." Long before this the Egyptian nobles took great pride in the rearing of cattle, and in tombs of the fourth dynasty these are beautifully depicted. There is, for instance, a servant taking away a calf on his back ; the mother-cow stretching out its neck and showing affectionate regret in a most natural way. There are also grand specimens of kine like " prize cattle," both long-horns and short-horns, and some with no horns at all, and the landlord is taking account of his stock with great pride. Their colours varied : the most valued being black and tan, next white, and lastly red, like the fine cattle of Devon. 2 We may be quite sure that no poor specimens were given by the Pharaoh to his friend. We have spoken of gold and silver. When Abram was in Egypt gold was abundantly used, not only solid, molten, and graven, and in rings for currency, but beaten into thin plates for overlaying bronze, silver, wood, and stone ; and in the time of Usertesen I., fine gold leaf was already employed. 3 In tombs of this age at Beni-Hassan, the whole process of working gold is represented, up to the manufacture of beautiful ornaments. How exquisitely wrought and artistic these could be by the end of the Hyksos period, many 1 Osburn, Mon. Hist, of Eg., Vol. I., p. 456. 3 Wilkinson, Pop, Ace, Vol. II., p. 145- i Scripture Lands, p. 6. Second Edition. 1 60 BACK TO CANAAN. thousands of English eyes might see when the splendid jewels of queen Aah-hotep were displayed in a gallery of the great Exhibition of 1862. Of silver we have before treated. So when Abram again passed across the eastern Nile- streams, and out through the guarded gates into the " land of Khetam," and the sandy wastes of the Shasu-folk, he was a far more mighty man in the eyes of the world than when he had come down into Egypt. In his excellent book entitled Scripture Lauds, the Rev. G. S. Drew has described the scenery in its relation to the patriarchal character and destinies. If, as we may well suppose, the return took place in spring time, this descrip- tion would picture to us what Abram saw in coming back to his old ground. 1 " Now (at Beersheba) we came in view, north and north-east, of the hills of Judaea ; and as we went on our way there was the richest profusion of field flowers I ever beheld. Imagine the Sussex Downs en- closed on all sides by gently-rising embankments, and cover them with flowers of golden and purple, and, above all, of scarlet hues, and you have the plain of Beersheba as I saw it. Flocks of sheep and goats, of camels and asses, were browsing everywhere, but we saw no oxen Through a long winding pass, singularly beautiful with its living green, we came to Dhoheriyeh, beyond which we were in the hill-country of Judaea. Naked grey rocks, swelling and rounded in their outlines, and here and there covered with rich verdure by the terrace cultivation, gar- dens, vineyards, and frequent walls, surrounded us every- where, while we were still some distance from Hebron. . . . I shall never forget the glaring grey of the landscape just before (at 11 a.m.) we rode up the hill, whence we had our first view of the old city, April 15th. For a few SCENERY OF "THE SOUTH." l6l weeks late in spring-time a smiling aspect is thrown over the broad downs, when the ground is reddened with the anemone, in contrast with the soft white of the daisy, and the deep yellow of the tulip and marigold. But this flush of beauty soon passes, and the permanent aspect of the country is not wild indeed, or hideous, or frightfully de- solate, but, as we may say, austerely plain ; a tame un- pleasing aspect, not causing absolute discomfort while one is in it, but left without one lingering reminiscence of anything lovely, or awful, or sublime." But Abram did not linger here ; " he went on his journeys," that is, " by his stations," " from verdant stage to stage," as the poet Thomson well expresses it, " from the south (Negeb) even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai ; unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first. And there Abram called on the name of Jehovah." The name Khaai occurs in the list of Karnak (t. Thothmes III.) and probably indicates the same place. 1 We have before given a description of the scene. Surely Abram must have heartily rejoiced to reach the place of the altar once more, in the holy promised land ; to breathe the high pure air of the mountains in freedom, and to inhale the clearer spiritual atmosphere, rebuild his altar, lay his sacrifice, kindle the sacred flame, smell the sweet savour ascending, and raise on high the most holy Name with fresh devotion. We have not read or the altar and the Name of Jehovah in Egypt. Not that Abram would return to the abomination of idolatry : but we may reasonably think it fared not so well there with his soul's health. Doubtless Dean Stanley is right in saying that Egypt represented to him what we call " the world." ' And Abram had shaken off its dust from his feet, and 12 Mariette, Listes, 2 SeTtnotis East, p. 2. 1 62 BACK TO CANAAN. returned to "a closer walk with God." This is most sig- nificantly shown by what followed. ■ His nephew Lot was by this time a great patriarchal chief, with flocks, and herds, and tents ; and in one respect perhaps Abram might have envied him, for he had with him, not his wife only, but his daughters too. " The land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together ; and there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle, and the herdmen of Lot's cattle ; and," it is signi- ficantly added, " the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land." They dwelled, but Abram and Lot only sojourned in their wide-scattered encampments. It was most unseemly that this strife should arise before the heathen. Now Abram's noble character shines out. He was the head ; yea, the whole land was given to him by the promise. But in his magnanimity he "said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee .... for we be brethren. Is not the zvhole land before thee?" Thus he gave his nephew the full choice. " And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain (circle) of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar." Dean Stanley, with a few firm touches, has sketched the panorama from Abram's tent. " To the east there rises in the foreground the jagged range of the hills above Jericho : in the distance the dark wall of Moab ; between them lies the wide valley of the Jordan, its course marked by the tract of forest in which its rushing stream is enveloped ; and down to this valley a long and deep ravine, now, as always, the main line of communication by which it is approached from the central hills of Palestine, a ravine rich with vine, olive, and fig, winding its way To the i Sinai and Pal., p. 218. Fifth edition ; and see a very beauti- ful view by David Roberts. 2 Smith, Die. of Bi/<. • Salt Sea." lot's choice. 163 south and the west the view commanded the bleak hills of Judaea, varied by the heights crowned by what were after- wards the cities of Benjamin, and overhanging what in a later day was to be Jerusalem, and in the far distance the southern range on whose slope is Hebron. Northward are the hills which divide Judaea from the rich plains of Samaria." 1 But woe to Lot ! for what he cared to behold was that low valley of the Jordan, widening into its " circle " of deep-lying green irrigated country, where the rushing river loses itself in the Salt Sea, 1300 feet below the Medi- terranean, finding not an outlet, but ever steaming up in that hot depth to heaven, and still bearing the name of the misguided patriarch, " Bahr Lut." " The name of Lot is also connected," says Mr. Grove, 2 " with a small piece of land, sometimes island, sometimes peninsula, at the north end of the lake." "Like the land of Egypt:" this would be a thought of no good omen to Abram, but " Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan ; and Lot journeyed east : and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before Jehovah ex- ceedingly." So for the present we lose sight of Lot. It must have been a sad parting; but when he had gone his way, Jehovah again spake to His faithful servant : " Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward : for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth : so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, 12* [64 BACK TO CANAAN. then shall thy seed be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee." We may be sure that this was a great crisis in the life of Abram ; and in his noble and unworldly conduct we must " glorify the grace of God." It is likely that up to this time he had viewed Lot, his departed brother's son, as his heir. The first promise : " I will make thee a great nation," may have been regarded as consistent with this. But now Lot was gone ; and at this very time the blank was filled by the direct promise of " seed as the dust of the earth;" and the command to survey the land of their inherit- ance. Abram keeps to the uplands, and retraces his steps along the mountain range southward to the "oaks" (not plain) of Mamre, a chief of the Amorites who became his trusty ally, in the near neighbourhood of Hebron. The place was always held in honour, and for ages a venerable tree was preserved, and even worshipped. " About two miles north of Hebron, just after quitting the garden-like vale of Eshcol, with its fair terraced vine- yards and olive-trees," writes Canon Tristram, 1 " we turned a little to the east to visit Rameh, the ancient Mamre, now left without a tree, save one or two decrepit old olives, and for the most part a heap of undistinguishable ruins, scattered among the barley-fields. There is one exception, in the basement of the magnificent Basilica erected by Con- stantine on the spot where Abraham's oak once stood, and which had become an object of idolatrous worship In one corner of the building is an ancient drop-well, carefully lined with hard limestone, and still containing water ; probably far older than the church, and perhaps reaching back to the time of Abraham. What memories does this bleak desolate spot recall, from the days when the Land of Israel, RAMEH, THE ANCIENT MAMRE. 165 father of the faithful sat there in his tent-door, looking out, not on bare stony fields, but on green glades beneath the ancient terebinths." And it is duly recorded that when Abram " removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the oak-grove of Mamre, which is in Khebron," he " built there an altar unto Jehovah." 1 66 X. El am. |NLY in two places in the Pentateuch does the name Elam occur. Then it drops into forgetfulness for some twelve centuries, to emerge again in the latest his- torical books and in the prophets. Half a millennium later there are Elamites in the upper chamber on the day of Pentecost. This word is the key to one of the most curious " resti- tutions of decayed intelligence " ever known in the world of literature. In the book of Genesis we find Elam entered in the great, record of races as the first-born of Shem. Next comes Assur. Not a word more of Elam until twice in the fourteenth chapter we find the same title given to Kedor-la'omer, " king of Elam." Now although the name of Amraphel (^SfiEN) king of Shinar is first mentioned in specifying the " days " in which the conquest took place, we soon find that the king of Elam must have been his over-lord ; for the subjugated kings " served " Kedor-la'omer, and it was he, " and the kings that were with him," that undertook to reduce them to submission when they revolted. These things were very surprising and perplexing to thoughtful Bible-readers till very lately. Now they are furnishing one of the most striking SCENERY OF ANCIENT ELAM. 1 67 confirmations of our faith in the historical record which the wit of man could possibly imagine. For this pristine Elam is "rising up," with its kindred nation the old Turanian Chaldsea, as if to show that in God's providence there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed when the set day is come. It is but a rough patch-work, perhaps, that we can put together at the best to represent this old forgotten Elam. But, such as it is, an honest mind will view it with wonder and delight, and long for the time when much new material will help us, or our children, to a more perfect result. Beyond the Tigris in its lower course, to the east lies the country which was Elam, the name Elamu being " but a translation of the old Accadian name of Susiana, Numma, a word connected with the Vogul unman, " high." x This ' Sa * ' _ O Bib. si region was " chiefly composed of the broad and rich flats p ' 46a intervening between the mountains and the Tigris, along the courses of the Kerkhah, Kuran, and Jerhi rivers : " 2 but including a part of the highland country of which a very interesting account is given by Mr. Loftus. 3 "The great range . . . attains an elevation of eight or ten thou- sand feet above the sea, and bears in a general direction towards the north west. Its rocky masses belong entirely to the cretaceous and lower tertiary series, rising in huge, elongated saddles of compact altered limestone parallel to each other. At intervals, where the elevating force, which produced the present configuration of this region, has acted with extreme intensity, the continuity of the beds became broken, and masses of rock were left standing isolated with precipitous escarpments, presenting retreats accessible only to the savage inhabitants. 'Diz' is the name applied to natural fortresses of this kind, which fre- quently bear on their summits acres of rich grass, and Bib. .in,':.. 2 Rawlinson, Mon., p. 26. 3 Chald. and Sus., '. 308. 1 68 ELAM. springs of delicious water, whither a native chief with his adherents can retire in safety in times of need, and defend their difficult passes with a handful of men against the whole power of the Persian government itself. " Superimposed on the harder limestone rocks are beds of a softer nature, marls, rivalling the coloured sands of our own Isle of Wight in their brilliant and variegated aspect : vast piles of amorphous gypsum dazzling the eye with its excessive whiteness, and successive layers of red sands alternating with gravel. These formations follow the contortions of the harder crystalline limestones, lie at extraordinary angles on the slopes of the saddles, and fill up the hot, feverish valleys between them. Wherever the highlands of Persia are approached from the plains of Mesopotamia, the same formidable barrier of mountains presents itself. To attain the high level of the garden of roses, which the Persian poet loves to descant on, it is necessary to climb the successive ridges by roads scarcely better than goat tracks, which regular gradation of ascents is appropriately described by the Greek historians as «\tyu,a«:e?, or ladders. All the great rivers, which flow from the east into the Tigris, have their sources in these mountains, cross- ing diagonally through the intricacies of the chain. Instead of flowing in a south-east direction along the trough which separates two parallel limestone saddles, and by this means working out its channel in the soft rocks of the gypsiferous and marly series, and rounding the extremity of the saddle where it dips under the overlying deposits, each of these rivers takes a direction at right angles to its former course, and passes directly through the limestone range by means of a ' tang,' or gorge, apparently formed for this express purpose. On reaching the next succeeding gypsum trough, it follows its original south-east course for a short distance, SITE OF SUSA. 169 and again crosses the next chain in the same manner, until it attains the verdant plains of Assyria or Susiana. Many of these tangs expose a perpendicular section of one thousand feet and upwards, and were formed, not by the scooping process which attends river action, but by natural rents produced by the tension of the crystalline mass at the period of its elevation." We may easily imagine how this grand defensible high- land would nurture a formidable race who, cultivating their own varied country, and having every variety of resource at their command, would hang like birds of prey above the wealthy warm plains across the Tigris, ever ready to pounce. It was in fact from these eastern ranges that the Akkadians had descended, taking with them their traditions and a memory loyal to the high places where the heavens rested on the pillars of the earth. It was on the mountains of Nizir, some three hundred and fifty miles, as it seems, to the north-west of Susa, that the ark rested, according to the Chaldsean tradition. 1 It was somewhere in the sequestered strongholds of these mountains of Elam, that Izdubar in his valour sought out and slew the dreaded tyrant Khumbaba (whose name proclaims him an Elamite, or Susian proper) in his forest of pines and cedars. 2 This old-world story in itself stamps the dread with which the early men of Erech looked towards those mountains of the rising sun. The capital, from the earliest times, was Susa, on an open gravel plain about thirty miles from the mountains, to which her rulers would retire from the fierce heat of summer. This plain was amply watered and of luxuriant fertility. "Nowhere have I seen," says Mr. Loftus, "such rich vegetation as that which clothes the verdant plains of Shush, interspersed with numerous plants of a sweet-scented and delicate iris." 3 The great mound 3 a* etc., P . 346. G. Smith, Assyr. Disc, p. 2 Cluxld. Genesis, pp. 85, 215, 259. 170 ELAM. of the citadel rises one hundred and twenty feet above the stream of the Shapur, which runs close to it on the west, with the " tomb of Daniel " .on the bank between ; and on the eastward was the ancient course of the Eulseus, the "river Ulai'" of Scripture, the bed of which is now for- saken and overgrown with rank vegetation. " The numerous remains of irrigating canals with high embankments which diverge from it on either side, proved it to have been a main artery. The Arabs of the locality call it ' Shat- 1 chaid., etc, P . 424. ati'k,' or ancient river." 1 It was the eastern branch of the river Choaspes (Kerkhah), whose waters have always been renowned for their purity. "It is difficult to conceive," says the same excellent writer, "a more imposing site than Susa. ... Its great citadel and buildings raising their heads above groves of date, konar, and lemon trees, surrounded by rich pastures and golden seas of corn ; and backed by the distant snow- clad mountains. Neither Babylon nor Persepolis could compare with Susa in position, watered by her noble rivers, producing crops without irrigation, clothed with grass in spring, and within a moderate journey of a 2 chaid., etc., P . 347. delightful summer clime." 2 Shush is some twenty miles south of the latitude of Babylon. Its neighbourhood is infested by lions and wild boars, whose trails intersect the low jungle ; also " wolves, lynxes, foxes, jackals, porcupines, francolin, and a small 3 chaid., etc., p. 346. species of red-legged partridge." 3 The explorations of Mr. Loftus in the huge mounds laid open the remains of magnificent buildings of the Persian period, including the stately palace described in the book of Esther. But we are only entitled in this place to notice the more ancient objects discovered in the citadel. " There is every probability," he says, " that some of the RACES OF ELAM. 1 71 brick inscriptions extend as far back as the period of the patriarch Abraham." ' M. Lenormant mentions a still J CAaia - etc - p - * 14 - more primitive relic : " The Anarian cuneiform writing, as science has now proved, was originally hieroglyphic, that is, composed of pictures of material objects ; and these forms can in some cases be reconstructed. An inscription entirely written in these hieroglyphics exists at Susa, as is positively known ; but it has not yet been copied, and is therefore unfortunately not available for study." ° p.^T'""'' V °'' *" In truth this region was the seat of a civilization of the most ancient date, while in the back-ground rose the old Turanian Media, stretching away towards the Caspian where a kindred, but not identical, language was spoken. There were in Elam very various races living side by side for ages, whose contrasted types of visage may be easily discriminated in the Assyrian sculptures. And it has in like manner been noticed by Professor Oppert, 3 that voiix d , v ° J " uf in the Khorsabad inscription of Sargon, "nearly all the names of the Elamite towns are Semitic (see Gen. x. 22), but the Susian ones are not." The race of the sons of Shem bear the physiognomy which marks their kindred through the world. The keen and refined features are set off to great advantage by the blunt outline and thick pro- truding lips, which have been identified with the Kissians or Cossaeans of classic authors, Kassi of the monuments, the sons of Cush of the Bible. 4 This race of the Kassi ^^X P .^ came to the front under their king Khammuragas, and became masters of Babylonia, as we shall narrate. It is important to distinguish them from the Turanian Elamites whom M. Lenormant knows as " the Susians properly so called." This may partly be done by marking the variations 5 La Magu, P . ^. 6 Trans. Soc. Bib. of the language, as M. Lenormant 5 and Prof. Sayce have ^/r.,voi.iii. >P ..»66. 172 ELAM. shown, but most strongly in the names of their gods, of which M. Lenormant gives as Kassian the following : Kit, Khali, Murbat or Kharbat, Sibarru, Dunyas, Buryas, Sikhu, Sumu. None of these are found among the Susians, but the following : " At the summit of the divine hierarchy Susinka (meaning ' the Susian ') the national god of Susa, and Nakhkhunte, a goddess who (they tell us) had in this town her image, unseen by the profane, in the depth of a sacred wood. The goddess Nakhkhunte seems to be the same whom they identified with the Nana of Chaldaea, after the conquest of the famous statue taken away from Erech (which we shall refer to hereafter), an episode which has left traces in some mythological legends much later. .... Below these two personages come six gods whom Assurbanipal notes as of the first rank, and who appear to have been grouped in two triads, corresponding, per- haps, with the two superior triads of the Chaldseo-Baby- lonian religion : Sumud, Lagamar, and Partikira ; Umman or Amman, who seems to have been a solar god, Uduran, probably lunar, and Sapak. Finally, the annals of Assur- banipal mention twelve gods and goddesses of minor importance, whose images were also taken away in the sack of Susa ; Ragiba, Sungamsara, Karsa, Kirsamas, Sudun, Aipaksina, Bilala, Panidimri, Silagara, Napsa, Nabirtu, and Kindakarbu. We should also add Laguda, whose worship was established at Kisik in Chaldaea, and a god whose name, rendered by Khumba in the Assyrian transcriptions, is Khumbume in the original Susian documents." Now this information is of especial importance to our purpose. For instance, the last name, Khumba, stamps the old potentate Khumba-ba, whom Izdubar slew in his forest, as a true Susian, and marks the ancient date of the god. DIALECTS OF ELAM. Nakhkhunte and Lagamar figure in a notable way in our history. On the other hand some of the Kassite gods, as Kit, Dunyas, Buryas, appear in the composition of names in Chaldasa, which we must therefore mark accordingly as Kassite. 1 On the other hand M. Lenormant distinguishes carefully between the Susian language and the more northern old Turanian tongue of Media, called proto-Medic to dis- tinguish it from the Aryan of a later date. These subjects have been treated in a masterly way by Professors Lenormant and Sayce in the now celebrated work La Magie, and a paper in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archceology, from which we are quoting ; and we must refer the student to these high authorities ; contenting ourselves with drawing in strong outline the main features. The truth is, that from the very oldest times we cannot isolate the history of Babylonia, or Chaldsea, or Assyria. The mountaineers of Elam, of Media, of Armenia, of Syria, are always on the alert, and even the plains them- selves are perpetually heaving with the fluctuating tumult of the rival races of the sons of men. But this is not all. If the historian had a stronger telescope, or the power of clairvoyance, he would discern in the still further distance forces on the outskirts of the great field operating with no less effect although so remote. For instance, we have taken no account of the great Aryan races, whose ever progressive power was destined to mastery over all others. Yet students of ethnology are telling us, that even about the very period of our survey, vast movements were finding place which could not have been without their influence on the westward current of conquest and migration. " The Dravidian race formerly occupied the whole of 173 1 See the dynastic lists in G. Smith's His- tory 0/ Babylonia, and at the end of Menant's Bab. el la Chaldee. 174 ELAM. India, from the Himalayas to cape Comorin, and along the Indus as far as Beloochistan. Driven back by the immigra- tion of the Aryans, it had been obliged to withdraw little by little till near the southern part of the Indian peninsula, and to-day it is circumscribed on the plateau of the Deccan. The proof that this race was really extended to the north and northwest, is found in the single fact that a people of Dravidian race, the Brahuis, occupy even now Beloochistan, and its occupation of this country can only be explained on our supposition. " The commencement of the migration of the Dravidian race agrees with the arrival of the Aryans in the Punjab: that is to say, that it took place about the year 2000 before zA^gMralnr J es g ChHst." ' les Migrations dcs J Sr'c Vde'ujTaiv^ A very ancient tradition seems to have borne witness to the oppression of Babylonia by the Elamites under Khum- baba, after whose death at the hands of the hero Izdubar, that mighty conqueror, identified conjecturally by Mr. George Smith with Nimrod, became over-lord of all the principalities as far as the Armenian mountains. Izdubar appears to have been of the dark race of Cush, like the Nimrod of Genesis. His thick and clustered hair in snaky twists was quite a traditional mark of this hero in the seal- cylinders and sculptures. It is worth notice that Attila the Hun, in the fifth century, * designated himself " Descendant of the great Nimrod, 2 .... king of the Huns, the Goths, the Danes, and the Medes. Herbert (author of ' Attila,' a poem) states that Attila is represented on an old medallion with a Teraphim, or a head, on his breast, and the same writer adds : ' we know from the Hamartigenea of Prudentius, that Nimrod with a snaky-haired head was the object of adoration to the heretical followers of Marcion ; and the same head was the Paris, 1874. iHist.Bab.,Vo\.ll.\ Assyr. Disc, pp. 225, 232; Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. IV., p. 132, ELAM AND BABYLONIA. 1 75 palladium set up by Antiochus Epiphanes over the gates of Antioch, though it has been called the visage of Charon. The memory of Nimrod was certainly regarded with mystic veneration by many ; and by asserting himself to be the heir of that mighty hunter before the Lord, he vindicated to himself at least the whole Babylonian kingdom.' " It is interesting to trace this appalling head through its Gor- gonian development, so far down the ages, from the most ancient Babylonian gems. The early kings whose names are recorded in the frag- mentary inscription of Agu-kak-rimi, brought home by Mr. G. Smith, were rulers of Babylonia but of Cassite race, that is of the Cushite race of Elam, and form in that author's History of Babylonia the first Cassite dynasty. 1 The overshadowing influence of Elam on Babylonia is curiously marked in the old astrological tablets of Sargina the first, so ably explained by Professor Sayce, who thus traces the origin of those massive stage-pyramids of the Chaldtean plains : — " The Accadai, or ' Highlanders,' who had founded their creed in the mountains of Elam, believed that the gods only came down to the highest parts of the earth; and therefore raised artificial eminences, like the Tower of Babel, for their worship in the plains of Baby- lonia. 2 These towers would have been admirably adapted for observing the heavens, and their sacred character would have harmonized with the astro-theology of Chaldaea." An Elamite is among the astronomers who report to the king, under whose Semitic rule it is natural to find that the pros- perity of Elam signifies evil to Akkad ; 3 and we see Sargina ravaging the country of Elam under the propitious omen of a suitable moon. 4 And now we approach the most important points of the fragmentary story of Elam. In the annals of Assurbanipal Arch., Vol. I., p. 49. Ij6 ELAM. king of Assyria, son of Esar-haddon (B.C. 668-626), he records that when he conquered Elam and took the city of Susa, B.C. 645, he brought back an image of Nana which Kudur-Nankhundi (or Kudur Nakhkhunte) had taken away on his overrunning Babylonia 1635 years before ; that 1 Asvr. Disc, p. 223. j s - m ^e year B.C. 2280. 1 This gives us an invaluable date some three centuries before the time of the king of Elam mentioned in Genesis xiv., thus (as Mr. G. Smith remarks) "confirming the statement of Genesis, that there was an early conquest of Babylonia by the Elamites." " He laid his hands on the temples of Akkad, and oppressed Akkad." voiwT,r^ Pas '' M. Oppert deduces the same date in a different manner 5 in confirmation of this result. Let us not forget that the only hint of this dominant early power in the world till very lately was the title, " king of Elam," given to Kedor-la'omer in the Biblical sketch of his campaigns. Now, however, was found a name of even earlier date, of which the former element Kudur was manifestly identical with Kedor (1*13) and the latter is now known to be the name of a goddess of the Elamites ; whilst it is equally 3 Assyr. Disc, P . 3S3- manifest from the same Assyrian annals that Lagamar 3 was a god of the same people. Thus the conquest of Babylonia by a king of Elam agrees with Scripture, but not the date, nor the latter half of the name, nor the extended warfare in Palestine. We must seek further than Kudur-Nakhkhunte. Now, however, from a totally different quarter we are enabled to reconstruct almost (perhaps quite) the whole, independently of the Bible : for in southern Chaldaea have been found some original inscriptions of a later Elamite king, whose name is given as Kudur-Mabuk, son of Simti-sil-khak. One of these was found at Mugheir (Ur of KUDUR-MABUK, AN ELAMITE KING. 177 Babylonia, p. 1-7. II. ir- rison ; sec also Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., Vol. I-. P- 43- 2 Herodotus, Vol. p. 354, note. the Chaldees) and in it Kudur-Mabuk assumes the title adda Martu, " lord of Phoenicia." Another is graven on a bronze statuette in the Louvre representing a goddess, brought from Afadj in Babylonia. This inscription is given by Mr. G. Smith in a valuable paper published in 1872/ and in it the monarch styles himself adda Yamut- ' \ N f*™ th ^ ' The land of Shinar (")MB') is identified by Assyriologists 4 chaid. Magic p. w jth the Sumir of the cuneiform inscriptions, 4 which is 387; Sayce, Bab. Lit., L p- 75 - conjoined with Akkad in the royal titles, as we have seen in the case of Kudur-Mabuk. The viceroy of this province bore the name given in Hebrew as !?q-ion, which is trans- literated in the Septuagint version as 'Afiap^aX. It is clearly an Akkadian proper name, akin to that of the old monarch Amar-aku, and Amar-ud, Merodach ; and the name Amar-pal has been found by M. Lenormant as ■2 Bible Educator. Vol. I., p. 68. I cannot follow Dr. Haigh in his identification of Amar- agu king of Ur with Amar-Pal and Nimrod (Zcitschrift f. Aig. Spr., p. 67. 1877). THE ALLIED KINGS. " borne by private persons on two cylinders of ancient workmanship." He gives the meaning as, "the circle of the year." The other names are " circle (or splendour) of the moon," and " of the sun." The d^J, Goi'm, or " nations," are identified with the "Guti" or "Gutium" of the inscriptions. "In the great work on astrology compiled by order of Sargina I., king of Agane, as well as in some bilingual geographic lists, which appear to be of about the same time, the Gutium are clearly marked as the Semitic tribes, as yet imperfectly organized, who dwelt then to the north of Babylonia, and of whom one part became afterwards the nation of the Assyrians." ' The Septuagint has also preserved (as in the case of Amarpal) the most probably correct reading of their king's name, &apya\, that is, ^>jnn, not ^]nn : and this is easily read in Akkadian as Tur gal, "great chief," as Sir Henry Rawlinson suggested. 2 Thus we should have the viceroys of northern and southern Babylonia, and of the country afterwards bearing the name of Assur, under their lord paramount the king of Elam, engaged in just such a campaign as those which gave Kudur-Mabuk the title of lord of Martu. We will now consider the Biblical narrative of this campaign. In the deep valley of the Jordan, had been formed one of those confederacies of cities so characteristic of the Canaanite races, as we learn equally from Scripture and from the annals of Egypt and Assyria. The region is called DHtyn pvy, the " vale of Siddim." The word rendered vale is applied to open valleys inclosed by hills. " Siddim " has been an enigma to the commentators. Dr. Deane has suggested that the gypsum of the cliffs is called in i La langite prim., P- 37°- Herodotus, Vol. 364. ELAM. i Bau Educator, Heb. sid, and would thus account for the name. 1 Lieut. Vol. IV., p. 15. ' 2 p. e. f., 1878, p. is. Conder, R.E., comes near the same point. 2 ' Taking the word as it stands, however, without the late addition of vowel-points, it seems likely enough that it might have been the " Shedim " to whom we have before referred, the local Canaanite gods, " Set of this city " and Set of that, to whom the sons of Abraham were afterwards enticed to offer sacrifice. The " Valley of the Shedim " would be no unlikely designation of so thick a hive of allied Canaanites. Anyhow in this tropical depth they had established a hot-bed of heathenish vice. The cities were Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, and Bela, (afterwards Zoar) ; their respective kings Bera, Birsha, Shinab, and Shemeber, and a king of Bela, whose name is not given. It seems clear enough that these kings were especially formidable to the eastern conquerors, and their subjugation very important. In fact they commanded the great route of Arabian commerce, and enriched them- selves with the wealth which the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Babylonians, and Elamites valued so highly. Doubt- 3 Gen. xxxvii. 28. i ess man y a r i c h caravan of " Midianite merchant-men" 3 The present Hadj ' luwn^twewymuesTf w ^^ " s pi cer y and balm, and myrrh," many a long train ;nx!i^w S r ee T p f of Amu with their bales of rich clothing and cosmetics, and in 1 ribtram s l^ana of o ' metals, would pass within reach of those Canaanite lords, who must not be allowed to levy their black-mail for their own independent profit. If these chieftains were allied with the Pharaohs of the Delta they would be ready enough to throw off the eastern yoke, and would fear the Babylonians just as heartily as Salatis himself; and all the more because they were on the highway instead of being ensconced within the great walls of the old monarchs of Egypt. So only " twelve years they served Kedor-la'omer, and in REVOLT AGAINST KEDOR-LA'OMER. 1 83 the thirteenth year they rebelled," with Lot among them. Is it not possible, as I have elsewhere suggested, 1 that the ££-*• Vic - Inst presence of so wealthy an independent Semitic leader, with his greater relative Abram near at hand over the moun- tains, may have emboldened them to this outbreak ? It is easy to see that the mastery of Egypt by the allied races to whom the Canaanite clans belonged would be almost sure to bring about a struggle, to rid themselves of the eastern domination, and the Semitic influence would naturally be antagonistic to the lords of Elam, of the rival race who had for the time conquered Babylonia and were wielding its forces. These things were likely enough to bring it to pass that, " in the thirteenth year they rebelled." It is interesting to inquire, where was Abram when the first expedition of Kedor-la'omer passed the Euphrates ? The answer seems clear enough. For Abram was eighty- six years old when Ishmael was born, 3 and it was "after 2Gen.xvi.16. Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan," 3 that sverse* Sarah gave Hagar to Abram. And this agrees with Abram's age when he left Kharran, viz., seventy-five. 4 But this seems 4 Gen. a 4 . to involve two things. First: Abram must have arrived in Canaan in the year in which he set out from Kharran, and so he could not have been long at Damascus, as Mr. Malan has shown. 5 Secondly: the stay in Egypt could not have l^ L been very protracted, as it is simply reckoned as part of the " dwelling in the land of Canaan." Now let us add to these data what we are told in Genesis xv, that "after these things," viz., the invasion and defeat of Kedor-la'omer, " Abram said, Lord Jehovah, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?" and consider that thus "the fourteenth year" after the first invasion must fall within the "ten years" of Abram's dwelling in Canaan before his taking 1 84 ELAM. Hagar. Therefore it is certain that Abram must have been dwelling at Kharran, and Terakh yet alive, when this great motley array of the four eastern kings drew its march through Kharran on its way to conquest; and again re- turning with the spoils and captives to Chaldaea and to Elam. So that Abram had very probably set eyes on Kedor-la'omer some fourteen years before he found himself in arms against him. The second expedition is an exceedingly interesting study for several reasons. The chapter containing it is generally viewed by critics as a contemporary, or at least very ancient record of Canaanite origin. The way in which " Abram the Hebrew " is mentioned seems unlike the way in which he or his children would have named him. Mr. Sayce has suggested that it may be of Babylonian origin : since Amarpal king of Shinar, although not the sovereign in chief, is first mentioned in specifying the reign. At any rate it seems that materials of this kind are quoted in the narrative. And it is the only point in the long life of Abram in which we find him discharging the duty of a military leader. We have already seen the mode in which an Egyptian general of the old empire had operated for the reduction of the revolted Herusha, in almost the same country which formed the objective of this Elamite king's campaign. Probably the descendants of these Herusha felt the sword of Kedor-la'omer. Una's achievements, however, were within easy reach of his base of operation. But not so in the other case, for Susa is practically some two thousand miles' march from Sodom and Gomorrah. /u., pZZ'- Cm " I n ms essa y on Merodach-Baladan, 1 M. Lenormant has noticed the able strategy of Sargon, who, to reduce that Babylonian patriot, supported by Elam, instead of STRATEGY OF KEDOR-LA'OMER. 1 85 marching direct against Babylon, swept the whole course of the Tigris to the Chaldaean marshes to cut off his enemy from his supports, " reserving himself to return at length on Babylon and its neighbouring towns, which, thenceforth isolated, must soon fall into his power. We see," remarks the historian, " that the famous turning movements, of which we have heard so often within the last few years, are no invention of yesterday. The plan of Sargon, very ably conceived, succeeded entirely." Now we may truly carry back this strategy some twelve centuries from Sargon, and indeed much further in effect, since Una's last campaign in the time of the sixth Egyptian dynasty was conducted on the same principle. Drawing together the contingents of the different states in Babylonia, Kedor-la'omer would pass up the Euphrates, cross the Khabour, perhaps at Arban (ancient Sidikan), the Belik near Kharran, the Euphrates at Carchemish, and so by the route which we have described in tracing the migra- tion of Abram, passing Aleppo, Hamath, and Emesa, (where, perhaps, already the sons of Kheth were entrenched in their lake-fortress). The further march is indicated in the Biblical narrative, if we take for granted (which we may well do) that the army returned over the same ground, excepting where the contrary is stated ; Kedor-la'omer then doubtless received the homage and tribute of the ruler of Damascus ; but, instead of pouring down the valley of the Jordan in a direct course to the revolted cities, he first cut off their supports, and completely cleared his flanks by an extended campaign ; for, sweeping all the highland plateau to the east of Jordan, and following the great ancient course of commerce where now the Hadj road goes down into Arabia, he chastised and disabled the old-world tribes who had evidently shared in the rebellion. 1 86 ELAM. The first of these tribes whom he " smote " were the Repha'im, to whose race in after time Og king of Bashan i Amosii.9. belonged. They are called Amorites ; J and Og is expressly- called by that name (Joshua ix. 10), a " king of the Amor- ites." Their stronghold was Ashteroth Karnai'm, the site of which has as yet been only a subject of conjecture ; but the name appears clearly to refer to the goddess Astarte, represented with the two horns of the crescent, as, for in- stance, on the interesting Syrian altar brought home by the late Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake, and now in the Fitzwilliam pi^dsyria m U " ex ' Museum, Cambridge. 2 The name is found in Egyptian s Record* of the past, inscriptions, not only as a goddess of the Kheta (Hittites), 3 but also as that of a place, Astaratu, in the Karnak Lists of Thothmes III., and identified by Mariette-Bey with this 4 £**«£«*;, p. a*, ancient city of the Repha'im. 4 It certainly would seem to be in Bashan, and may, we hope, be identified by the American surveying expedition. The next tribe southwards which he encountered were the Zuzim in Ham, which has been identified with Hameitat about six miles to the east of the lower part of s Land of Moat, t ne D eac i Sea. 5 Here are extensive ruins, and "the name (of Ham) is read in the Targums," says Canon Tristram, " Hemta," very nearly the name given to him on the spot. The name Zuzim occurs nowhere else in the Bible. After defeating these people, Kedor-la'omer smote the Emim in Shaveh-Kiriathaim ; that is, of the twin-towns. This name also does not recur in Scripture ; but in the Egyptian records I think we find it : for in the travels of the Mohar, a most interesting papyrus elaborately edited by 6 Voyage cCun Egyp- Q \. c J J J uen. Paris, i86 7 ; M. Chabas, 6 and treated by Dr. Haigh, 7 and by Lieut. Records of the Past, J ° ' J voi. iL.p.,01. second Conder, R.E., 8 we have the mountain of the Shaua men- Edition. * TZeits'chrwfurjEg. tioned as in the country of the Shasu, and, immediately 8 p.e.f., April, 1876. after, the road to Pa-Makar. Now if Makar be Machaerus, Hist, it Eg., p. 153. 3 Records of the Past, •ol. V., p. 46. CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE REBELS. 1 87 (now M'kaur and probably the Hebrew "Yipft, well-spring), then the mountain of Shaua may well be Shaveh Kiria- thaim, which may probably be in this neighbourhood, perhaps at Kureitun near Kerak, 1 as the Emim would be to l£" d of Moa6, the south of the Zuzim. The name Shaua is given by Brugsqh-Bey as synonymous with Shasu. 2 It is interesting to note in an inscription of Tiglath Pileser II., 3 the mention of "the land of Bahalizephon as far as Amman {Amnion), the land of Izku and Sana." In the third section of the Mohar's travels Mat-amim is mentioned, which would simply mean, " land of the Emim," in connection with names which appear to me to designate probably Kir of Moab (Kerak), Ar of Moab, and Jahaz ; all in the same country. In a very curious text translated from a papyrus of probably the nineteenth dynasty by Mr. C. Wycliffe Goodwin, 4 he proposes to identify a people called Imu ((jl) H^(!>^ (Via ) with the Emim. However this may be, Kedor-la'omer passed on from the Emim still further southwards, and smote the Khorites in their mount Seir, the cave-dwelling people in the ridges and ravines of the wild mountain range, which had Selah, and afterwards Petra, for its capital. Brugsch-Bey has identified the " Saaru of the tribes of Shasu " who were conquered by Rameses III., with the Seirites. 5 In those later times, however, these Saaru did not live in rock-hewn dwellings, it seems, but in huts. 6 Their wild and inaccessible range of mountains stretched from the Dead Sea to the gulf of Akaba, which bounds to the east the Sinaitic peninsula, and the mountaineers of Elam must have found congenial scenes while chasing these hardy clans in their perilous fastnesses. This achievement the eastern commanders appear to have thoroughly carried Arch.,\'o\. Ill $Hist. d'Eg., p. 146. 6 Chabas, dyn.. p. 51. 88 ELAM. out, even " unto El Paran " (the oak of Paran, as generally understood) " which is by the wilderness." This wilderness (Heb. midbar) bore the name of Paran, wherever El Paran itself may have been. It is clear that this was the extreme limit of the expedition, and before reaching it the whole range of mountains must have been harried, and the Khorites thoroughly put down. In Arrowsmith's Map of Syria (1823), a place called " Phara, Paran" is marked on the Roman road running westwards from Akaba towards Suez. It is some twelve miles south of the Hadj route to Egypt. " A genuine trace of it (the ancient Paran) may perhaps be found in the Phara, marked in the Roman tables of the fourth century as a station on the road between the heads of the two gulfs, one hundred and twenty Roman miles from the western, and fifty from the eastern extremity." This is the place, and it would be in the wilderness; 1 but the expression in the Hebrew text T3T93 'V seems consistent I - p ' 68; with this. In this case Kedor-la'omer would have cleared the whole route to the gulf of Akaba and the mining region of the Sinaitic peninsula ; and as that would seem to have been the great object of his expedition, and, more- over, as the same achievement appears to have been carried out by Naram-Sin, I do not see any difficulty in believing, that after overcoming the formidable obstacles which lay in his path he should have attained such a point (if not even the Paran of the Wady Feiran) before " they returned, and came to En-Mishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites." This would seem to suggest the sweeping a broad expanse of desert, and would be consistent with the Kadesh (Kadesh-Barnea) *p.E.F.,]an.i87i. being the 'Ain Gadis described by Professor Palmer. 2 Kadesh was a great stronghold, both a sanctuary and a seat of government, as the names indicate, and probably 1 Compare Kilter, Vol. I., pp. 69, 428, segq. Clark's Transl. ; Speakers Comm., Vol. AMALEKITES AND AMORITES. the " Kadesh of the land of Amaor " captured by Seti I. As represented in the Egyptian relief this fortified place has no moat, but is on a hill-side in a cultivated country, and has a pool with plants growing round its banks, and herdsmen are driving cattle away. It is defended by the Amorites. Professor Palmer has given a sketch from this spot in his History of the Jewish Nation! " In the immediate neighbourhood are the mountains of the Amorites (Deut. ii. 19, 20), still called by their Scriptural name, in its Arabic form, 'Amarin." And " the Amalekites and Canaanites," are said to have been there in the days of Joshua. 2 And now Kedor-la'omer began to draw towards the special end of his expedition. Having made good his rear by " smiting all the country of the Amalekites," he made his way towards the " Salt sea," skirting along its western border. " Up to En-gedi they could march with- out interruption;" writes Canon Tristram, 3 " by the shores of the sea below ; and though there are several openings south of Engedi, by which troops could easily make the ascent into the upper country, yet any of them would necessitate a long march across a rough and almost water- less wilderness. Practically, then, Ziz was the key of the pass. To the north of it the shore-line is impracticable even for footmen, and there are no paths by which beasts could be led up. Hence the old importance of Hazezon- Tamar, or Engedi, which is still the route by which the trade between Jerusalem and Kerak (Kir of Moab, a formidable fortress on the east side of the Dead sea) is carried on, and by which the former city obtains its supplies of salt." Here, then, half way up the western side of the deep hot " Salt sea," the leader of the conquering forces was 3 Land of Moab, p. 25. 190 i Land 0/ Israel, EL AM. unable to push on by the shore, and compelled to force the difficult and steep pass to the left. There lay before him the beautiful recess of the mountains where the Amorites had nestled in their choice settlement of Hazezon-Tamar, "the pruning of the palm," afterwards and still called En-gedi ('Ain-Jidy) the well-spring of the kid. In his admirable books of travel entitled The Land of Israel, and The Land of Moab, Canon Tristram has given full and accurate descriptions, and many landscape illustra- tions of the region of the Dead sea. The statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund also contain very interesting details. Dr. Tristram thus describes 'Ain-Jidy: 1 "Several hun- dred feet up the slope, about a mile and a half back from the shore, is the true 'Ain-Jidy, midway between the two wadys. Its little silver thread of a streamlet dashes down lofty, but (in volume) pigmy, cataracts to the sea. Below the falls, in the centre of the plain, is a group of ruins of some extent, built of unbevelled squared stones of fair size, but nothing megalithic, and all very much weathered. These crumbled walls carry us with a mighty stride across the history of man. They are all that remain to tell of a city as old as the oldest in Syria, perhaps in the world, Hazezon Tamar (the Felling of the Palm Trees), which is Engedi, the contemporary of Sodom and Gomorrah, an existing city when Hebron first arose. Through it passed the Assyrian hordes of Chedor-la'omer, on the first great organized expedition recorded in history ; the type and precursor of all those invading inroads which, from the days of Tidal, king of nations, to Saladin, have periodically ravaged the east. The plain around is now as desolate as the old city of the Amorites, though once a forest of palms, . . . and the real fertility of Engedi lies only in the immediate Smith, Pic. <>/ />';/'. ATTACK ON HAZEZON-TAMAR. 191 neighbourhood of the fountain, or is enclosed in the narrow gorges of the two boundary streams, choked with canes and great fig-trees, and so deep that they are not perceived until the traveller has entered them." The very name of Hazezon still survives in that of Husasa, by which the land at the top of the pass is known, and the pass Hazziz (2 Chron. xx. 16) is the same word in reality, as suggested by Mr. Grove. 1 Following the track of Kedor-la'omer, the sons of Moab, Ammon, and Seir ascended to Judaea by this precipitous way. Thus we have a double identification of this historic spot, haunted by such primaeval remembrances of war, in the names Husasa, and 'Ain-Jidy. There is also a Wady Husasa about six or seven miles further north. After smiting the valiant Amorites in their green and palmy nook under the mountains, the host of the eastern kings clomb the perilous height. "The path is a mere zigzag, chiefly artificial, cut out of the side of the precipices, but occasionally aided by nature." The height is about 1800 feet. Then the march must have been over the high hill-tops, and down across the wadys, and so by a bending route until they came into the Jordan valley, per- haps on the level at the northwest corner of the lake, " a proper and natural spot for the inhabitants of the plain of Jericho to attack a hostile force descending from the passes of 'Ain Jidy." 2 The fight at Hazezon Tamar had been within seventeen or eighteen miles of Abram's abode at Mamre, and the march inland over the hills must have brought the army of Kedor-la'omer still nearer. Abram's allies, An'er, Eshcol, and Mamre, Amorites though they were, do not appear to have been engaged with their kinsmen in the lost battle ; 192 P.E.F..I&U.V- the Ap- but it must have been a time of great alarm when the Elamite king was pouring down his forces into the vale of Siddim. " And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim ; with Kedor-la'omer king of Elam, and with Tidal (Turgal) king of Nations (GoTm), and Amarpal king of Shinar, and Ariok king of Ellasar ; four kings with five. And the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits (bitumen-pits). And the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there ; and they that remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah (it does not say, of the other three cities) and all their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed." All attempts to fix the sites of the " cities of the plain " (Kikkar) have hitherto been futile. In 1874 Lieut. Conder, R.E., writes thus: 1 "Having carefully examined in person the whole tract from Jordan mouth to the Ras Feshkah, I do not hesitate to say that if the cities of the plain were within this area, all trace of them has utterly disappeared. .... It seems to me certain, that the gradual rise of the level of the plain caused by the constant washing down of the soft marl from the western hills would effectually cover over any such ruins, did they ever exist below the surface. The tract, however, presents literally nothing beyond a fiat expanse of semi-consolidated mud." The same officer thus describes the scenery : " Nothing is more striking than the general aspect of the country we have thus passed over. The broad plain, bounded east and west by the steep rocky ranges at whose feet lie the low marl hillocks of a former geological sea ; the green lawns of grass leading to the SHORES OF THE DEAD SEA. 193 lower valley, where in the midst of a track of thick white mud the Jordan flows in a crooked milky stream through jungles of cane and tamarisk, are all equally unlike the general scenery of Palestine The chorus of birds, and the flow of water, are sounds equally unusual and charming in the stony wildernesses of the Holy Land." The arguments for the northern situation of the cities (which in fact seems involved in the very phrase of the ancient record " cities of the Kikkar" the well-known "circle of Jordan," Genesis xiii. 10, etc.), have been so ably put by Mr. Grove, Dr. Tristram, and others, that it seems needless to reproduce them. The line of Kedor-la'omer's march, so perfectly traced in the firm strokes of the primaeval record, equally ascertains the northern position of the final scene of his long warfare. The name Hazezon Tamar reminds us that Jericho stood in a great tract of palm-groves some nine miles long, of which all but two or three trees are gone ; although on the other side of the Dead Sea they still grow abundantly. 1 Dr. r L " nd °s Moab > Tristram compares the climate of Jericho to that of Egypt ; and that of 'Ain-Jidy is exceptionally healthy and fit for a sanatorium for delicate chests. The late lamented C. F. Tyrwhitt-Drake thus writes: 2 "The climate of Jericho 2 p - E - F - lS?4 - p - 7S - would seemingly have changed since the days of Josephus, or more probably the surplus irrigation was not then, as now, suffered to become stagnant pools, causing malaria and fever. The great Jewish historian in many passages vaunts the wonderful fertility of the place, and calls it deiov Xoopiov, a region fit for the gods. At present the luxuriance of vegetation is almost tropical. But the inhabitants are lazy, dissolute, and incapable of continuous work. . . . All kinds of vegetables, such as tomatoes, vegetable marrows, etc., are in season all the year round. Grapes grow to a i The Land i Book, p. 224. 194 ELAM. great size, . . . indigo flourishes, but is seldom cultivated : sugar, too, and cotton would doubtless succeed. Sloth, however, and indolence on the part of the government and peasants, now reign supreme, where a little care in drainage, and steady cultivation, might annually raise pro- duce of equal value with the revenues of all the rest of Palestine." In truth this region might well again become " as the garden of the Lord." As to the bitumen-pits in the vale of Siddim, it is stated by Dr. Thomson J that the ancient name is still used by the Arabs, who dig such pits in the chalky marl (that is, gypseous marl) of the Lebanon for the same purpose. They call them biaret hummar (non rnxn). The bitumen from the Dead Sea was used by the Egyptians at an early period for embalming their dead. On the north western coast of the lake Dr. Tristram found " the shore lined with a mass of bitumen, in which pebbles of all kinds were thickly embedded." 2 The Chaldaean troops would be as much at home in these low hot plains as the Elamites on " the high places of the earth," in Bashan and Se'ir. The defeat of these demoralized Canaanites must have been complete. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were killed. All who could escape fled to the mountains. The crowning triumph of this adventurous and skilful campaign must have satiated and burdened the eastern army with plunder, and " all the victual " which they took from Sodom and Gomorrah, including the beer and wines which the Egyptians imported from this very region, together with the security of having thoroughly beaten their enemy down the whole line to the frontiers of the Egyptian territory, and the knowledge that Egypt itself (as Manetho says) was in fear of their power, must have sent them on their home- ward way in high exultation and carousal. 2 Land of Israel, SITE OF ANCIENT DAN. 195 Land of Israel, p. 578. Laish is identi- Rauisa) of the Karnak lists of Thothmes III. Lieut Conder thinks the name may survive The route of their return would be up the valley of the Jordan to the Sea of Kinnereth, some sixty miles, then round the west side of that beautiful lake, and through the northern " garden of the Lord," which was afterwards " the goodly heritage of Naphtali, ' satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord ' (Deut. xxxiii. 23) ; from Kinnereth northward to Dan," 1 now Tell-el-Kady, thus described by Canon Tristram: "Nature's gifts are here ^L\™?a«T*Z poured forth in lavish profusion, but man has deserted it." Yet it would be difficult to find a more lovely situation than this, where " the men of Laish dwelt quiet and secure." '^T^T^L "We have seen the land, and behold it is very good p.e.f.,^,?.*. A place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth." (Jud. xviii. 9, 10.) "At the edge of the wide plain, below a long succession of olive-yards and oak-glades which slope down from Banias, rises an artificial-looking mound of limestone rock, flat -topped, eighty feet high, and half a mile in diameter. Its western side is covered with an almost impenetrable thicket of reeds, oaks, and oleanders, which entirely conceal the shapeless ruins, and are nurtured by ' the lower springs ' of Jordan ; a won- derful fountain like a large bubbling basin, the largest spring in Syria, and said to be the largest single fountain in the world, where the drainage of the southern side of Hermon, pent up between a soft and a hard stratum, seems to have found a collective exit. Full-grown at birth, at once larger than the Hasbany which it joins, the river dashes through an oleander thicket. 2 On the eastern side *£" of Israe! ' of the mound, overhanging another bright feeder of the Jordan, are a holm oak and a terebinth side by side, two noble trees. . . . This terebinth is, I believe, the largest of its kind in Syria, and the other tree is more comely than the so-called Abraham's oak at Hebron." In his lively and i Rob Roy Jordan, p. 21 196 EL AM. graphic way, Mr. McGregor describes the whole of this neighbourhood, and gives a ground-plan of Tell-el-Kady, and maps of the country. 1 It was in the winter that he visited the place. He thinks the mound almost entirely artificial. It is defended by a rampart thirty feet high, enclosing an area of oblong form with the corners rounded, about 300 yards by 250, which contains within it the spring head itself. No wonder that Kedor-la'omer, as he drew on his long train, cumbered with all its captives and their goods in their triumphal homeward march, should halt by these abundant waters, before crossing the moun- tain track that would lead him to the next delightful and luxurious halting-place, Damascus. Here, then, among these old enemies, was Lot, on his way back to his native country, or perhaps, to grace the triumph at Susa, an enslaved prisoner of war, spoiled of all he had, and bitterly rueing the parting with Abram and his evil choice. But meanwhile, in the south, those that escaped from the lost field of battle fled over the mountains to Hebron, and " told Abram the Hebrew ; for he dwelt in the oak-grove of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshkol, and brother of An'er : and these were confederate with Abram." This at once shows the importance and dignity of " Abram the Hebrew," the foreigner ; for these stricken Canaanites fly straight to his tent. Their knowledge of his character led them thither, and they were not mistaken. He had borne no part in the contest, although the in- vaders had marched and fought within so short a distance of his own abode. But now came news that Lot was ruined and taken away captive. Then all his yearning pity for his nephew, who had been to him as a son, kindled into a flame. Doubtless he was prepared for some ABRAMS PURSUIT OF THE KINGS. such sudden call. His people were within easy reach and under strict discipline. The Lord Himself bare witness afterwards : " I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment." " Men- servants from Egypt and a large following, Abram had ; but only the very choice of his home-people would he take on such a perilous service as this. He did not need to " arm " them, as our version suggests. They were doubtless both well-armed, and ready for the word of command. " He drew out his trained (men) born in his own house (not bought, or given to him), three hundred and eighteen." They are afterwards called " the young men." They were choice men, "trained," or, as Gesenius explains the word, " skilled, of tried fidelity." They must have been such men as the last choice of Gideon, fit for an " enterprise of great pith and moment." And of course Abram must leave a sufficient staff behind for all the service of the camp. Happily Abram and the Amorite chieftains were, as the Hebrew says, " lords of a league," and, as we know from what followed, An'er and Eshkol and Mamre led their contingents ; and if each commanded as many picked war- riors as Abram, they must have mustered altogether some twelve or thirteen hundred. All had friends to rescue, or at least to avenge. Not an hour was lost. Down the passes they go, and speeding along the green depths of the Ghor on the track of the enemy, and after four days' and nights' swift march they see the camp ; and with all pre- caution and secrecy wait for night. The very picture is drawn for us in the history of David : ' " Behold, they were spread abroad upon all the earth, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken." 197 ELAM. Eastern armies are notorious for a loose night-watch. Kedor-la'omer had no reason to suspect the least danger. ■■ px - Josephus tells us 1 his men were asleep, or too drunken to fight. It was after a march of some hundred and forty miles, that Abram and the Amorites had to attack the forces of the four kings. It was in the fifth night, says Josephus. Such a surprise it must have been as that of Gideon. " He divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them." And now their turn was come to flee to the moun- tains in wild dismay and rout, leaving their camp, and captives, and the spoil of all their war. The liberated prisoners might join in the pursuit. The trusty Eliezer would know the ways across the mountains to Damascus right well. Abram is not content with mere victory. All the next day and night 2 the pursuit rages, until the re- maining fugitives had reached Khobah, north of Damascus. No wonder they kept clear of the city, where they would have had an evil welcome. The name of Khobah is not pierret, vocab., unknown in Egyptian records, if Brugsch-Bey 3 is correct ; and the place is still shown, " in the corner of the vast plain, just where the bare hills intersected by a deep ravine, descend on the mass of verdure which reaches up to the 4 Stanley, sermons very f 00 t of the rocks." 4 It was here, I suppose, that the in the East, p. 211. J > 1 1 > chief of the routed forces turned at bay, unable to escape further on their homeward route to the north. The tradi- tion is that at this point, where there is now a holy place, Abram returned thanks to God for his victory. " It is a rude mosque built on the side of a naked cliff, its inner s porter, Giantcuies, chamber opening into a deep cleft:" 5 three miles north etc., p. 351- JT O J. of Damascus. The name Khobah means " a hiding ccesenius. place," 6 and if indeed any of the chiefs took refuge here, as the Canaanite kiiicrs " fled, and hid themselves in a cave P- 354, ERI-AKU KING OF LARSA. 199 at Makkedah," from Joshua/ this would account for the *Jo*.** pursuit ending at this spot. It does not, however, as Canon Rawlinson 2 has remarked, necessarily follow from either the Hebrew word in this ancient record, or the equivalent Greek in Heb. vii. I (from the LXX) that either of the eastern kings was actually slain. What was the personal result to them beyond the utter rout and overthrow of their army, we do not know. But the more we reflect on the real significance of the history, the more does the conviction grow that this battle was a great event in the history of the civilized world, in which if a predominant conqueror then existed it was Kedor-la'omer. Doubtless Abram intended effectually to hinder the return of this monarch to the land of Canaan, and he disappears thenceforth from the Biblical narrative. But if he and his son were indeed the Kudur-Mabuk and Eri-aku of the Chaldaean inscriptions, we have some further account to give of them. M. Lenormant states that Eri-aku " continued king of Larsa and master of all Chaldsea after the death of his father." 3 Mr. G. Smith, on the other hand, states that Kudur-Mabuk as well as his father were defeated and conquered by Khammuragas ; 4 but I think this is merely because he takes for granted that he was still king of Elam, when Khammuragas records that he " in the service of Anu and Bel triumphantly marched, and the lord of Elam and king Eri-aku he overthrew." 5 The name of the lord of Elam is not, however, here given. We will gather up the fragments of this story. We have recounted the conquests of Sargina I. and his son Naram-Sin, who had overrun Syria in a war which lasted for three years, and had also conquered Makan and its king. This is probably the Sinaitic peninsula. Naram-Sin was succeeded by the queen Ellat-Gula, who 3 La langue prim. , p. 375 ; M. Lenormant gives a ref. to IV. A. I. I., 3. io. 4 Hist. Bab., pp. 8i, 5 See Records of the Past, Vol. V., p. 70; Menant, Babylone, p. 200 ELAM. must have been subdued by Kudur-Mabuk, but appears to have still governed under his suzerainty in Northern Babylonia. Eriaku conquered Erech and Karrak, and reigned at Larsa, and also won the cities of Kisure and Duran in Upper Babylonia, 1 and, as we have seen, was king of Sumir and Akkad, while his father was sovereign from Elam to Syria. Eriaku was reigning at least twenty-eight years after the capture of Karrak, from which so many documents were dated. Then descended another stream of conquest of a rival race in Elam, the Kassi. Khammuragas, their leader, had probably coveted the sovereignty after Kudur- Mabuk, and came down on Northern Babylonia, conquered queen Ellat-Gula the last of Sargina's dynasty, established his power at Babylon with great splendour, and attacked Eri-aku, in Southern Babylonia. But Eri-aku claims to have successfully repelled " the evil enemy " for a time. Then, however, we have Khammuragas' own record of his final conquest over Eri-aku and his ally the lord of Elam. " From the time when Khammurabi (or Khammuragas) fixed his court at Babylon, that city continued to be the capital of the country, down to the time of the conquest of Babylonia by the Persians." 2 Now if, as it appears, Kudur-Mabuk and his son (taking their reigns together to Khammuragas' conquest) were in power for about thirty years, it seems very likely that this rival Elamite power had displaced the Semitic rule of Sargina and his son Naram-Sin, about the time when Abram was called to leave Ur ; and that the patriarch had been born in the reign of Sargina, which lasted forty-five years : and it is observable that most of the inscriptions of Kudur-Mabuk and Eri-aku have been found at Ur (Mugheir). 2 Records of the Past, Vol. V., p. 69. KHAMMURAGAS. This conquest could scarcely have been other than adverse to Terakh and his house ; so, when Abram assailed the eastern forces to rescue Lot he was probably en- countering an old enemy of his house and people. During the time of Sargina the Semitic language began to supersede the old Turanian Akkadian, and the custom grew up of recording the contracts of sale and loan in Semitic, whenever one of the contracting parties was of that race. " The decline continues rapid " (says M. Lenormant) under the Kissian kings, of whom the first is Khammuragas, when the capital is definitely fixed at Babylon. It is under these kings, who occupied the throne during many cen- turies, that the Akkadian became extinct as a living and spoken language." ' The oldest bilingual royal inscription in Akkadian and Semitic yet found belongs to Khammuragas. 2 Khammur- agas was a great and splendid king, who developed the resources of the Babylonian country, and consolidated its power for the first time in a long inheritance of grandeur. One of the few distinct chronological data which we possess is given in a notice that Khammuragas considered his own time as seven centuries later than Urukh (Lig- bagas). 3 This would bring the date of Ligbagas, the first great monumental king, to somewhere about B.C. 2600. Although the great Kassite monarch Khammuragas records stately temples reared, cities fortified, and delightful channels of running water dug and banked on a huge scale, and although he assumes the titles, " the king renowned through the four races (that is, in Syria)" and "king of the four races, king of regions which the great gods in his hands have placed," yet his only records of military achieve- ments hitherto discovered relate to conquests in the country of the Euphrates and Tigris. Scripture is equally silent as Assyr. Disc, p. 233. 202 ELAM. to any campaigns in Palestine from this quarter for cen- turies after the time of Kedor-la'omer. In fact the next recorded collision between east and west arose from the conquests of the Egyptian Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Assyria after the expulsion of the Hyksos. " In connection with the supposition that Abraham may have been contemporary with Kudur-Mabuk, (writes Mr. G. Smith) we may note that the name of Ishmael is men- tioned in the next reign, that of Khammurabi. A son of a man named Ishmael was witness to some contracts : his i Notes, etc., p. 23. name is Abuha son of Ismiel." ' It is needless to recall the various opinions of scholars on the chronological points involved in this portion of history, or the wavering of the same mind as one spark of light after another appeared in the course of research. Very modestly and truly George Smith confessed : " I never lose sight myself of the fact that, apart from the more perfect and main parts of these texts, both in the decipherment of the broken fragments and in the various theories I have projected respecting them, I have changed my own opinions many times, and I have no doubt that any accession of new material would change again my views respecting the parts affected by it. These theories and conclusions, however, although not always correct, have, on their way, assisted the inquiry, and have led to the more accurate knowledge of the texts ; for certainly in cuneiform matters we have often had to advance through error to truth." It seems at present pretty well established that Sar- gina, Kudur-Mabuk, and Khammuragas are closely linked together in history in the way that has been recounted in these pages; and there is, I think, a growing disposition ACCORDANCE WITH HOLY SCRIPTURE. 203 among scholars to admit that those are right who have set the date of Sargina at about 2000 before Christ. 1 «££**£.£*' All that is hitherto known tallies in the most remarkable manner with the firm strong outline in the book of Genesis of facts which, as M. Lenormant justly pronounces, " have a historic character the most striking;" 3 and when we £££ *""*"' * rim " estimate at its true value the decisive interposition of Abram in his only recorded act of warfare, we do not wonder at the honourable acknowledgment of the sons of Kheth, " A prince of God art thou among us." l^gSlHE foregoing studies are simply specimens of the \mm\ kind of treatment naturally invited by the com- parison between the sacred Scriptures on the one hand, and the results of recent research on the other. They scarcely cover three chapters out of the thirteen or fourteen of the book of Genesis, in which the story of Abraham is given to us. But these three chapters involve the relations of the patriarch towards his native country and the land of pro- mise, with Elam on the east, and Egypt on the west ; com- prising the whole of the grand " first civilizations " of that age of which any records remain. I have tried to deal fairly, and to give the student the means of testing every statement for himself. The learned reader will, I trust, deal leniently with endeavours of so tentative a character in a field so little cultivated. The effect of five years' work on my own mind has been to con- firm the " most striking historic character " of the Biblical narrative. This historic record is, however, the base of a sublime psychological and theological lore familiar, more or less, 204 CONCLUSION. to every well-instructed Christian. To this the present series of studies may be regarded as introductory, or supplementary, or confirmatory ; and surely nothing which is fit to serve these purposes will be indifferent to any soul that has embraced the truth which St. Paul enunciates when he writes : " If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." 205 APPENDIX.— A. [JlfllJHE author believes that his remarks on Professor Hya| Goldziher's Mythology among the Hebrezvs (trans- lated by Mr. Russell Martineau), which are here reprinted from the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Vol. XII., p. no, may not be without interest to the reader of the foregoing Studies. In the elaborate work of Prof. Goldziher it is seriously asserted that Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, and the whole group of patriarchal characters of the Bible in general had no real existence, but are mythical creations belonging to a system of very early development. The general line of argument is twofold. The author first endeavours to establish an etymology of the proper names suitable to his theory, and then knits up the story, or some selected particulars, into the mythical web. He has thus translated the old fathers far away from the earth and its doings. For instance, Abram (father of height) is the nightly sky. Sarah (princess) is the moon : so is probably Milka. Hagar (the flying one) is a solar name. Isaac (the laugher) is originally the sun, but further on "the 'smiling one' whom the ' high father ' intends to slay, is the smiling day, or more closely defined the smiling sunset, which gets the 206 APPENDIX. worst of the contest with the night-sky and disappears" (P. 96). Thus narratives which are distinctly treated in the Pentateuch by Moses, and by Joshua and the Prophets, and the Evangelists and Apostles, and especially by our Lord himself as veracious history are resolved into fables, not indeed "cunningly devised" but spontaneous (p. 31), and the inevitable growth of the human mind according to supposed psychological laws. I can but hastily at present offer a few thoughts on this mode of exposition. (A.) And, first, the philological argument is of a very slight texture indeed. The names, for instance, are for the most part not shown to have ever been used with the asserted significance. Abram was never a word for heaven, nor was even " ram " in Hebrew, although " rayam " in yEthiopic is adduced ; and no instance is suggested in any language where Abram denotes anything but a man, and this (by the way) not only in Scripture, for Abramu was a court-officer of Esarhaddon (Ep. Can., p. 39). Again, no instance is given of Yitskhak (Isaac) really denoting the sun or the sunset, or anything else than a man whose name is explained in the Scripture narrative ; nor of Sarah being a title of the moon in Hebrew or any other language ; nor of Hagar meaning the sun in Hebrew. The noon-day sun may well be called al-hajira (the flying one), as our author tells us, by the Arabs quite consistently with a slave having borne (if so be) a similar name. Moreover Hakar (= Hagar, for the Egyptians had no g) occurs among the Pharaohs of the XXIXth dynasty, so that Hagar may after all have been a real Egyptian name. The Hagarenes, too (Hagaranu in Assyrian), are mentioned both in Scripture and in an inscription of Tiglath Pileser II. La Magie % p. 107. APPENDIX. 207 A curious statement is made (p. 158) that "Sin (the moon) and Gula of the male triad are balanced respectively by ' the highest Princess/ and by Malkit ' the Queen ' in the female ; and these are only Sarah and Milkah again." This is hard to understand, for Gula was a goddess, not a "male," and could not be "balanced" by Malkit. In fact, Gula was the " female " corresponding to Samas the Sun- god, and " sometimes replaced," says M. Lenormant, 1 " by a group of three wives, equal among themselves : Malkit, Gula, and Anunit." Moreover, the spouse of Sin does not appear to have been called Sarah ; nor is there any evidence of a goddess called by the Hebrews Milcah. So with Abimelekh king of Gerar. Professor Goldziher includes this title in the " Solar" list, p. 158. Yet the name, like Abram, appears in the Assyrian annals (viz., as a prince of Aradus in the time of Esar-haddon). If all owners of lofty, or even celestial titles are to be relegated to the skies, what will become of the Egyptian Pharaohs, whose especial glory it was to boast themselves in " solar titles ? " We have a good instance of a name which has a very mythical look at first sight, in Ur, Abram's birthplace. This, however, is happily tied hard and fast to this world by the bricks of which it is built, which bear the name of the town Uru. The local and personal names of Holy Scripture will yield rich results under reasonable inquiry. (B.) But I turn from philology to psychology, which is made responsible for this line of explanation. Now the characters and doings of these old fathers and their wives and families are so thoroughly human, so very various, yet each so consistent in itself, bearing such marks of truthfulness under the touchstone of human experience, 208 APPENDIX. that this kind of exposition in the hands of such men as the late Professor Blunt has acquired a very distinct and acknowledged value. I appeal from psychology beside herself to psychology sober as a very credible witness to the genuine historical character of the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (C.) Then again, historical research is daily adding fresh confirmation to our trust in the sacred records. Look, for instance, at the episode of Elam. The world had nothing to show of this old powerful highland monarchy conquering as far as the Egyptian borders, except in closest relation to the life of Abraham, and so only through Lot. But now we read the story in quite a consonant sense in Chaldean muniments. What right have we to rend out the figure of Abram from the canvas, leaving the Amorite chiefs, on the one hand, and the allied kings of the East, on the other ? (D.) But this form of credulous scepticism is, most of all, a violation of the spiritual consensus of the whole Hebrew and the whole Christian Church. Professor Goldziher has noAvhere so utterly wandered as in his opinions on religion, whose genesis he thus explains (p. 218) : — " It must be regarded as established and certain that the psychological process of the origin of religion, a process influenced only in its most advanced stages by ethical and esthetic forces, is, in the first instance, developed out of the older mental activity which resulted in the creation of myths." Now this is the very inversion of the order of things established alike by Scripture and Archaeology ; that the spiritual faculties which cry out for the living God ger- minated first from the embers of an " older mental activity " exhausted (as the Professor goes on to say) by this creation APPENDIX. of myths, is surely the most unlikely thing imaginable in itself, and contrary to what we find in the dedications, prayers, and hymns of earliest date, both in Chaldaea and Egypt. If our author denounces as inhuman, and there- fore monstrous in itself, the opinion of Renan that "the Semites never had a mythology," surely we may, on similar ground, repudiate the dogma that all mankind were desti- tute of religion until in the course of ages they produced it for themselves. Again, the life of Abraham is a vital part of that unique coherent and divine development which St. Paul calls " the purpose of the ages" (Eph. iii. n), whereby the book of Genesis is intelligibly correlated with the Apocalyp'se through all the intermediate range of that sacYed literature. I appeal to sound historical criticism, to sober psychology, to pure religion ; and trust that we may see how consonant these are with a straightforward belief in the record as it stands. 209 2IO i Acad., 1875; CJu APPENDIX B.— Notes. 1. Page 7. " Shem, Ham (Kham), and Japhet" Sa'mu, "the yellow one;" Ippatu, "the fair race." Prof. Sayce. 2. Page 18. Translation from the fifth Creation Tablet. Note by Prof. Sayce. I can see only one translation, marking lacunae by points : — " On the seventh day a circle .... they (i.e. the horns) open, when about the mornings .... (he appointed) also the sun in the horizon of heaven in (his) course." 3. Page 19. Passage from Damascius. Professor Sayce 1 understands Damascius to state, that Sige "was the primi- tive substance of the universe." " Now Sige," says he, " is the Akkadian Zicu or Zigara," the heaven, " the mother of gods and men," while Apason is Ap'su, " the deep," and Tavthe Tihamtu, " the sea," etc. Professor Sayce has explained to me how he reaches this meaning : " I prefer the reading avfiqv irapelvai in the extract from Damascius," he writes, "but we may retain a-iyf] (not 07777), regarding the word as indeclinable." In the former conjectural emendation of the text, I cannot follow the learned writer. But if we read Hvyr) as an indeclinable proper name, the meaning would be : " Of the barbarians the Babylonians seem to pass over the one principle of the universe, Sige ; APPENDIX. 211 but to make (or to mention, eliretv ; Munich MS.) two, Tauthe and Apason," etc. This may lead to an in- teresting inquiry into the terminology of the Gnostics. Valentinus made Hcyrj the consort of BvObs, but he drew from older sources. " It is very certain," says Mr. W. Wigan Harvey, the learned editor of Irenaeus, 1 "that p ' 9 5 8 , /oTe!" T ° m ' L Simon Magus was the first that spoke of Sige as the root of all ; for this is the meaning of Eusebius, de Eccl. Th. II., 9, in describing as one fundamental tenet of Simon Magus, r)v @eo? /ecu %vyrj, God tvas also Silence, not, there was also God and Silence. For in the PhUosopkumena of Hippolytus we read Svo elal irapafyvdhes twv 6\wv alcovcov . . . airb ixias pl&s, rjTris iarc hvvaixa Siyt], k.t.X. This may well be compared with what Damascius states on the authority of Eudemus the disciple of Aristotle as the doctrine of the Babylonians. Much more may be learned about Sige in Irengeus and other early writers. But the term seems to have been used always by the Gnostics in its proper Greek form and sense. Nevertheless, as Simon Magus was a Samaritan, brought up in the lore which had been imported by the worshippers of " Adram- melech and Anammelech" from Sepharvai'm and such head-quarters of Chaldaean religion, it may be possible that the Akkadian Ziku 2 was the traditional name which 2 Chalcl - ***&> pp- 123, 140, 156. became confounded with the Greek Hljt} in the lapse of ages. For my own purpose, however, be this as it may, the statement of Damascius, and no less that of Hip- polytus, will lead to the conclusion that the Babylonians took for granted a first origin (apxv) of all things, whatever divarications and " endless genealogies " they and their Gnostic brood may have feigned lower down the stream. 4. Page 20. On the supposed king " Adi-ur " of Mr. G. Smith. Note by Prof. Sayce. This is an error of 212 APPENDIX. Smith's ; the text has Hurci (the moon-god), and there is no determinative prefix of an individual ; so Oppert renders " up to (the period of) the moon-god." 5. Page 21. On the element Ilu. Note by Prof. Sayce. No : these are Accadian names, and Hi means something else. Ilu-kassat should be read Dimir-illat. 6. Page 21. On the monotheism of the school of Orchoe. " Is not this due to Persian influence ?" Prof. Sayce. 1 nut. of Antiq., 7. Page 23. Anammelech. Prof. Duncker ' considers Vol.I.,p.266. Abbott's ' ° . '«n S . this to have been Anu, and not his consort Anunit as supposed by Prof. Rawlinson. 8. Page 37. Karnebo. Kara in the composite names of Kassite kings. Note by Prof. Sayce. This Kara is a contraction of the Kassite Kadara, "servant;" the other Kar (in Kar-Nebo, mentioned on the Michaux stone) is the Semitic Kar, " a city " (Kiryath). (Possibly " daughter of Kar-nebo " may mean a native of that city. H. G. T.) 9. Page 42. " M. Lenormant prefers the reading Nouahr Note by Prof. Sayce. He has since withdrawn this. 10. Page 84. Dapur, identified by M. Chabas with Debir. It is interesting that there is a Wady Dabur running westward from the head of the Dead Sea. This is the identical name given in the Egyptian record. 11. Page 88. Ruten (or Luten). Note by Prof. Sayce. De Saulcy compares Lotan and Lot. 12. Page 91. Sutekh of the city of Khisa-sap. Possi- bly this may be connected with the land of Ta-Khisa. Ante page 81. 13. Page 97. Salt and brimstone near the Dead Sea. See Canon Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 245, where he speaks of " morsels of sulphur " in the mud of the Delta, north of the Dead Sea; and p. 243 : "As we approached APPENDIX. 213 the sea, the whole of the upper level was more or less incrusted with a thin coating of salts, apparently deposited from the atmosphere, with deposits of gypsum, and oc- casionally varied by thicker deposits of sulphur." For the sulphur on the western shores see Land of Israel, pp. 2 79> 3 0I > 365 ; Land of Moab, 354 ; on the east, see Land of Moab, 243. 14. Page 102. Mazor. Note by Prof. Sayce. Matsor, " fortified place," or " fortification ;" hence Mitsrai'm = " the two defences," Upper and Lower Egypt. (The origin of the name is treated very carefully by Prof. Ebers. Aegypten und die B ticker Mose's, p. 85. On the occurrence of Matsrima as a Hittite proper name, see Ante, p. 89. H. G. T.) 14. Page 104. Name of Nebo written in Akkadian Au-ak. Note by Prof. Sayce. I doubt whether an was ever used in Akkadian except as a phonetic value, shortened from annab. The usual Akkadian word for "god" was dimir. Ak = "the maker," and was also pronounced gar. (The syllable an must have been pro- nounced in the name given in Greek as ' 'AvSovftdpto? in the Chron. Pasch., which Dr. Haigh has identified with An (iz) tubar, the hero of the legends now so famous. 1 This iden- tification had occurred to my own mind some time ago. H. G. T.) 15. Page 123. Osiris. Is the Asar of Egypt con- nected with the A-sar of the Assyrians ? 16. Page 125. Monotheism in Egypt. Canon Cook has very lately reiterated his belief on this subject v " I hold it to be a fact, settled on the surest evidence, that the oldest Egyptian inscriptions bear strongest witness to a primeval belief in the unity of God, and the absolute de- pendence of all creation on his will. One of the most 1 Zeitschrift fur ^Egypt- sj>r., p. 66. 1877. 2 Travis. Victoria Institute, Vol. XII., p. 93. 1878. 214 APPENDIX. instructive documents is the text of Chapter xvii. of the Egyptian Ritual, published by Lepsius in the Aelteste Texte, etc. It shows that at a very early age, far before the Mosaic period, interpretations were already common, each obscuring and corrupting the original text, which was purely monotheistic. Comparing the text, as it stands in that work, with all later texts, e.g., de Rouge's, and Lepsius in the Todtenbuch, it becomes self-evident that the later the text the wider is the departure from the original truth, the wilder and grosser are the superstitions engrafted on it." (Canon Cook's verdict agrees with that of M. Robiou, derived from the monumental inscriptions, as noticed in the text of this work, p. 120. H. G. T.) 17. Page 125. Embalming the dead. In his valuable 1 p -"°' note - Studies, Biblical and Oriental? the Rev. W. Turner quotes Chwolson as noting that mention is made in an Arabic writer of the discovery of embalmed bodies in south Chaldsea. Is there any other evidence of such a discovery? 18. Page 144. The Star as a royal title of the Hyksos. Note by Prof. Sayce. The Babylonian ideograph of " god " is an eight-rayed star. 19. Page 147. Khafra. Although the Greek form Chephrenes is given by Osburn in his Monumental His- tory, the form which should be used on the authority of Herodotus is (as Dr. Birch reminds me) Khephren. 20. Page 150. Shadu, a solar deity. Note by Prof. Sayce. No : the east wind was called " the wind of the mountains," Kurra in Accadian, whence its Assyrian name Sadn, literally " mountain," and so " east." (M. Maspero gives Shadu as the divinity of the east, answering to Martu of the west. By inadvertence I had designated this power " a solar deity." H. G. T.) 21. Page 166. Amarpal. Note by Prof. Sayce. The APPENDIX. 215 fact that Amar-pal is mentioned first indicates that the account was derived from Babylonian records. 22. Page 167. Names of Elam. Note by Prof. Sayce. The native name was Khalpirti, Khapirti, Khapir, or Khupur, of the same meaning. 23. Page 172. Prof. Sayce substitutes the reading Sipak for Sikhu as given by Prof. Lenormant in the list of Kassite gods. 24. Page 174. Prof. Ujfalvy gives the Brahuis as Dravidians. Prof. Sayce corrects this statement in the following note : This is a mistake. Trumpp and Caldwell have now shown that Brahui is an Aryan language. 25. Page 186. "The name (of Ham) is read in the Targums ' Hemta.' " To avoid possible confusion the reader will notice that this Ham is the name of the place, not of Kham the brother of Shem and Japhet, a name quite unconnected with the matter. I trust the revised version of the Bible will carefully provide against con- fusions of such distinct names as Kham and Ham, Kharran and Haran. 26. Page 192. Dr. Selah Merrill of the American exploring expedition has reported some curious and interesting observations in the flat country north of the Dead Sea: see statements of the (American) Palestine Exploration Society, New York. 217 INDEX. AA Aah-hotep, Queen. page Her jewels 154, 160 Abimelech. King of Gerar 154 Abram. Born at Ur 1 The name Abramu in the Assyrian Eponym Canon .... 46 Name of 4S Called of God 53 Migrates to Kharran .... 54 „ to Canaan .... 63 „ to Egypt .... 99 Back to Canaan 15S Pursues and defeats Kedor-laomer 197-199 Absha. Mentioned in tomb of Khnum-hotep . m Adrammelech and Anammelech. Worshipped at Sepharva'im ... 23 ^Enon. Near to Salim 75 Ahmes. First king of eighteenth dynasty 150, 153 Naval officer, his inscription . . S3 Akkadian. Language, had ceased to be spoken before the 17th century, B.C. . . 13 Calendar and Zodiac later than 2300 b.c 13 Poetry at its height, 4000 years ago . 13 Sabbaths 16 Worship 22, 37 Human sacrifice 24 Proverbs 29 Laws 33 Magic 38 Aku, see Sin. AN Aleppo. page Its name 64 Castle of 64 Amar-aku, King 180 Amar-utu-ki, see Marduk. Amenemha. Amenemha I. fortifies the Delta . . 80 „ subdues the Sati . .81 „ colossus of, at San 101, 132 Egypt under the Amenemhas . .114 An officer of the twelfth dynasty . 133 Amenhotep. Amenhotep I. second king of the eighteenth dynasty SS Amil-urgal. His office and prayer .... 42 Ammu-Anshi. King of Tennu 80 Amorites. Their land 84 Personal appearance of . -85 Chariots of 86 Standard of S6 Gods of 86 Amraphel, King. Akkadian Amar-pal . . . . 1S0 Amtelai. Name of Terakh's wife in the Talmud 37 Amu. Egyptian name for Semitic people . 7S The thirty-seven at Beni-hassan . . no Amun-Ra. Plumes of 149 An. Biblical On, Greek Heliopolis . 107,122 AN 218 BR 102, 103 114 158 120, 124 Anaka. page Land of 104 Anakim. Perhaps a tribe of Hyksos . Anastasi. Papyrus Anastasi VI. referred to III. cited . Ancessi, Abbe. On Egyptian religion . Anu. God of heaven Worshipped at Erech . Apap. The wicked serpent Apapi. Hyksos king 139 Arabia. Early home of Semites Arba'. Meaning of the name . Arban, on the river Khabour. Antiquities found by Mr. Layard at . 147 Arbela. East of Jordan 71 Architecture. Domestic, of Chaldaea ... 46 Argob, in Bashan 69 Ariok. Probably Eri-aku . . . . 178,179 Arks, Sacred. Used in Babylonia as in Egypt . 25, 95 Aryans 173 Ashtaroth Karnaim 1S6 Ass. Painted at Beni-hassan . . .112 In Egypt "5,153 ASSURBANIPAL. King of Assyria, took Susa ... 4 RernovedtheLibraryofSarginaI.fromErech5 ASSUR-NAZIR-PAL. Conquered Arba-ki . . . .103 Astarte. Hittite figures of 90 Astro-theology. Fully developed in Chaldaea about 2000 b.c 13 Attila, the Hun 174 Ausar. Akkadian form of Assur Prayer for, in a hymn to Marduk Avaris. In the Delta . Ba'al. Identical with Set Gryphon of . Babylon. Capital before Ur. Bachtan, or Bit-ani. Near Armenia Baghdad. Granite lion found at . Bahr-el-Kades. Lake on the Orontes . Bahr-Lut. Name of Dead Sea Baker, Sir Samuel. His remark on pet animals Beersheba. Beke, Dr. On Harran-el-Awamid . Bel. His temple at Nipur " Month of the sacrifice of," Belik River. Affluent of the Euphrates Beni-hassan. Subterranean chambers of Bethel. Described . Bir. Ferry over Euphrates at Birch, Dr. On the Nemma-sha . On the Hyksos . BlSHARIN. Of Sinaitic Arabia Borsippa. The great tower of stages Boscawen, Mr. W. St. Chad. Assyrian Reading Book cited His papers on Gudea Brahuis. In Beloochistan . PAGE 27 27 145 148 4 3 140 65 115 160 66 first month 24 54, 63 109 97 63 81 152 '45 174 BR 219 DR Brugsch-Bey. His geographical inscriptions On the Ruten „ origin of the Egyptians „ the Delta Burton, Captain, R. N. His discoveries in Midian . Ca-dimirra. The Turanian name of Babel . . 20 Calneh. Its identification 3 Camel. In Egypt 153 Canaanites. (See also Kheta, Amorites.) From the Persian Gulf ... 77 Their present descendants ... 93 Canals. In Babylonia .... 42, 43 Carchemish. Probably at modern Jerabolus . . 63 Casius, Mount. A Phoenician settlement . . .101 Cattle. In Egypt 159 Cesnola, General di. Antiquities found in Cyprus by . . 148 Chabas, M. Fr. On Camel in Egypt .... 153 „ Abram in Egypt . . . 154, 155 „ Egyptian phrases . . . . 15S „ Hittite tablet 94 „ travels of the Mohar . . . 1S6 CHALDiEA. Described 1 Pantheon of 13 Astronomy of 15 Sabbath in 16 Religion of 19, 26 Chaldees. Ur of the Chaldees .... 4 Dress of 11 Cosmogony of . . . .19 Chester, Rev. Greville J. Antiquities brought home by -85 Choaspes, modern Kerkhah, River, see Kerkhah. Clermont-Ganneau, M. PAGE On Canaanites .... • 93 Conder, Lieut. C. R., R.E. Map of conquests of Thothmes III. . 82 On Mukams .... • 93 Cook, Rev. Canon. His Excursus on Egypt 114, 125 On Abram in Egypt . 129 Creation. Akkadian ideas of • «9 Egyptian opinion on . 120 Creuzer. On Canaanite religion . • 9i Crocodilopolis. Statue at • 137 Cush or Kush. Assyrian Kusu .... 7 Damascius. Quoted • 19 Damascus. Tradition of Abram at . . 66 Dan, now Tell-el-Kady . • 195 Daniel, Tomb of ... . . 170 Dashur. Brick pyramid of . • "7 Davis, Rev. E. J. Inscription at Ibreez • 65 Dayan-same'. Name of the Pole Star in Chaldsea • 14 Dead Sea. Shores of . 1S9 Debir. Or Kiriath-Sepher . 84 Delta. Of Egypt, its condition . 100 Deveria, M. Theodule. On statue in the Louvre . 140 Dhubar, see Izdubar. Dog. Dogs of Abram .... • 95 Drake, Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt. On route through Bashan . • 7i Brings home a Syrian altar . 186 On climate of Jericho . • 193 Dravidians • 173 Drew, Rev. G. S. Quoted . 160 DU 220 HA Duzi, see Tamzi. Dwarfs. In Egypt [23 . 1 06 11S, 122 Ebers, Professor. On Inscription of Salatis „ Sphinxes of San „ History of the Delta „ Marriage in Egypt . Eden. Garden of, perhaps in Chaldaea Edwards, Miss Amelia B. Her work on the Nile . Egypt. Lower Egypt described Religion of . „ distinguished from Christianity 12S Elam. Kudur-nankhundi king of, B.C. 2280 . 3 Name of 166 Description of 167 Races in 171 Ellat-gula. Queen in Babylonia . . . .178 El-Paran 18S Emim. (See also Imu.) . . . . 1S6 En-gedi 190 Entef. Name of kings of the eleventh dynasty 109 Erech. Now Warka, a city of Nimrod ravaged by Kudur-nankhundi, B.C. 2280 3 Monotheism, taught at Ishtar worshipped at . A great burial city Eri-aku. Son of Kudur-mabuk . His buildings and conquests ESAR-HADDON. Crowned by his father . Esther, Book of Et-tell, see Ha'i. Exorcism. Akkadian 39 47 1'Al Of angels 26 „ man 26 Fayum. page District on the west of the Nile . .114 Obelisk in 117 Fenekhu. The Phoenicians 89 Finn, Mr. Consul. On Canaanites 93 Finn, Mrs. Describes Abram's journey to Egypt . 98 Flood. Punishment of sin . . . . 26 Floods of Euphrates and Tigris . . 41 Mullias destroyed by . . . .43 Flounces. Used in Babylonian dress . . .11 Gargamis. Ancient name of Karchemish . . 64 Gerar 100 Gerizim. Described 74 GlSDHUBAR. Epic of, not older than b.c 2300 . 13 „ Probable date about b.c. 2000 13 Gold. Used by Akkadians .... 47 Gold, White. Silver so called in Egypt . . .154 Goodwin, Mr. C. Wycliffe. Translates story of Sineh . . 79 On the Emim 187 Goyim. Gutium of the inscriptions . . .181 Grove, Mr. George. On the Dead Sea .... 163 Gudea. King of Zirgulla, his statuettes . . 144 Gutium, see Goyim. Ha'.'. Identified 98 Haigh, Rev. D. H. Quoted 79 On Hittite names .... 89 On Khebron . . . . . .104 On Pa-neham 145 Ham, probably Hameitat. Hemta of the Targums . . . 1S6 HA 221 KE Hamath. page On the Orontes 64 Incised stones found at ... 65 Hamy, Dr. On statues of Hyksos . . . . 143 Harkavy, Professor. On Temennu 80 Harran-el-Awamid. Near Damascus 66 Hazeroth 100 Hazziz 191 Hebron (Khebron). Its foundation 102 Heliopolis, see An. Herbert. Author of Attila 174 Herusha-u. Nomad tribes 78 Homs. Ancient Emesa 65 Horse. In Egypt 152 Hurki, see Sin. Husasa, probably ancient Hazziz . . 191 Hyksos or Shepherd Kings. Date of 130 Period of 131 Statues of, at San . . . .134 Name and race of . . . .142 Hymns. Akkadian, to the Moon-god . . 9 To Nana or Anunit .... 22 „ Marduk at Babylon ... 27 On the ship of Ea . . . -95 Iamblichus. On Egyptian religion . . . .119 Ibex. From Sinai 1 1 1 Ibreez. In the Taurus, inscription found at . 65 Ilu. The supreme god .... 20 Imu, perhaps the ancient Emim, see Emim. Iron. Rare among the Akkadians . . 47 Ishmael. When born 1S3 Ishtar. page Temple of, at Erech . . . .12 Izdubar. Or Gisdubar, or Dhubar, perhaps same as Nimrod, slays Khumbaba . 169 James, Sir Henry, R.E. Describes a remarkable block of tin . 112 erabolus, see Carchemish. River [67 ERICHO. Climate of 193 ETUR. Son of Ishmael 67 OB. His mode of life 61 127 USTIFIED. Epithet in Egyptian inscriptions . Kadesh Barnea iSS Kadesh on the Orontes .... 65 Kaivanu, Heb. Kiun 15 Kanana. Name of Canaan in Egyptian and Assyrian 77 Karnebo. Father-in-law of Terakh in the Talmud 37 Karrak. Taken Kasdim. Derivation of Kassi. Mentioned in Tablet . In Elam .... Kassian gods Kedor-la'omer. King of Elam His first expedition to Canaan „ second expedition .... 1S4 Kemuel. Son of Nakhor 49 Kenrick, Mr. John. On Western Migration • • • 53 Kerbela. A Mohammedan burial city ... 47 Kerkhah. Choaspes. River 167 • 179 • 3i 4 . 172 . 172 177, 182 . 1S2 KH MA Khammu-ragas. page Canal constructed by . . . .43 His conquests 200 Kharran. Called the city of Nakhor ... 53 Described 55 Its history 57 Its gods 58 Khasisadra. His sacrifice 22 Khatti, Assyrian name of Hittites, see Kheta. Khebron. Or Hebron, its foundation . . . 102 Dr. Haigh on 104 Kheta. Sons of Kheth, Khatti, conquered by Sargina 1 87 Their golden vessels .... 90 Arms, etc 92 Khetam. Land of 78, S2 Khetasar 93 Kheth, see Kheta. Khnum-hotep. His tomb no Khobah. Near Damascus 198 Khorites 1S7 Khumba. Susian god 172 Khumbaba. Slain by Izdubar . . . . 172, 174 Kings. Their titles 30 Worshipped 31 Their limited power .... 32 Kiriath-Sepher 84 Kissians. Kassi of the monuments . . .171 Kitto, Dr. Description of tent life . . .61 KOM-ES-SULTAN. Tumulus of Abydos .... 123 KUDUR-MABUK. King of Elam, probably identical with Kudur-lagamar . . .177 Kudur-nakh-khunte. page King of Elam, b.c 22S0 ... 3 KURAN. River 167 Kurn Surtabeh. Hill near Jordan 72 Lapis-lazuli. Used in Egypt 116 Larsa. Perhaps Ellasar 178 Lauth, Professor .... 130, 142 Laws. Akkadian 30 Family lawsuit 35 Layard, Mr. A. H. (See Arban.) Leather. Used for writing in Egypt . ' .116 Lefebure, M. On development in Egypt . . . 126 Lenormant, Professor F. On Elemental Spirits . . . . 11S „ Egyptian Magic . . . .118 Describes the Hyksos head in Villa Ludovisi 136 On statuette from Babylon . . . 144 „ Languages and gods of Elam 171-173 Lepsius, Dr. On the Amu of Beni-hassan . .114 Libyans. Claimed Arba as their father . . 103 Lieblein, Professor. On the Hittites .... 65, 94 Ligbagas. King of Ur (Mugheir), his temples . \7. Perhaps founder of a Cushite religion in Chaldaea 15 Loftus, Mr. W. K. His account of Elam .... 167 „ „ Susa . . . 169 Ludovisi, Villa. Head of Hyksos at . . .136 Machjerus 186 Magic. Akkadian 28, 38 Egyptian 40, 11S Makan, probably the Sinaitic Peninsula . 177 MA 223 NE Malan, Rev. S. C. PAGE Meyer, Dr. E. page Description of Kharran 55 On the red crown of Lower Egypt 132 On Abram's route 63 „ Set 145 „ life of Abram 4 155 MlDIAN. Mam re the Amorite .... 191 Riches of the Midianites 112 Marathus 95 MlLKAH 48 Marduk. Akkadian Amar-utuki. MOHAR. Identified with Silik-mulukhi 28 Travels of 81, 186 Mariette-Bey. MoKHNA. On Egyptian skulls 109 Plain of, described .... 75 „ Egyptian religion . 121 Monotheism. „ Monuments of Zoan 132 Whether lost by the Akkadians . *9 „ the Hyksos .... 135, 151 In Egypt 119, 124 Marriage. Laws of In Egypt 34 154 Month. Third month sacred to the Moon-god . Nisan, ceremonies in . 11 42 Mars 14 Moon. Martu. Moon-god. Akkadian Hur-ki or Aku; Explained 95 Assyrian Sin 8 Maspero, Professor. Hymn to ..... 9 On Monotheism .... 119, 120 Moses 123 „ the stele of Iritisen 126 Mother. „ the Hyksos .... i43, 152 Importance of, among the Akkadians 32 Mat-am im 1S6 Mukams, see Conder, Lieut. C. R. Mazor 102 Mukna. McGregor, Mr. John. In Midian 178 At Zoan 132 Mullias, see Flood. On Tell-el-Kady .... 196 Mythology. Medinet Habu, see Rameses III. Systematically developed about 2000 Memphis. b- c 13 In Lower Egypt .... 107, 109 Temple of Set at, t. fifth dynasty 145 Menant, M. Nablous, see Sichem. On Chaldaeans .... 30 Nakhkhunte'. Meneptah. Susian goddess 172 Son of Rameses II. . 114 Nana 3 Men-ka-ra, Mycerinus. Naram-Sin. His coffin 124 Deified in life-time . . . 144, 177 His palace 156 Son of Sargina I 179 Mentu. Naville, M. Gryphon sacred to 14S His labours on the Ritual 118 Mentu-hotep. Nebo 14 109 Nedjef. Menzaleh. A Mohammedan burial city 47 Lake in the Delta 113.. 136 Negeb. Merodach-baladan .... 1S4 Or "the South," described . . 9S, 158 NE 224 PS Nemma-Sha. page Nomads, Dr. Birch on . . . .81 Nephthys 145 Nergal. God of War 12 Nicolaus of Damascus. On Abram 65 Niffer. Ancient Nipur 179 NlMROD. Identified with Izdubar . . .174 Nizir. Mountains of . . . . .169 Norris, Mr. Edwin. Cited 178 Northey, Rev. A. E. View from Rubad .... 70 Numidians, see Nemma-sha. NUMMA. Akkadian name of Elam . . .167 Nusku, see Nebo. Omens. In annals of Assur-bani-pal ... 59 Tables of 87 Oppert, Professor Julius. On Egypt and Assyria . . .146 Orchoe, see Erech. Orontes. Hamath on . . . . . .64 Osburn, Mr. William 85 Osiris. His worship 123 Owen, Professor. On camel in Egypt . . . , . 153 Padan-aram. Plain of the Highlands Palmer, Professor E. H. On land of the Amorites Pa-neham .... Panjab. Aryans in Pantheism. Defined by M. Lenormant Panther-skins, robe of S5, if • 13S PAGE 45 114 115 ii5 116 153 153 187 55 4i 101 123 Papyrus. Used by the Akkadians Anastasi VI. referred to Almost extinct in Egypt Skiffs of For writing, in Egypt Anastasi III. cited Sallier, cited . Paran .... Patana Peleg. Possible derivation Pepi Meri-ra. King of sixth dynasty His queen's pyramid Petti-Shu. Nomad tribes Pharaoh. The title Pharpar, River. Its course Phoenicia. Language of Religion of . Blocks of tin Pierret, M. Paul. On the Amu . On Monotheism . On the epithet "justified Pig. In Egypt Pig-tail. Of HyksOs . And of Hittites . Pleyte, M.W. Quoted .... Polytheism Poole, Mr. Reginald Stuart. On the Canaanites Proctor, Mr. R. A. On the Sabbath . Proto-Medic Language, Turanian Proverbs. Akkadian .... Prudentius, cited Psychology. Egyptian 126 156 67 90 91 112 S3 119 127 153 137 144 . 103 12, 36, 122 83 PT 225 SE 3s, 92 • s 5 . 86 • 93 . 1S7 Ptah. page The Creator, worshipped at Memphis . 122 Ra. Midday sun Ram, see Sacrifice. Rameses. III. palace of, at Tell-el-Yahudeh Pavilion of, at Medinet Habu II. assault of Dapur „ his treaty with Kheta-sar III. conquers the Shasu Ra-Set-Nub. Name of ... . Ra-smenkh-ka. Called Mer-mesha, colossus of Rawlinson, Rev. Professor. On Ancient Monarchies, cited „ date of Kudur-Mabuk . Rawlinson, Sir H. C. On Western Migrations „ Kudur-Mabuk Red. The colour of Nergal (Mars) Red Land, to-tesher (Egyptian) Remarks on . Renan, M. Ernest. On Monuments in Higher Lebanon Rephaim. Tribe on East of Jordan Resurrection. Believed by Akkadians Associated with Marduk In Egypt RlMMON, RAMMANU. God of the Sky .... Patron of Irrigation Robiou, M. Felix. On Egyptian religion . Rouge', Vic. Emmanuel de. On Set Rowley, Rev. Henry .... Rubad, see Stanley, Northey. RUTEN. Upper Ruten in Southern Palestine Upper and Lower 141 133 ■ 5i • 177 ", 15 • 73 • 151 • 94 68, 186 . 26 • 27 . 127 '45 116 Sabbath. page The Moon-god called " Lord of Rest," i.e., of Sabbaths . . . .10 Known to the Akkadians and Assyrians 16 Sabians 59 Sacrifice. Akkadian, the ram and the bull . . 23 Human 23 „ Akkadian Texts on . . .24 „ attributed to Hyksos . . 150 „ abolished by Ahmes . . 150 Saf, Safekii. Goddess of learning .... 145 Sakti, or Sati. Semitic races S2 Salatis. The first Shepherd-king, his inscription 134 Samas, Shemesii 12 San, see Zoan. Sanctuary. Laws concerning 33 Saneha. Story of 79 Sar. Title in Chaldaea and Egypt . . 155 Sara'i". Identified with Iskah .... 48 Import of her name .... 48 Sargina I. Legend of 5, 200 Sargon, King of Assyria . . . .184 Sarru-ikdu. Assyrian name of Sar-turda . .103 Sar-turda. His numeral S 103 Saturn 15 Sayce, Rev. Professor. Assyrian Grammars, cited ... 46 On Hittite language . . . . S9 „ languages of Elam and Media . 173 Describes seal -cylinder found at Curium 177 Seal-cylinder. Of Lig-bagas described . . .11 Babylonian 45 Buried with the dead .... 47 In Egypt 116 16 SE 226 ST Sebek. page The crocodile-god . . . .107 Sebek-hotep. V. king- of thirteenth dynasty . . 129 Se'ir, Mount 1S7 Semitic. Civilization 6 Type of countenance . . . 1 13 Semneh. Above the second cataract . . .109 Senkereh. Ancient Larsa . . . . . 17S Sepharvaim, see Adrammelech. Sepulture. Of Chaldsea 47 Set, see Sutekh. Shadoof 115 Shalmanezer. Defeats Hazael at Saniru 87 Shapur, river 16S Sharpe, Mr. S. On Egyptian head-dress Klaft . .140 Shasu. Nomad tribes .... 160, 1S6 Shat-atik. River at Susa 170 Sl-IAVEH-KlRIATHAIM lS6 Shedim . . ... . . 150, 182 Shem, Kham, and Japhet. Meaning respectively yellow, black, and fair, mentioned in tablets . . 7 Shemesh, or Samas. The Sun-god, his temple at Larsa . 12 Shenir. Amorite name of Hermon ... 69 Assyrian Saniru S7 Shinar. Sumir of the inscriptions . . . 1S0 Ships. Of Ur 2 Shush. Ancient Susa 169 Shush an, see Susa. Sichem. Described 73 SlDDIM. PAGE Vale of . 1S2 SlDON • 94 Silik-mulu-khi. Identified with Marduk 2S Analogous to Osiris 28 Silver. Used by the Akkadians 47 In Egypt '54 Simti-Silkhak. Father of Kudur-Mabuk . 17S Sin, Akkadian Aku. Semitic name of the Moon-god . 12 Patron of brick making 12 His numerical symbol 30 102 Sinaitic Arabia. Mining-stations of 129 SlNGASIT. Built a Temple at Erech to Sarturda 103 SlPPARA. Twin cities of (Sepharvaim) 23 Human sacrifice at 23 Skene, Mr. Consul. Suggestion as to Jerabolus . 63 Slave. Akkadian laws, concerning . 34 Law-suit, concerning . 35 Smith, Mr. George. Discovery of Karchemish . 63 Buried at Aleppo .... 64 On early kings .... 177 Smith, Mr. Philip. His Manual of Ancient History of the East, cited 46 Sodom. Taken 194 Sphinxes. Of San 13 4. 139 In the Louvre 134 Stanley, Dean. On Abram's route . 63 View from Rubad . 70 Description of Sichem . 73 „ View from near Bethel . 162 Star. Symbol of gods 12 Stars shown to Abram 16 Symbol of royal dignity su 227 UR SULPA-UDDU. Akkadian name of Mercury, Star of Nebo The prince of the men of Kharran Sulum, see Sabbath. Suqamuna SUSA. Described Inscription at Susian gods SUSIANS SUTEKH. Or Set, same as Ba'al . . 79, 9 The nocturnal Sun His symbolic figure Statuette of, at Leyden Porcelain statuette of, at Bulak Pig- connected with 169 171 172 171 1. 145 147 147 14S 14S 153 Tablet. In duplicate, how formed ... 36 Takhisa. Land of .... 79, 81 Talbot, Mr. H. Fox. On Monotheism 19 Tamzi, or Thammuz, or Duzi. The Sun of Life 14 Tang. Or mountain gorge .... 16S Tanis, see Zoan. Tell-el-Kady, see Dan. Tell-el-Yahudeh. Palace of Rameses III., at . . . S5 Tell-Mokdam. Colossus at 133 Teman, see Harkavy. Tennu. In Southern Palestine .... 80 Thomson, Rev. Dr. W. M. On Bitumen-pits 194 Thothmes. III. tablet of, at Bulak ... Si Conquests of .... S2, S7 I. fights against the Ruten . SS III. geographical lists of Karnak 8S, 89 Throwing-stick. page Used in Egypt no Tid'al, or rather Tharcal as in the LXX. 181 Tigris. River 167, 16S Tin, see Midian. Tristram, Rev. Canon. Description of Bashan . . . . 6S View from Gerizim .... 75 On Mamre 164 „ Engedi 189, 190 „ Dan 195 Tu, or Tutu. Setting Sun, the god of death . . 14 Tum. The nocturnal Sun . . . .121 Turanians. First civilizers of Babylonia . . 6 Invented Cuneiform writing . . 7 Conquered by Semites .... 7 System of elemental worship . . 15 Turanian element in Egypt . . 104, 142 Turanian Elamites . . . . 17 1 Turanian language of Media . 173 Turner, Rev. William. Studies Biblical and Oriental, cited . 46 Tyre. Date of Old Tyre . . . .101 Uati. Goddess of Lower Egypt . Ujfalvy, Professor de. Quoted on the Aryans in the Panjab On Aryans, Semites, and Hamites Ulai, or Euljeus, see Shat-atik. Ulbar. A temple at Agane Una. Inscription of Un. of Uru, capital of Uru-ma Situation and port Ligbagas and Dungi, Kings Devoted to the Moon-god, his temple Ruins described . A great burial-city 16* 78, 155 us 228 zu USERTESEN. I. Colossus of, at San . II. Pictures of his reign I. Obelisk of „ Statue of, at Abydos „ Two statues of, at San „ Gold-leaf used in his time Usoiis, see Usu. Usu. Explained .... Venus. Planet, its phases observed in Chaldsea 14 Identified with Ishtar and Bilat . . 15 Tutelary of Agane, and of Erech . 15 Wady Far'ah. From Jordan to Sichern ... 72 Wheat. Indigenous in Chaldsea ... 2 Wigs. In Egypt . . . .116, 135, 136 Wilkinson, Sir J. Gardiner. On Osiris 123 Williams, Rev. George. Describes El 'Amud .... 75 Wilson, Major, R.E. page Description of Sichem ... 73, 74 Woman, see Marriage, Mother. Worship, see Sacrifice. Yabbok, see Zerka. Yamutbal, see Elam. Zerka. Ancient Yabbok 71 Zi. Akkadian word for Spirit . . . 11S Zidonians. Their navigation 94 Ziggurat. Tower of stages, its uses ... 8 Zirgulla. Temple of Sar-ili, at Zirgulla . . 12 Gudea, King of 144 Ziz 191 ZOAN. Tanis, now San ... 79, 101, 107 Favourite residence of thirteenth dynasty 129 Its monuments 131 Zodiac, see Akkadians. Zuzim 1S6 - H m ; :, '-'i*'