THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
AUTHORITY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
SACRED AND PROFANE
AUTHORITY
AND ARCHAEOLOGY
SACRED AND PROFANE
ESSAYS ON THE RELATION OF MONUMENTS
TO BIBLICAL AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE
BY S. R. DRIVER, D.D. ERNEST A. GARDNER, M.A.
F. LL. GRIFFITH, M.A. F. HAVERFIELD, M.A.
A. C. HEADLAM, B.D. D. G. HOGARTH, M.A.
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ON THE NATURE OF
ARCHAEOLOGY BY THE EDITOR
EDITED BY
DAVID G. HOGARTH
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford ; Director of the British School at Athens
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1899
PRINTED BY
HAZLLL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.
LONDON AND AYLESBUKY.
Library
PREFATORY
IT is hoped that these Essays will shew in what ways
and to what degree the results of archaeological research
may legitimately affect the views of those who, without
special archaeological knowledge, concern themselves with
the antiquity of civilization. Evidence and hypotheses,
which have not been subjected to an adequate test, do
not come within the proper scope of this volume,
which, it is hoped, may not be open to the reproach,
often brought against summaries, that they resume
work which has not yet been done. The impossibility
of containing even a rapid survey of all archaeologies
within a volume of reasonable bulk has caused the
purview of the essayists to be confined to the geographical
area from which the culture of Christian Europe has
directly sprung, namely, that debatable land of the Near
East, where the energetic nature disputes possession
with the contemplative, and where have originated the
great ideas but not the great institutions of humanity.
The views, contained in this volume, regarding both
Archaeology in general and its special departments, have
not been arrived at by any common understanding. Each
essayist is responsible for his own views, and the Editor
for no more than those expressed in his own contributions.
In regard to Archaeology in general a word must be
said by way of preface, since the connotation of the term
has come to be ambiguous in ordinary thought and
533832
vi THE GREATER ARCHAEOLOGY
speech ; and, in fact, it is not used in the same sense at
all times by the contributors to this volume. In com-
mon parlance it has nowadays three connotations. With
one of these, " Archaeology " signifying the propaedeutic
training of the aesthetic faculty by the study of style in
antique art a frequent connotation of the term in uni-
versities and other places of education, we are not here
concerned, though we hold it in all honour. The remaining
connotations are mutually related as whole and part.
Both must be allowed to be legitimate enough ; and
harm is done only when the part is mistaken for, or put
in place of, the whole.
Half a century ago one of the greatest exponents of
Archaeology, the late Sir Charles Newton, defined his
study to be the science of all the human past. On this
definition all documents, literary or material, all products
of man, all things on which he has set his impress, and
even all things which have set their impress on him
all alike are to be the archaeologist's materia. His end
being to reconstitute in imagination the society of the
past, his only limitation will be such an arbitrary line as
must somewhere be drawn between modern and ancient,
not clean cut through time, but rather (since man of
to-day may be as ancient in development as man of
forty centuries bygone) wavering in isopolitic curves
across the chart of history. This, then, is the Greater
Archaeology.
The sense, however, of our own generation seems
to find Newton's definition too wide, and to object
to it especially that it leaves too small a function to
History. If the archaeologist is to have for his part,
not only the seeking, examining, and ordering of all
the documents of the human past, but also the re-
constitution of the picture, what shall the historian
do? It will be his, indeed, to apply the result to the
THE LESSER ARCHAEOLOGY Vll
life of man in the present and future ; and to many
historians that supreme function, the true end of all
investigation of antiquity, seems a sufficient reason of
existence. But more appear to hold that the historian
himself should also reconstitute the picture, and these
have pushed the frontier of Archaeology back to that
point where the ordering of the documents in evidence
has been fully achieved. And, furthermore, since on the
one hand the literary documents of the human past need
the less seeking, examining, and ordering, and on the
other all sciences with the increase of material tend
to restrict their scope, the general opinion has come to
identify Archaeology with the study of material docu-
ments in chief, and to confine the connotation of the
term within some such definition as this, that it is the
science of the treatment of the material remains of the
human past.
This, then, is the Lesser Archaeology, a science clearly
outlined and not unduly extensive. The limits of its
field, however, must be clearly understood. This sort of
archaeology stops short of any possibility of truly re-
constituting the picture of the human past ; for to
that end the literary documents are all essential. Let
any one compare for a moment a history of the past
which has to be compiled from material documents
only, however abundant and complete, with a history
whose basis is literary the history of ancient Egypt, for
instance, with the history of classic Greece. The desert
sands have given us specimens of almost every product
of the ancient life of the Nile valley, as readily to be
recognized as on the day they were first buried. We
have all the material and circumstance of its life ; only
the life itself is wanting. Those " histories " of Egypt
that have been written sincerely and candidly from the
monuments will speak for themselves to the truth of this.
viii MATERIAL AND LITERARY DOCUMENTS
Materials for a picture of the Egyptian past they contain ;
but there is no picture. Unaided by any record of con-
temporary human intelligence which may inform him, not
so much of what was, but of what seemed, the student
of antiquity occupies a position not less external to the
object of his studies than an astronomer observing a star.
For the relation of the circumstances of life to life itself
he can draw only on his subjective experience acquired
beyond a gulf of time or space. Change the analogy, and
he is an algebraist, confronted by a formula of many
terms, all depending for their value on the value of one,
and that unknown.
Very different is the case of the student of ancient
Greece. With a wealth of literary documents at command,
he can take almost the position of a contemporary in
regard to the past. Though he need depend less than
the student of any other ancient society on material
documents, no one can make more or better use of
these ; for they fall into their places as soon as they
are duly examined. Being almost inevitably related in
some way to our knowledge, they can seldom or never
long remain enigmas, stimulating those rank growths
of speculation that cumber the ground of prehistoric
archaeology. It is hardly too much to say that there are
very few material remains of classic Hellas that are not
as intelligible now as when they expressed an. existing
civilization.
Obvious as is this appreciation of literary documents
as evidence for the human past, it is not unseasonable
to repeat it now ; for depreciation is often in the mouth
of the professed student of the Lesser Archaeology. " An
inch of potsherd is worth all Herodotus ! " Why should
the professed archaeologist compare these at all he whose
science deals with the potsherd, but not with Herodotus,
except as illustrated by or illustrating potsherds? It is
MATERIAL AND LITERARY DOCUMENTS ix
rather for him to compare to whose end the end of Archaeo-
logy is always relative : Herodotus will have all due honour
from the historian. And short of this obvious exaggeration
we may often hear an invidious comparison between the
sound objective evidence of material documents and the
unsound subjective evidence of literature. Yet neither
is the latter any less objective than the former, nor is
the former less open to subjective falsification than the
latter. Exempli gratid, on the one hand behind the per-
sonal and subjective standpoint of an Aristophanes, easily
enough discounted, lies a mass of objective circumstance
more informing as to society in fifth-century Athens than
all the contents of her museums. On the other hand, the
material documents of antiquity are often coloured by a
subjectivity that will mislead, those inscriptions of kings
and cities that were expressly intended to deceive con-
temporaries and posterity ; those even not so intended,
which may as easily deceive us, not knowing from other
evidence the circumstances of their erection. Literature
sometimes warns us in time ; the name of Melos appears
engraved on an Athenian assessment list some years
before the date at which Thucydides records that the
Republic actually brought that island over to herself, and
we are not deceived, recognizing on the marble an example
of a world-wide practice of imperial states, prone to swell
the public lists of their tributaries with drafts on the
bank of hope. But in how many similar cases, with no
Thucydides. at our elbow, have we been led by material
documents to falsify the picture of a past society ?
In its proper place, however, this study of the Lesser
Archaeology has fairly established a claim to be a science
of firstrate importance to the end of history. It is young,
for the impulse towards scientific method operated upon
it only after the events of the first quarter of this century
X METHODS OF SEARCH
which opened the Levant and Egypt to scholars. It
suffers from the impossibility of verifying many of its
hypotheses, especially in dealing with periods before
written history, which are at once its opportunity and its
occasion of falling. But at least the processes and methods
by which it fulfils its three functions in regard to the
material documents of the human past seeking, examin-
ing, and ordering have steadily grown more scientific
and sound.
No seeker after antiquities to-day can claim flair or
fortune superior to the great finders of a past generation,
Mariette, Layard, Newton, or Schliemann ; but the methods
of search at present in vogue are better than theirs.
The spade remains the spade, and excavation is still
carried on for the most part with local and often primitive
tools, found by experience to suit native workmen and
to conduce to greater minuteness of search. Among the
modern apparatus of excavation a D6cauville light railway
or a few hydraulic jacks will probably alone represent the
nineteenth century, and these are not conspicuously in
advance of the devices of Pharaoh's overseers. But the
excavator, from being a random hunter for treasure, has
become a methodical collector of evidence, conscious of
responsibility to the study of every specialist, and not
to his own predilection merely, trained to observe every-
thing that his spade disturbs ere the information which
its relative position would convey be lost for ever, and to
note it in a way which scholars of all nationalities can
understand. The modern science of excavation the
science not only of finding with the spade, but of not
1 destroying with the spade has no better exponents of its
principles than Mr. Flinders Petrie and his school, who
observe and record on a rigid system which admits no
personal preference for one class of antiquities over
another. And even the most careless of official " gangers,"
MODERN METHODS OF SEARCH XI
who, clearing out Egyptian temples, throw unsifted earth
by the unsupervised truckload over precipices or into
the Nile, admit the principle which in execution their
instructions, their impatience, or their sloth prompt them
to disregard. There are of course divers peculiar gifts,
qualities, and items of knowledge which go to give one
excavator success and another ill-success, eyes compared
to which other eyes are not eyes ; character which will
secure intelligence, strenuousness, and honesty in workmen
where another's instruments retain all their vices and
acquire new ones ; experience which can open out in a week
a foundation-deposit or the treasure-chamber of a tumulus
which many would seek for long months and never find
at all. But these are individual prerogatives. All explorers
can be thorough, careful, unprejudiced, systematic and
therein lies the root of the matter ! To treat no item of
evidence as not worth observation and record, and to
leave as little as may be for the man who may come after
in these things is all the law of scientific search for
the material documents of antiquity. And those not only
underground, but aboveground ; for the principles which
Mr. Petrie by demonstration in the sands of Egypt has
taught excavators to observe, Mr. Ramsay has impressed
on travellers also by the example of his early journeys on
the hills and plains of Asia Minor.
In the examination of the material documents when found
we can claim to be better than our fathers in virtue not only
of greater knowledge derived from experience in a wider
field, but rather of those mechanical extensions of our
physical powers in the invention of which this century has
so greatly surpassed all before it. For example, the part
played by photography in assisting the eye, hand, and brain
of the archaeologist in both the field and the museum needs
only to be recalled, and every year its use becomes more
easy, and more generally to be applied. The field-glass, the
xii METHODS OF EXAMINATION
chambre-daire, improved instruments for surveying, more
appropriate chemical detergents with these and many
other discoveries adopted from alien sciences the science of
Archaeology has vastly increased its power to examine its
documents. But also in other methods more subjective
there has been immense improvement. From the famous
decypherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Achae-
menid wedge-characters by regular process of hypothesis,
experiment, and verification has resulted a special science
of dealing with written documents in an unknown script
or tongue ; and the tendency now is to lay increasing stress
in this matter on systematic experimental methods to the
elimination of the element of ingenious conjecture which
marked earlier stages. Thus, to take one example of a
case where verification is as yet impossible, the careful com-
parisons made independently by MM. Jensen and Menant
of the relative positions of single symbols and of groups of
symbols in the various " Hittite " texts has advanced the
solution of the yet insoluble problem of their decypher-
ment by a distinct stage, which will not have to be
traversed again. Not less in the study of artistic docu-
ments also there is a tendency to insist on experimental
and almost mechanical methods of examination which,
compared to those of the dilettante period, denote a great
advance in system. As Mr. Penrose, by laboriously
measuring the Parthenon, advanced definitely the whole
T study of Greek architectural proportion, so students of
sculpture now rely more on the measurements of statues
in their several parts to arrive at the canons of the divers
schools, and to relate works of art to their true influences
and true authors, than on any general impression or even
detailed observation of style.
Concerning the third function of Archaeology the
ordering of the material documents, whether actually in
the show-cases of a museum, or by representation on the
METHODS OF ORDERING xiii
plates or in the letter-press of an archaeological publication
less need be said, for the advance in the two preliminary
processes entails a corresponding advance in the third.
The root-principle of this function of ordering is compari-
son. The improvement in the methods of search supplies
nowadays a far more numerous and varied material than
formerly, and the improvement in all methods of examina-
tion makes comparison far more easy and sound. How
scientific this final function of Archaeology may be brought
to be will be learned from the numismatists. How near
an approach can be made to similar certainty in classifica-
tion of a less homogeneous class of documents the
catalogues of ceramic will shew. How students of the most
erratic and individualistic documents, that are subject of
the archaeologist's study, the products of Grand Art,
strive after similar ordering by similar processes, may be
discerned in such treatises on Greek sculpture as the
recent writings of Dr. Furtwangler.
With the ceaseless progress of discovery the documents
for the human past have been so quickly and so greatly
increased that specialism has become inevitable where it
was once possible to take a wider view. Labour must be
divided, and each worker in the field, taking his peculiar
corner, will achieve perhaps a more useful result than if
he were to range over the whole area as it is to-day.
Therefore, observing that as Archaeology has narrowed its
connotation it has come to denote a more scientific study,
we do not seek to insist on the term being used only in that
wider sense in which Sir Charles Newton understood his
science. But the continual reference to literary documents,
which will be noted in the essays that follow, is designed
to keep in view the great fact that Archaeology, understood
thus as the science of the treatment of the material docu-
ments of the human past, is concerned with only one, and
xiv END OF THE MATTER
(if comparison need be instituted) not the most important,
class of documents from which the life of past society is
to be reconstituted. If all the material documents of
antiquity had vanished off the earth, we could still con-
struct a living and just, though imperfect, picture of
antiquity. But were it, on the other hand, literature that
had perished utterly, while the material remains of all
past civilizations survived everywhere in soils as fecund
and as preservative as the sands of Egypt, nothing of
that picture could be drawn beyond the most nebulous
outline. As things stand at this day, material monuments
take a place, important or unimportant, in the historian's
reconstruction of the past according as they can be
interpreted well or ill by comparison of the monuments
of letters.
CONTENTS
PART FIRST
HEBREW AUTHORITY
PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY . . 3
II THE PENTATEUCH . . 9
III. THE KINGS AND AFTER . . 8O
PART SECOND
CLASSICAL AUTHORITY
I. EGYPT AND ASSYRIA 155
II PREHISTORIC GREECE 22O
III. HISTORIC GREECE . . . 254
IV. THE ROMAN WORLD .... .296
PART THIRD
CHRISTIAN AUTHORITY
I. THE EARLY CHURCH 335
II. REMAINS IN PHRYGIA 363
III. THE CATACOMBS AT ROME .... 396
PART FIRST
HEBREW AUTHORITY
BY
S. R. DRIVER, D.D.
CANON OF CHRISTCHURCH, REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN TH*
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
BABYLONIA.
B.C.
7-6000.' Temple of Bel at
Nippur founded.
c. Aooo. 1 Lugal-zapgisi, king of
Uruk (Erech).
3800." Sargon, of Agade.
3750.' Naram-Sin, his son.
c. 2800. Gudea, king of La-
gash.
c. 2800. Ur-bau and Dungi,
kings of Ur.
c. 2800. Singashid, king of
Uruk.
2478-2174." First Dynasty of
Babylon.
c. 3400-2200. Kings of Larsa.
2376-2333." Khatnmurabi.
1786-1211. The Cassite Dy-
nasty.
1400. Burnaburiash II.
c. 1140. Nebuchadrezzar I.
747-733. Nabonassar.
728-727. Tielath-pileser
(Pul).
721-709. Merodach-baladan.
709-705. Sargon.
625-604. Nabopolassar.
604-561. Nebuchadrezzar II.
555-538. Nabo-na'id, last
king of Babylon.
538. Capture of Babylon by
Cyrus
ASSYRIA.
c. 1820. Ishmi-dagan, palest,
or priest-king, of
Nineveh.
c. 1450. Asshurbelnisheshu,
first kingof Assyria,
at present known.
c. 1300. Shalmaneser I.
(builder of Calach,
Gen. x. n).
c. 1 100. Tiglath-pileser I.
885-860. Asshurnasirabal.
860-825. Shalmaneser II.
812-783. Rammaii-niranlll.
745-727. Tiglath-pileser III.
727-722. Shalmaneser IV.
722-705. Sargon.
722. Sargon captures Sa-
maria.
705-681. Sennacherib.
681-668. Esarhaddon.
668-626. Asshurbanipal.
607. Nineveh destro3'ed by
the Umman-iuanda.
EGYPT.'
4777. Menes, the first his-
torical king of Egypt.
3998-3721. Fourth Dynasty.
3969-3908. Cheops. Great
Pyramid built.
2778-256$. Tivtlfth Dynasty.
2098-1587. Period of Hyksos
rule.
1587-1327. Eighteen(hDyua.sly.
1587-1562 Aahmes I.
1503-1449. Thothmes III.
1414-1383. Amenophis III.
1383-1365. Amenophis IV.
1327-1181. NinetecnlhDynsiSty.
1327-1275. Seti I.
1275-1308. Ramses II.
1208-1187. Merenptah (prob-
ably tne Pharaoh
of the Exodus).
1181-1060. Twentieth Dynasty.
1180-1148. Ramses III.
960-810. Twenty - second
Dynasty.
960-939. Shishak.
1 Hilprecht's dates.
' Sayce dates (Early Israel, 189?, pp. 280 f. )
715-664. Twenty-JifthDyosiSty.
715-702. Sabako.
690-664 Tirhaka.
6^4-525. Twenty-sixth Dynasty,
664-610. Psammetichus I.
" Pctrie's dates (til! Shishak).
/. Introductory
JUST fifty years have elapsed since Mr. (afterwards Sir
Henry) Layard published two volumes entitled Nineveh
and its Remains. The work created a profound sensation.
It contained an account of excavations carried on at,
or near, the site of the ancient Nineveh, and of the
surprising discoveries which resulted. Previously, as was
observed by the author in his Introduction (p. xxv), with
the exception of a few cylinders and gems, preserved
elsewhere, " a case hardly three feet square " in the British
Museum " enclosed all that remained, not only of the
great city, Nineveh, but of Babylon itself!" Now, how-
ever, palace after palace disclosed itself from beneath the
mounds of Nimroud ; and Mr. Layard's graphic narrative
told of the bas-reliefs, gigantic sculptures, paintings, and
inscriptions which in almost countless numbers met the
astonished eyes of the explorers, and revealed the life and
manners, the institutions and history, of a long-buried but
once magnificent and imposing civilization. Certainly,
few of the inscriptions could as yet be read ; but the
architecture and art of ancient Assyria spoke to the eye
with a distinctness that could not be misunderstood, and
were eloquent of the greatness of an empire which had
passed away.
The peculiar cuneiform character in which the inscriptions
4 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
of Assyria and Babylon were written presented a formidable
problem to the decypherer ; and the process of wresting
from them their secret was a long one. The story of its
accomplishment is told elsewhere in the present volume.
Here it may suffice to say that, building upon the labours
of Grotefend and Major (afterwards Sir Henry) Rawlinson,
a succession of skilful and indefatigable scholars, working
partly upon the texts discovered by Layard, partly upon
those which in great numbers have been brought to
light since, have constructed since 1851 the grammar and
lexicon of the language ; so that now, though naturally
uncertainties sometimes occur, Assyrian and Babylonian
texts can be read, as a rule, without difficulty. Nor is this
the only discovery of the kind which the past century has
witnessed. The hieroglyphics of Egypt, those weird sphinx-
like symbols which impress the eye even more strongly
than the wedge-shaped characters of Assyria, have also
yielded up their secrets. Here the most important step
had been taken, as early as 1821, by Jean Fran9ois
' Champollion : by the help of the clues which he then
discovered progress was rapidly made. Champollion him-
self brought to Europe a large number of additional
inscriptions ; and ere long, the grammar and lexicon of a
second language, very different from Assyrian, and entirely
unknown at the beginning of the century, were, in great
measure, recovered by scholars.
Babylonia and Assyria on the one side, Egypt on the
other, these are the countries which have yielded during
the last half-century the most surprising archaeological
results. In both, exploration has been actively carried
on : Germany and France, England and America, have
alternately vied with one another in their search for the
treasures buried under the mounds of Babylonia and
Assyria, or the sands of Egypt. And the texts obtained
from both countries have engaged the attention of a series
FIRST] PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY 5
of scholars, in most cases men of marked ability and power,
who have devoted their lives to analysing more accurately
the language, to studying the antiquities, and to piecing
together the history of two great nations. Much, it is
certain, remains still to be discovered ; but even now it
may be said that the two last generations have seen
exhumed and re-constructed two entire civilizations, each
beginning in an almost incalculable antiquity, each pre-
senting a highly organized society, possessing well-developed
institutions, literature, and art, and each capable of being
followed with much circumstantiality of detail through a
long and eventful history. And thus, whereas fifty or sixty
years ago little was known of either nation beyond what
was stated incidentally in the Bible or classical writers, now
voluminous works descriptive of both are being constantly
written, and are quickly left behind by the progress of
discovery. Nor is this all. Though the discoveries made in
Babylonia and Assyria, and in Egypt, eclipse in interest all
made elsewhere, they do not by any means stand alone.
From Phoenicia and the Phoenician colonies, from the land
of Moab, from Palmyra and other parts of the north and
north-east of Palestine once thickly covered with Aramaic-
speaking populations, from districts in the north-west and
the south of Arabia, inscriptions written in different
Semitic dialects have been discovered, which throw valuable
light on the antiquities of the countries in which they are
found, and often^ illustrate in a most welcome manner
different passages of the Old Testament. The discovery
and utilization of material from these sources have also been
chiefly the work of the last half-century. Gesenius, in his
Monwnenta Phoenicia, published in 1837, collected, and
explained with great success, the Phoenician inscriptions
then known ; and many additional ones, including some
of great interest, have been discovered since. De Vogue
published a large number of inscriptions from Palmyra in
6 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
1868. The very valuable inscription of Mesha, king of
Moab (translated below), was discovered in the same year.
In 1884 and 1885 there were published a number of
Nabataean inscriptions found at Meda'in Salih, in North-
west Arabia. A much larger number, chiefly of the type
called Sabaean and Minaean,some from the same neighbour-
hood in North-west Arabia, others from South Arabia,
have been copied at different times during the past century,
especially by Hale"vy (1869-70), Euting (1883-4), and Ed.
Glaser (in a series of journeys undertaken between 1883
and 1894). And quite recently, in 1888-91, the exca-
vation of a huge mound at Zinjirli, in Syria, about seventy
miles north of Aleppo, brought to light some inscriptions,
written in a previously unknown Aramaic dialect, and
dating from the eighth century B.C., the age of Amos,
Hosea, and Isaiah.
It will be the object of the following pages to explain, so
far as the available limits permit, the bearing of the new
facts brought to light from these various sources upon the
Old Testament. Naturally it will be impossible to notice
eveiy illustration which might be adduced ; many inci-
dental illustrations of words, or customs, or names, for
instance, though they might prove interesting to the special
student, must of necessity be passed over ; but the writer
hopes to be able to include notices of all the great and
important historical illustrations of the Old Testament
which the monuments have supplied, as well as to offer
examples of the manner in which, in other cases, words or
allusions have had light thrown upon them from the same
sources.
The general result of the archaeological and anthropo-
logical researches of the past half-century has been to
take the Hebrews out of the isolated position which, as a
nation, they seemed previously to hold, and to demonstrate
their affinities with, and often their dependence upon, the
FIRST] HEBREW CIVILIZATION 7
civilizations by which they were surrounded. Tribes more
or less closely akin to themselves in both language and
race were their neighbours alike on the north, on the east,
and on the south ; in addition to this, on each side there
towered above them an ancient and imposing civilization,
that of Babylonia, from the earliest times active, enter-
prising, and full of life, and that of Egypt, hardly, if at all,
less remarkable than that of Babylonia, though more self-
contained and less expansive. The civilization which, in
spite of the long residence of the Israelites in Egypt, left
its mark, however, most distinctly upon the culture and
literature of the Hebrews was that of Babylonia. It was in
the East that the Hebrew traditions placed both the cradle
of humanity and the more immediate home of their own
ancestors ; and it was Babylonia which, as we now know,
exerted during many centuries an influence, once un-
suspected, over Palestine itself. It is true, the facts thus
disclosed do not in any degree detract from that religious
pre-eminence which has always been deemed the inalienable
characteristic of the Hebrew race : the spiritual intuitions
and experiences of its great teachers retain still their
uniqueness ; but the secular institutions of the nation, and
even the material elements upon which the religious system
of the Israelites was itself constructed, are seen now to
have been in many cases common to them with their
neighbours. Thus their beliefs about the origin and early
history of the world, their social usages, their code of civil
and criminal law, their religious institutions, can no longer
be viewed, as was once possible, as differing in kind from
those of other nations, and determined in every feature by
a direct revelation from Heaven ; all, it is now known, have
substantial analogies among other peoples, the distinctive
character which they exhibit among the Hebrews consisting
in the spirit with which they are infused and the higher
principles of which they are made the exponent. Their
8 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
literature, moreover, it is now apparent, was not exempt
from the conditions to which the literature of other nations
was subject ; it embraces, for instance, narratives relating
to what we should term the pre-historic age, similar in
character and scope to those occurring in the literature of
other countries. There are many representations and
statements in the Old Testament which only appear in
their proper perspective when viewed in the light thrown
upon them by archaeology. And in some cases, as will be
seen, it is not possible to resist the conclusion that they
must be interpreted in a different sense from that in which
past generations have commonly understood them. l
1 In the Rev. C. J. Ball's Light from the East (which has appeared
since the first edition of the present work was published) the reader
will find an interesting collection of pictorial illustrations of many of
the subjects and persons referred to in the following pages ; for
instance, cherubic figures, standing or kneeling before the sacred tree
(pp. 28-30, 32) ; portrait of Hammurabi (p. 65) ; head of mummy of
Ramses II. (p. 108) ; statue of Merenptah (p. 128); Sargon and his
"Tartan" (p. 186), etc.
FIRST1
II. The Pentateuch
THE Book of Genesis opens with a Cosmogony
(i. i ii. 40), which for sublimity alike of conception and
expression stands unique in the literature of the world.
While for long this cosmogony was regarded as a literally
true description of the manner in which the earth was
gradually adapted to become the habitation of man, the
progress of science during recent years has shewn this
view of it to be no longer tenable ; the order in which the
several creative acts are represented as having taken place
conflicting too seriously with the clearest teachings of
astronomy and geology for it to be regarded as possessing
any value as a scientific exposition of the past history of
the earth. And hardly had science established this con-
clusion, when archaeology opportunely disclosed the source
from which the Hebrew cosmogony was derived. As long
ago as 1872, Mr. George Smith, on the strength of what he
had already ^observed on the tablets preserved in the British
Museum, expressed his conviction " that all the earlier
narratives of Genesis would receive new light from the
inscriptions so long buried in the Chaldaean and Assyrian
mounds" ; and in 1876, after his expeditions to Assyria in
1873 and 1874, he published all the inscriptions relating to
the Creation which had been found by him, in his Chaldaean
Genesis. Since that date other tablets have come to light ;
and though the series relating to the Creation is unfortu-
nately incomplete and in parts fragmentary, enough remains
not only to exhibit clearly the general scheme of the
10 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
Cosmogony, but also to make it evident that the Cosmogony
of the Bible is dependent upon it. V* V>t> ^o-^fS -So .
The inscriptions preserved on these tablets are written
in a rhythmical form ; and constitute in fact a kind of epic
poem, the theme of which is the triumph of Marduk
(Merodach), the supreme god of Babylon, over the
powers of confusion and disorder, and the sovereignty
thus secured by him over the other gods. The first
tablet (of which 13 lines and fragments of some others
are preserved) describes how, before what we term earth
or heaven had come into being, there existed a primaeval
watery chaos (Ttdmat, corresponding to the Hebrew tfhom,
the "deep," of Gen. i. 2), out of which the Babylonian
gods were evolved :
When 1 the heaven above | was not yet named,
And the land beneath | yet bare no name,
(While) the abyss, the primaeval, | their begetter,
Mummu-tiamat, 2 | the mother of them all,
5 Streamed with their waters ] commingled together,
(When) no field had yet been formed, | no marsh-reed
was yet to be seen,
When of the gods [ still none had come forth,
No name had yet been named, | no destiny yet fixed,
Then were born | the gods [altogether ?],
10 Lachmu and Lachamu | came forth.
Long ages passed, ....
Anshar and Kishar | were born ;
Long were the days
The gods Anu, [Inlil (i.e. Bel), and Ea were born].
Different Babylonian deities thus gradually came into
being. Tiamat, or the deep, is the representative of chaos
and disorder ; and is personified in the sequel as a huge
1 The translations from the Creation-tablets are based upon those of
Zimmern, in Gunkel's Schopfung und Chaos (1893), pp. 401 ff., and of
Friedr. Delitzsch in Das Bab. Weltschopfungsepos (1896), pp. 92 ff. See
also the excellent chapter on the Cosmology of the Babylonians (pp. 4O7ff.)
in Jastrow's Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, U.S.A.), which
reached the writer only after the following pages were in type.
8 I.e. the surging, chaotic deep.
FIRST] THE CREATION-NARRATIVE II
dragon. The following tablets shew that the parts of the
first which are lost must have told how Tiamat, jealous of
her domain being invaded by the new gods, declared her
intention of contesting their supremacy.
The second tablet is likewise imperfect, only 19 lines
and some fragments being preserved ; but its contents can
be recovered with tolerable certainty from the narratives
of the subsequent tablets : it must have told, namely, how
Tiamat attacked the other gods, how some of these,
especially Lachmu and Lachamu, took her side, and how
the rest rallied round Anshar (the prototype of Asshur,
who became afterwards the supreme god of Assyria). In
the extant lines (towards the end of the tablet), Anshar
commissions Marduk (the Merodach of Jer. 1. 2) to be the
champion of the gods against Tiamat, and the latter
undertakes the task laid upon him.
In the third tablet (138 lines) Anshar is introduced
speaking. He relates Tiamat's preparations for the coming
contest : how she had prepared a brood of formidable
monsters to be her allies ; how he had invited Anu and
Ea to enter the lists against her, and how both had
declined the unequal contest. In Marduk's prowess, how-
ever, the gods feel confidence ; and the tablet closes with
a picture of the feast held by them in anticipation of
his victory.
The fourth tablet, consisting of 146 lines, is preserved
almost intact. The narrative contained in it is told with
dramatic force and vividness. First, the gods equip
Marduk with weapons for the combat with Tiamat, and
send him with their blessing upon his way. The power
of Marduk's word is illustrated : a garment is placed in the
midst ; he speaks, and it vanishes ; he speaks again, and it
reappears. Next Marduk advances to the fray : he seizes
Tiamat in a huge net, and transfixes her with his spear.
The carcase of the monster he split into two halves, one of
12 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
which he fixed on high, to form a firmament supporting
the waters above it l :
137 He cleft her like a fish | into two parts,
With one half he made | and covered the heaven,
Set bars before it, | stationed guardians,
140 Commanded them not | to let its waters come out.
He marched through the heaven, | surveyed the places (below),
Prepared in front of the abyss | the abode of Ea.
Then Bel 2 measured | the compass of the abyss,
A great house like to that | he established E-shara,
145 The great house E-shara, | which he built like heaven.
The " abyss " was the huge body of waters on which the
earth was supposed to rest : E-shara is a poetical designa-
tion of the earth, which was conceived by the Babylonians
as a hollow hemisphere, similar in appearance to the vault
of heaven, but placed beneath it (with its convex side
upwards), and supported upon the " abyss " of waters
underneath.
The fifth tablet (24 lines preserved, some imperfectly)
describes the formation of the sun and moon, and afterwards
the appointment of years and months :
1 He 3 formed the stations | for the great gods,
As stars resembling them | he fixed the lumdsi*
He ordained the year, | defined divisions,
Twelve months with stars, | three each, he appointed.
5 From the day when the year begins | even to its close,
He fixed the station of Nibir (Jupiter), | to determine their limits,
That none (of the days) might err, | none commit a mistake.
The station of Bel and Ea, | he fixed by his (Jupiter's) side.
IJ He caused the moon-god to shine forth, | and subjected to him the
night.
Appointed him as a night-body, to determine the days.
1 In Berosus' account of the Babylonian cosmogony, the other half
of the monster's carcase was made into the earth. However, that is
not stated in the present tablet.
2 I.e. the lord, a title of Marduk.
3 From Delitzsch's translation (pp. 108 f.), which, however, is admitted
by him to be in parts, especially lines 2-4, very uncertain.
4 According to Zimmern, the stars of the zodiac.
FIRST] THE CREATION-NARRATIVE 13
The sixth tablet is lost ; but Hommel and Delitzsch
agree that it must have narrated the formation of dry land,
the appearance of vegetation, and the creation of animals.
That the creation of man followed is also regarded by the
same scholars as unquestionable ; for the last tablet, which
celebrates the deeds and attributes of Marduk, expressly
names him as one who " created men," and utters the wish
that "his command may continually remain unforgotten
in the mouth of the black-headed ones, whom his hands
have formed." After the account of the formation of man,
Delitzsch (p. in) places a fragment of 13 lines, assigning
his duties to the newly formed being :
Towards thy God, thou shouldest be of pure heart : that is dearest
to the Deity. Prayers, supplications, prostration of face, thou shouldest
offer Him early every morning. Mercy becomes the fear of God ;
sacrifice enhances life ; prayer absolves from sin. Against friend and
neighbour speak not [evil (?)]. . . . When thou promisest, give,
and [fail (?)] not.
What seems to have been the last tablet consists of a
hymn of 64 lines (with a few lacunae), celebrating (as has
just been said) the deeds and attributes of Marduk, and
representing him as powerful, beneficent, compassionate,
and just.
There are also two other texts, descriptive of creation,
though one probably, and the other certainly, do not belong
to the poem just described. The first (which consists of
14 very fragmentary lines) begins thus in Delitzsch's
translation (p. 1 10) :
At the time when the gods altogether had created [the heaven (?)],
(and) formed the splendid (?) constellations (?), they caused living
beings to come forth altogether, cattle of the field, wild beasts of the
field, and creeping things of the field, etc.
The other text, a Sumerian 1 (not a Semitic) one, with
interlinear Semitic translation, which was first brought to
1 Before the Semites gained power in Babylonia, the country was in
the possession of a different, non-Semitic race, called Sumerian. Most [
of the oldest Babylonian inscriptions are written in Sumerian.
14 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
light by Mr. Pinches in 1890, consists of 60 lines, nearly
complete. 1 It is too long to translate verbatim : but it
describes how, when as yet no reed or tree had been
created, no house or city built, Nippur and Erech, with
their temples, not yet founded, and when all the lands
were yet sea, a movement arose in the sea, Babylon,
with its temple E-sagil, was built, and the gods, the
Anunnaki (subordinate divine beings), were created : how
then Marduk " created men," made beasts of the field,
living things of the land, the Tigris and the Euphrates
in their places, the herbage of the field, lands, marshes,
reeds, the wild-ox, the sheep with its young, meadows
and forests, etc., constructed houses, and built the [cities
and] temples of Nippur and Erech. These texts shew
that different representations of the course of creation were
current in Babylonia : on the second, see below, pp. 18 f.
The differences between the Babylonian epic and the
first chapter of Genesis are sufficiently wide : in the one,
we have an exuberant and grotesque polytheism ; in the
other, a severe and dignified monotheism : in the one, chaos
is anterior to Deity, the gods are made, or produced we
know not whence or how and they only gradually and
with difficulty rise superior to the state of darkness and
disorder in which they find themselves ; in the other, the
supremacy of the one Creator is absolute, and His word
alone suffices to bring about each stage in the work of
creation. J3ut, in spite of these profound theological differ-
ences, there are material resemblances between the two
representations, which are too marked and too numerous
to_ be explained as mere chance coincidences. The outline,
or general course of events, is similar in the two narratives.
There are in both, moreover, the same abyss of waters
at the beginning, denoted almost by the same word, the
i See Records of the Past, 2nd series (cited hereafter as RP?}, vi. 109 ff. ;
also Zimmern, I.e., pp. 419 f.
i
'
ife
FIRST] BABYLONIAN COSMOGONY 15
?^
^"separation afterwards of this abyss into an upper and a
- 1 lower ocean, the upper ocean being retained in its place
^* C^k
a by a celestial vault or " firmament," * the formation of
- . heavenly bodies and their appointment as measures of
a. <b time, and the creation of man. In estimating these simi-
s ^ larities, it must further be remembered that they do not
v* ^* i
^ stand alone : in the narratives of the Deluge (as will shortly W In u
** "** appear) we find traits Cporrowed unmistakabb^Tfbm a f>$
- Babylonian source ; so that the antecedent difficulty which
-i ^ might otherwise have been felt in supposing elements in the
~ v- Creation-narrative to be traceable ultimately to the same
quarter is considerably lessened. In fact, no archaeo-
legist questions that the Biblical cosmogony is, in its main W vsT
P'^omline. denved from Babylonia^ Thus Professor Sayce **<*
writes: "The Biblical writer, it is plain, is acquainted,
either directly or indirectly, with the Assyrian and Baby- A
Ionian tradition" : it is true, it is " stripped in his hands
all that was distinctively Babylonian and polytheistic," and ^fvc
"breathes a spirit of the purest and most exalted mono- .. .,
theism " ; but " this ought not to blind us to the fact that
the narrative is ultimately of Babylonian origin."
Jk flTJ i\ J ^
The only questions open are, At what time, and through ** /
what channel, did the Babylonian elements which the ^ D V
Cosmogony presents find their way into Hebrew literature ? **j *
These are questions which the materials at our disposal do ,feuT (r\ v
not enable us to answer positively: the most that we can 7 * rr *~ ^
do is to propound more or less probable hypotheses. Only 1$ "*ff ^
one thing may be assumed as certain ; viz. that these
elements were not derived directly from any known Baby-
Ionian source : it is incredible that the monotheistic author
of Gen. i., at whatever date he lived, could have borrowed
any detail, however slight, from the crassly polytheistic epic
of the conflict of Marduk and Tiamat ; the Babylonian
1 The Hebrew " firmament," it will be remembered, was not an
'"expanse" of air, but a solid vault.
1 6 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
myth must have been for long years transplanted into
Israel, it must there have been gradually divested of its
polytheistic features, and gradually reduced more and more
to a simple, unadorned narrative of the origin of the world,
y* until parts of it (we cannot at present positively say more) y
were capable of adoption or adaptation by the author t-
of Gen. i. as elements of his cosmogony. In other words,
the narrative of Gen. i. comes at the end ot a long process
of gradual elimination of heathen elements, and of gradual
assimilation to the purer teachings of Israelitish theology,
"V
carried on under the spiritual influences of the religion
of Israel. At what time, however, was the Babylonian
myth transplanted into Israel? According to some it is
derived from the time when the ancestors of the Hebrews ^-
lived side by side with the Babylonians in Ur of the * xX ,
Kasdim. According to others, it was brought into Israel
in the age of Ahaz, or shortly afterwards, when there
are traces in the Old Testament of intercourse taking ^>
place between Judah and Assyria. Since, however, ^
- the Tel el-Amarna tablets have shewn how strong ^
Babylonian influence must have been in Canaan, even
- before the immigration of the Israelites, this has been
thought by many 1 to have been the channel by which
Babylonian ideas penetrated into Israel : they were first,
according to this view, naturalized among the Canaanites,
and afterwards as the Israelites came gradually to have
intercourse with the Canaanites they were transmitted
to the Israelites as well. This is not impossible, though
it must be remembered that it is consistent only with a
critical view of the authorship of the Pentateuch, not
with the traditional view ; for that Moses, who, if the
testimony of the Pentateuch is of any value, set his face
sternly and consistently against all intercourse with the
Canaanites and all compromises with polytheism, should
1 E.g. by Sayce, Gunkel, Winckler.
FIRST] THE SABBATH 1 7
have gone to Canaan for his cosmogony, is in the last
degree improbable. The cosmogony of Gen. i. presup-
poses a long period of naturalization in Israel itself,
during which "the old legend was stripped of its pagan
deformities. Its shape and outline survived. But its
spirit was changed, its religious teaching and significance
was transfigured, in the light of revelation." And thus
in its new form, it became the divinely appointed means
for declaring to all time some of those eternal spiritual
realities which, though invisible to the eye of sense, are
nevertheless implicit in the material cosmos. 1
The sabbath (Gen. ii. 2, 3) is further in all probability
an institution ultimately of Babylonian origin. In a
lexicographical tablet, published in the second volume of
Rawlinson's Inscriptions of Western Asia, the " gabattum "
is defined as uui mlh libbi, or " day of rest of the heart " ; '
i.e. not, as was formerly supposed, a day of rest for
man, but (as parallel occurrences of the same phrase
shew) a day when the gods rested from their anger, or
a day for the pacification of a deity's anger. 2 Further,
in a religious calendar for two months (the second Elul,
and Marcheshvan) which we possess, prescribing duties
for the king, the 7th, I4th, ipth, 2ist, and 28th are entered
as " favourable day, evil day," while the others are simply
" favourable " days. On the five specified days certain
acts are forbidden : the king is not, for instance, to eat
meat roasted at the fire, not to put on fineries or offer
sacrifice, not to mount his chariot or to sit in state, not
to enter the sacred chamber where the gods dwell, not to
call in a physician, not to invoke curses on his enemies ;
on the other hand, as soon as the day is over, sacrifices
1 See more fully, on the theological aspects of the narrative, Kyle's
Early Narratives of Genesis (\%C)2), chaps, i., ii. ; or the present writer's
Sermons on the Old Testament, pp. 4 ff., 163 ff.
3 See Morris Jastrow, " The Original Character of the Hebrew
Sabbath," in the American Journal of Theology, April, 1898.
2
1 8 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
may be offered, and the king's prayer will be favourably
accepted. The days, it is evident, are viewed super-
stitiously : certain things are not to be done on them,
in order not to arouse the jealousy or anger of the gods.
Seven was a mystical number among the Babylonians ;
and the ancient syllabaries preserve to us the names of
the seven planetary deities, from whom afterwards the
days of the week were named. It is difficult not to
agree with Schrader, Sayce, and other Assyriologists in
regarding the week of seven days, ended by a sabbath,
as an institution of Babylonian origin. The sabbath,
it is true, assumed a new character among the Hebrews ;
it was divested of its heathen associations, and made
subservient to ethical and religious ends : but it originated
in Babylonia. If, however, this explanation of its origin
be correct, then it is plain that in the Book of Genesis
its sanctity is explained unhistorically, and ante-dated.
Instead of the sabbath, closing the week, being sacred,
because God rested upon it after His six days' work of
Creation, the work of Creation was distributed among
six days, followed by a day of rest, because the week,
ended by the Sabbath, already existed as an institution,
and the writer wished to adjust artificially the work of
Creation to it. In other words, the week determined the
" days " of Creation, not the days of Creation the week.
The section Gen. ii. 4$ iii. 24, embracing the story of
Paradise and the Fall, exhibits also joints ofLcontad: with
Babylonia, though not so definite or complete as those
presented by chap. i. i ii. 4^ The general order of
Creation (which differs from that in chap. i. in that the
formation of man precedes that of plants and animals) is in
accordance with that described in the Babylonian text
referred to at the top of p. 13. That text (which is
bilingual, one of the versions being written in the pre-
1 Semitic Sumerian) presents a narrative of great antiquity,
FIRST] EDEN CHERUBIM 19
according to Professor Hommel, as old as the fourth
millennium B.C. ; which originated perhaps at the famous
temple of Eridu, on the Persian Gulf, to be mentioned
directly. Professor Sayce, in view of the antiquity of this
narrative, does not hesitate to see in it " the earliest starting-
point yet known to us of that form of the story of creation,
which we find in the second chapter of Genesis." " Eden,"
though to Hebrew readers it no doubt suggested the
Hebrew word 'eden, " pleasure," has been explained with
great plausibility as being in reality the Babylonian word
edinu, " plain," or " field," applied especially to the great
alluvial plain of Babylonia, watered by the Euphrates and
Tigris. The shoham, or onyx stone, may be the sdmtu of
the Assyrians. Two of the four rivers, into which the
stream which arose in Eden was parted after it left the
garden, are Babylonian, the Hiddekel (Ass. Idiglat, the
Tigris) and the PSrath (Ass. Purat, the Euphrates). 1 '
The irrigation of a tract of country by a river (with, it is to
be understood, cross-canals) is Babylonian. A sacred palm
is alluded to in old Babylonian hymns, and often depicted
on Assyrian monuments. The cherubim (iii. 24) those
composite, emblematic figures, described more particularly
in the first chapter of Ezekiel are clearly no native Hebrew
conception, and point in all probability in the same
direction. An inscription which has been often cited in
illustration of this section of the Book of Genesis deserves
to be here quoted :
At Eridu a palm-stalk grew overshadowing ; in a holy place did it
become green ;
Its root was of bright lapis which stretched towards the abyss ;
[Before] the god Ea was its growth at Eridu, teeming with fertility ;
Its seat was the (central) place of the earth ;
Its foliage (?) was the couch of Bahu the (primaeval) mother.
Into the heart of its holy house which spread its shade like a forest hath
no man entered.
1 On the names of the other two rivers, the Pishon and the Gihon,
no light has at present been thrown by archaeology.
20 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
In its interior is the sun-god, Tammuz,
Between the mouths of the rivers (which are) on both sides.
Eridu was a very ancient sacred city of the people of
Babylonia : once, when the Persian Gulf extended further
inland than it does now, it stood upon its south shore ;
now its site (Abu-Shahrein) is on the right bank of the
Euphrates, about fifty miles from its mouth. 1 There is no
doubt, in Mr. Pinches' opinion, 2 that the place described in
these lines is the Babylonian paradise. Professor Sayce
writes of it as follows : " In the neighbourhood of Eridu
was a garden, ' a holy place,' wherein grew the sacred palm-
tree the tree of life whose roots of bright lapis lazuli
were planted in the cosmic abyss, whose position marked
the centre of the world, and whose foliage was the couch
of the goddess Bahu, while the god Tammuz dwelt in the
shrine under the shadow of its branches, within which no
mortal had ever entered. An oracle was attached to ' the
holy tree of Eridu,' and Eri-aku (Arioch) calls himself its
'executor.' This tree of life is frequently represented in
the Assyrian sculptures, where it is depicted with two
guardian spirits, kneeling or standing on either side of it.
They are winged, with the heads sometimes of eagles, some-
times of men." 3 It is possible that these figures are the
prototypes of the Biblical " cherubim " ; though Lenormant's
statement that he had read the word on an Assyrian gem
does not appear to have been confirmed by other Assyrio-
logists. Future exploration may very probably throw fresh
light upon this question. 4
1 Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, pp. 561, 563, 6141.
- Transactions of the Victoria Institute, xxix. (1897), p. 44.
3 Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. (1898), s.v. EDEN.
4 The passage quoted by Sayce, Verdict of the. Monuments, p. 104
(cf. p. 65 note), from the description in the third tablet of the Creation-
epic (lines 132-138) of the feast held by the gods does not really
allude to the Fall : see the translations of Delitzsch, p. 103 ; Zimmern,
p. 410; Jastrow, p. 424.
FIRST] BABYLONIAN MYTHOLOGY 21
Thus, though no complete Babylonian parallel to the
story of Paradise is at present known, there are parallels
with parts of it, sufficient in the light of the known fact that
other features in the early chapters of Genesis are derived
from Babylonia to support the inference that the framework
of this representation is derived from it likewise. Of course,
it must not be supposed that the Hebrew narrator gives us
exact transcripts of what was believed in Babylonia : what
rather happened was that echoes of Babylonian beliefs -
reached Palestine, and supplied materials upon the basis
of which he constructed his narrative. A consideration of
the theological aspects of this narrative does not fall within
the scope of the present volume : it must suffice therefore
to remark briefly that it teaches a variety of ethical and
theological truths respecting human nature, such as its
relation to God, its moral and spiritual capabilities, the
relations subsisting between the sexes, the psychology of
temptation, how man awoke to consciousness of a moral
law, and how, almost as soon as he became conscious of it,
he broke it in a figurative or allegorical form, the details
not being true in a literal sense, but being profoundly true
in a symbolical sense, i.e. as representing in a symbolical or
pictorial form real facts of human nature and real stages
through which human nature actually passed. If the view
here advocated be correct, the materials upon which this
figurative or symbolical representation was constructed
were derived, at least largely, from Babylonia. Babylonia
possessed an ancient and many-sided civilization, far more
impressive and far more influential than that which the
Hebrews could boast of; it possessed a copious and varied
literature, and a mythology describing, among other things,
how the poets and sages of Babylonia pictured to them-
selves the creation of the earth and its living inhabitants,
and the early fortunes of man upon it Echoes of these
myths and traditions reached Palestine, and impressed
22 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
themselves upon the Hebrew mind. Stripped of their
polytheism, and accommodated to the spirit of Israelitish
religion, the Hebrew narrator adapted them for the purpose
of exhibiting, vividly and pictorially, some of those deep
spiritual truths which the teachers of Israel were inspired
to discern.
The fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis span the interval
between the Creation and the Deluge. Chap. iv. traces
the line of Adam's descendants, through Cain, for seven
generations, and records the beliefs current among the
Hebrews respecting the progress of civilization, and also
the development of the power of sin. Chap. v. exhibits
the line of Adam's descendants, through Seth, for ten
generations, to Noah, with dates, adapted to give a
picture of the increasing population of the earth, and to
convey an idea of the length of the first period of the
history of humanity, as it was pictured by the narrator.
Very little light has been thrown hitherto upon these
names by archaeology : l the Babylonians (as we learn from
Berosus) enumerated ten kings, who lived before the ^,
Deluge (and reigned, it should be added, four hundred and "*
thirty-two thousand years !) ; but the names are very diffe- r !L
rent, and the attempts which have been made to explain
^T' ^
the Hebrew names as translations or equivalents of the 7
Babylonian names, though plausible in one or two instances,
are, taken as a whole, more ingenious than convincing. ^_
^ j
Chaps, vi.-ix. of Genesis contain the story of the -^
Flood. Here we have a direct and interesting parallel \
from Babylonia, which was discovered by George Smith
in 1872, and translated by him in 1876 in his Chaldaean *
Genesis (chap. xvi.). The story forms an episode in <>
X
the great Babylonian Epic which narrates the exploits
O *i
1 The name Methushael (iv. 18), " man ol God," is, however, * ? '
Babylonian in form.
FIRST] THE DELUGE 23
of Gilgamesh, 1 the hero of Uruk (the Erech of Gen. x. 10).
The epic is divided into twelve cantos, each describing
a distinct episode in the hero's career ; and the story of
the Deluge forms the eleventh of these cantos. Erech
has been besieged for three years by Humbaba, king
of Elam. Gilgamesh, with the help of Shamash, the
sun-god, delivers it from its foes, slays Humbaba, and
becomes its king. But Eabani a kind of divine satyr,
endowed with preternatural intelligence and power who
had been created by Aruru, the mother of Gilgamesh, to
assist and advise her son in his contests, dies. Smitten
himself with leprosy, and prostrated by the death of
Eabani, Gilgamesh determines to visit his ancestor Par-
napishtim (who was reputed to have been endowed with
perpetual youth), in the hope both of having his dead friend
restored to life, and of being cured himself from his disease.
After many adventures, he arrives at the ocean which
encircles the world ; he crosses it, and afterwards passes
the Waters of Death : there the happy island rises in front
of him, and he sees Par-napishtim, his figure unchanged by
age, standing upon its shores. Gilgamesh declares to him
the object of his visit : he desires to know the secret by
which he and his wife had received immortality. Par-
napishtim in reply describes how, in consequence of his piety,
he had been preserved from destruction at the time of the
great Flood, and had afterwards been made immortal by Bel.
Par-napishtim's story occupies some 200 lines, and
only a few characteristic extracts can be given here. 2
He begins (lines 8-31) by narrating how the gods, Anu,
Bel, Adar, and Ennugi, had determined to bring a flood
upon the earth, and how Ea, " lord of wisdom," had warned
him to escape it by building a ship :
1 The name was formerly read by Assyriologists (as by George Smith)
Izdubar, or Gisdubar.
1 See more fully Jastrow, Religion of Bab. and Ass n pp. 467-517.
24 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
" O l man of Shuripak, 2 son of Ubaratutu :
Frame a house, build a ship ;
-"' Forsake (thy) possessions, seek (to save) life ;
Abandon (thy) goods, and cause (thy) soul to live :
Bring up into the midst of the ship the seed of life of every sort.
As for the ship, which thou shalt build,
Let its form be long ;
30 And its breadth and its height shall be of the same measure.
Upon the deep then launch it.
There follows (lines 32 ff.) the excuse which he is to make,
if asked by the men of his place what he is doing. After
a lacuna of seven or eight lines, Par-napishtim proceeds to
relate how he carried out these instructions :
" On the fifth day I began to construct the frame of the ship.
In its hull its sides were 120 cubits high.
And its deck was likewise 120 cubits in breadth :
60 1 built on the bow, and fastened all firmly together.
Then I built six decks in it,
So that it was divided into seven storeys.
The interior (of each storey) I divided into nine compartments ;
I drove in plugs (to fill up crevices).
65 1 looked out a mast, and added all that was needful.
Six sars of bitumen I spread over it for caulking :
Three sars of naphtha [I took] on board.
When he had finished it, he entered it with all his
belongings :
S1 With all that I possessed, I laded it :
With all the silver that I possessed, I laded it ;
With all the gold that I possessed, I laded it ;
With the seed of life of every kind that I possessed, I laded it.
85 1 took on board all my family and my servants ;
Cattle of the field, beasts of the field, craftsmen also, all of them,
did I take on board.
Shamash (the sun-god) had appointed the time, (saying,)
" When the lord of the whirlwind sendeth at even a destructive rain,
" Enter into thy ship, and close thy door."
1 The translations are based upon those of Professor P. Haupt in
the (forthcoming) third edition of Schrader's Cuneiform Inscriptions
and the Old Testament, advance-sheets of which have been kindly lent
to the writer by the translator.
" A city on the Euphrates.
FIRST] THE DELUGE 25
The arrival of the fated day filled Par-napishtim with
alarm :
93 I feared to look upon the earth :
I entered within the ship, and closed my door.
The storm which then began is finely described (lines 97-
132). Ramman (the storm-god) thundered in heaven ; the
Anunnaki brought lightnings: other gods joined in the
fray : the waves mounted to the sky ; " light was turned
to darkness " :
112 Brother looked not after brother,
Men cared not for one another.
Even the gods were in consternation : they took refuge
in heaven, " cowering like dogs " ; and Ishtar " cried like
a woman in travail' :
R>s Six days and nights
Raged wind, deluge, and storm upon the earth.
130 \Vhen the seventh day arrived, the storm and deluge ceased,
Which had fought like a host of men ;
The sea was calm, hurricane and deluge ceased.
I beheld the land, and cried aloud :
For the whole of mankind were turned to mud ;
135 Hedged fields had become marshes.
I opened a window, and the light fell upon my face.
The ship grounded on Nizir, a mountain east of the
Tigris, across the Little Zab, and remained there for six
days :
146 When the seventh day arrived,
I brought forth a dove, and let it go :
The dove went to and fro ;
As there was no resting-place, it turned back.
150 I brought forth a swallow, and let it go :
The swallow went to and fro ;
As there was no resting-place, it turned back.
I brought forth a raven, and let it go :
The raven went, and saw the decrease ol the waters ;
15:1 It ate, it waded, it croaked (?), it turned not back.
After this Par-napishtim leaves the ark, and, like Noah,
offers sacrifice :
26 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
156 Then I sent forth (everything) towards the four winds (of heaven) :
I offered sacrifice :
I prepared an offering on the summit of the mountain.
I set Adagur- vases, seven by seven,
Underneath them I cast down reeds, cedar-wood, and incense.
{ ' M The gods smelt the savour,
The gods smelt the goodly savour ;
The gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer.
Bel is at first incensed at the rescue of Par-napishtim,
and the frustration of his plan ; but afterwards he is
pacified by Ea, and acquiesces in his suggestion to be in
future more discriminating, and not again to punish all
without distinction by a flood. Ea says to him :
183 How wast thou so ill-advised as to cause a deluge ?
Let the sinner bear his own sin,
185 Let the evil-doer bear his own evil-doing.
Be indulgent, that (all) be not cut off; be merciful, that (all) be not
destroyed.
Instead of causing a deluge,
Let lions come, and minish mankind:
Instead of causing a deluge,
1110 Let tigers come, and minish mankind :
Instead of causing a deluge,
Let a famine arise, and smite the land :
Instead of causing a deluge,
Let pestilence come, and desolate the land.
In the end Bel accepts Par-napishtim favourably, and takes
him and his wife away to immortality :
201 He turned to us, he stepped between us, and blessed us (, saying) :
" Hitherto Par-napishtim has been a (mortal) man, but
" Henceforth Par-napishtim and his wife shall be like unto the gods,
even unto us, and
" Par-napishtim shall dwell afar at the confluence of the rivers."
Then he took me, and far away at the confluence of the rivers he
made me to dwell.
The resemblances with the Biblical narrative are patent ;
and there is no occasion to point them out in detail.
There are, of course, differences ; the Biblical account of
the Deluge was not, any more than the Biblical account
of Creation, transcribed directly from a Babylonian source ;
FIRST] THE TABLE OF NATIONS 27
but by some channel or other we can but speculate by
what the Babylonian story found its way into Israel :
details were forgotten or modified ; it assumed, of course,
a Hebrew complexion, being adapted to the spirit of
Hebrew monotheism, and made a vehicle for the higher
teaching of the Hebrew religion : but the main outline
remained the same, and the substantial identity of the two
narratives is unquestionable. 1 It should be added that
fragments of two different versions of what is manifestly
the same story have been found, one being of extreme
antiquity, the tablet on which it is written being dated in
the reign of Ammi-zaduga (2245-2223 B.C.)> the fourth
successor of Khammurabi (see p. 29). 2
Chap. x. contains the " Table of Nations," an ethno-
logical chart of the principal nations known to the
Hebrews at the time when the chapter was composed.
The nations are grouped in it genealogically, being ex-
hibited as the members of a great family, more or less
closely related to each other, according to circumstances.
Whatever the intention of the compiler of the Table
1 The literary criticism of the Biblical account shews that it consists
in fact of a combination of two narratives, which have been united
together by a later compiler : in reality, therefore, two different
Israelitish authors, writing at different times, cast the story of the Flood
into a written form, each version possessing characteristic features of
its own, and exhibiting slight divergences from the other. It would
have been interesting to point out in detail in what respects each of
these versions resembled in turn the Babylonian narrative ; but for our
present purpose the question of the distinction of sources in the
Biblical account is unimportant.
3 Sayce, Monuments, pp. loSf. ; and J. A. Selbie in the Expository
Times, May, 1898, pp. 377 f. (from the Revue Biblique, Jan. 1898,
pp. i ff.). Professor Sayce is in error in saying (Early Hist, of the
Hebrews, pp. vit, viii) that the text of the latter fragment is identical
with that published by George Smith : it is, in fact, entirely different.
It may be worth adding that recent geologists consider the basis of the
Flood-story to be an actual extraordinary inundation of the Euphrates : i
see Huxley, Essays on Controverted Questions, pp. 583-91, 605.
28 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
may have been, the principle of arrangement followed in
it is not, however, as a fact, purely ethnological, in our
sense of the word ; the tribes, or peoples, represented in
it as closely i elated by blood, being in several instances
not so related in reality, the Canaanites, for instance,
were not racially connected with Egypt (v. 6), nor the
Hittites with the Canaanites (v. 15), nor Elam with the
Assyrians (v. 22). It is thus clear that the purely ethno-
logical principle of arrangement was superseded sometimes
by geographical considerations, sometimes by considera-
tions of a historical or political nature. There is no
ground for supposing that the particulars contained in this
Table were derived from a Babylonian source ; but the
Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions abound with the
names of tribes and peoples ; and they illustrate accord-
ingly many of the names contained in the Table. A few
examples may be briefly referred to. Corner (v. 2) are the
Giinirrai, a people mentioned frequently by Esarhaddon
and Asshurbanipal (seventh century B.C.), and settled at
that time in or near the later Cappadocia : Madai, in
the same verse, are the Madd of the inscriptions, often
mentioned from about 800 B.C. as living in the mountains
south-west of the Caspian Sea: Tubal and Meshech are
the Tabali and Musku, the former mentioned first by
Shalmaneser II. (860-825), the latter by Tiglath-pileser I.
(c. 1 100 B.C.), and both dwelling to the south of the
Gimirrai. Yavan ('/afore?) is the name by which the
Greeks were known to Sargon (722-705 B.C.) : Cush (v. 6)
are the Kash, or Kesh, of the Egyptian monuments, a
people dwelling on the south of Egypt, beyond the First
Cataract, and repeatedly mentioned in the Egyptian in-
scriptions. It is, however, not impossible that (as has
been widely held by Assyriologists) the " Cush " of v. 8
is not the same as the " Cush " of vv. 6, 7 ; the com-
piler of the chapter (who attached vv. 8-1 1 to v. 7) seems
FIRST] NIMROD 29
to have been misled by the similarity of name ; and Cush
in v. 8 represents the Kasshu of the Assyrian inscriptions,
a predatory and warlike tribe, whose home was in the
mountains across the Tigris, north-east of Babylon, and
who furnished Babylon with a dynasty (the "Cassite
kings") which continued in power for five hundred and
seventy-six years (1786-1211 B.C.). Upon Nimrod (v. 8)
archaeology has at present thrown no light : speculation
has been busy with him ; but his name has not hitherto
been found on the monuments. 1 Nor does archaeology
know of any one name which it can connect, as
vv. 10, ii connect Nimrod, both with the foundation of
Babylonian civilization and with its extension to Nineveh.
Babylon, as we know from a dynastic list discovered by
Mr. T. G. Pinches in 1880 among the treasures of the
British Museum, possessed a line of eleven kings of one
of whom, Khammurabi, we shall hear more anon ruling
2376-2333 B.C. ; and the contract-tablets from this period,
which have been published by Meissner, and which relate
to sales, loans, the letting of houses, fields, and gardens,
adoption, marriage, inheritance, etc., shew that society was
already highly organized, and that legal formalities were |
habitually observed. Erech (named in Gen. x. 10 as one
of the cities of Nimrod's kingdom) now Warka, about
a hundred miles south-east of Babylon has been shewn,
by the recent excavations of Mr. Hilprecht, to have been
the capital of a powerful monarch, Lugal-zaggisi, who has
left inscriptions of himself, and who claims to have ruled as
far as the Mediterranean Sea, at a date even earlier than
4000 B.C. 2 Nineveh, on the other hand, which became
1 See the present writer's paper in the Guardian, May 20, 1896.
It is a plausible suggestion that Nimrod corresponds to Gilgamesh, the
hero of Erech (above, p. 23) ; but the conjecture has not at present
received confirmation from the monuments.
- Of Accad and Calneh nothing certain is known. The same may
be said of Rehoboth-Ir and Resen in w. u, 12.
30 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
afterwards the famous capital of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon,
' and Asshurbanipal, is first mentioned about 1800 B.C.: it
was then under the rule of patfci's, or priest-kings. The
earliest Assyrian king whose name has been handed down
to us lived about 1450 B.C. Calach (Gen. x. 12), some
twenty miles south-east of Nineveh now Nimroud
beautified afterwards by the palaces of Sargon, Esarhaddon,
and other Assyrian kings, was built (as we know from a
statement made by one of his successors) by Shalma-
neser I., about 1300 B.C. This was the site first excavated
by Mr. Layard, and described by him in the volumes
mentioned above (p. i). The oldest capital of 'Assyria
was, however, neither Nineveh nor Calach, but a city called
Asshur, about sixty miles south of Nineveh, on the west
bank of the Tigris now Kal'at-Sherkat : this, though
not mentioned in Gen. x. 11, is often named in the inscrip-
tions of the Assyrian kings, and was not permanently
superseded by Nineveh till the ninth century B.C. In
the light of all these facts, it becomes impossible to
place the beginnings of imperial power at Babylon and
Nineveh within the lifetime of a single man. But the
two broad facts which Gen. x. 10, n express, viz.
that Babylon was an older seat of civilization than
Nineveh, and that Nineveh was, as we might say, a
younger colony, founded from it, are unquestionably
correct : not only did Assyria acquire political importance
much later than Babylon, but, as the monuments also shew,
it was moreover dependent socially and materially upon
the older state. The Hittites (x. 15, " Heth "), Elam
(x. 22), and Sheba (x. 28) are all nations of whom we now
know much, through the progress of archaeology, and who
will be referred to again in the following pages. Asshur
(x. 22) is, of course, Assyria.
Of the narrative of the Tower of Babel, and confusion of
tongues (Gen. xi. 1-9), no direct illustration has as yet been
FIRST] THE TOWER OF BABEL 31
furnished by the inscriptions. The tower referred to has
often been supposed to be the zigguratj- the ruined remains
of which form the huge mound, now called Birs Nimroud.
Birs Nimroud stands within the site of the ancient Borsippa,
a city almost contiguous to Babylon on the south-west, and
in the inscriptions called sometimes the " second Babylon."
This ziggurat, we are told by Nebuchadnezzar, had been
built partially by a former king of Babylon, but not com-
pleted ; its " head," or top, had not been set up ; it had
also fallen into disrepair, so that the unbaked bricks
forming the interior had been reduced by the rain to a
mass of ruins ; and Nebuchadnezzar states that he restored
and completed it. It has been conjectured that this huge,
unfinished pile, close to Babylon, taken in connexion with
the known antiquity of the city, and the fact that it was
the chief centre of a region in which the Hebrews placed
the earliest home of the human race, gave rise to the story
told in Genesis ; but no actual Babylonian parallel to the
Biblical narrative has at present been discovered. 2 The
object of the narrative is, no doubt, as Professor Ryle points
out, to supply an explanation, " suited to the comprehension
of a primitive time, of the two great phenomena of
human society, the distinction of races and the diversity
of language. How these originated must have seemed
one of the greatest mysteries to the men of the ancient
world. But in the language of popular tradition we must
not look for the teaching of modern science. It should
be enough for us if the Hebrew version of the narrative .
emphasizes the supremacy of the one God over all the
inhabitants of the world," and teaches that distribution
1 A ziggurat (or zikkurat, from the verb zukkuru, to elevate) is a
massive pyramidal tower, ascending in stage-like terraces, with a temple \
at the top. Cf. Jastrow, in the work cited above, pp. 615 ff.
3 The reference in the fragmentary inscription translated by G.
Smith, Chald. Gen., pp. 160 ff., and mentioned by Sayce, Monuments,
p. 153, is very uncertain.
32 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
into languages and nations is an element in His pro-
vidential plan for the development and progress of the
human race. It may be added that the inscriptions have
proved the incorrectness of the etymology assigned in v. 9
for the name " Babel " : the name of Babylon is written
in the inscriptions in a manner which shews clearly that
it signifies " gate of God," and that it cannot be derived
from the Hebrew word balal, to confound. /*f l *- v
Before proceeding to the period of Abraham, we may
pause for a moment in order to point out a conclusion,
resulting directly from archaeology, which is of some
importance on account of its bearing on the historical
character of Gen. i.-xi. The dates of all important events
recorded in the Pentateuch are carefully noted ; and it is a
matter of very simple calculation to ascertain, in the case
of each, how many years it happened after the creation of
man, and also (with the help of the date given in I Kings
vi. i) to correlate the Pentateuchal dates with those of the
monarchy, and so to reduce them to years B.C. The date
of the creation of man is thus fixed to 4219 B.C., and that
of the Deluge to 2564 B.C. 1 That these dates, however, or
even the dates according to the text of the Septuagint, 2
of 5408 and 3166 B.C., respectively, are unhistorical is
proved by the testimony of the monuments. The excava-
tions carried on within the last ten years at Nippur now
Niffer, or, more correctly, Nuffar about fifty miles south-
east of Babylon, by the expeditions organized by the
American University of Pennsylvania, have shewn that a
civilization existed at this spot of an antiquity previously
1 Ussher's dates are 4004 and 2349 B.C. ; but he treats the four
hundred and thirty years of Exod. xii. 40 as including the sojourn of
the patriarchs in Canaan, whereas by the terms of the text they are
manifestly limited to the sojourn in Egypt. (The text of the Septuagint
adds " in the land of Canaan.")
2 Which assigns a greater age to several of the patriarchs at the birth
of their firstborn son.
FIRST] ANTIQUITY OF NIPPUR 33
quite unsuspected. Some thirty-five feet below the -
present surface of the soil there was found a platform
composed of bricks stamped with the names of Sargon and
^ his son Naram-Sin (whose dates are known independently
to be 3800-3750 B.C.) ; 1 but Mr. Haynes, the leader of
-* the expedition, excavating in 1893-6 below this platform
through the dtbris of older buildings, only reached the
virgin soil at a depth of some thirty feet more, leading to
thp- inference that the buildings constructed upon it could
not date from a later period than 7000-6000 B.C. The
vases, bearing long inscriptions, presented to the sanctuary
of Nippur at about 4000 B.C., by the Lugal-zaggisi, men-
tioned above, and the numerous sculptured stones, with
inscriptions, recording their public buildings, their victories,
and their votive offerings, which have come down to us
from the kings of Lagash now Telloh, about eighty miles
south-east of Nippur and which must belong substantially
to the same age, afford conclusive evidence that the actual
beginnings of art and civilization in Babylonia precede
4000 B.C. by many centuries, not to say by many millennia.
It is particularly observable that the art of writing, though
the characters are archaic in type, and decidedly ruder than
those which appear at a later age, is already, at the date
just mentioned, familiarly practised.
The same lesson has been taught by exploration in
Egypt. The latest and most careful chronologer of Egypt,
Professor Petrie, fixes the date of Menes, the first historical
king of Egypt, at 4777 B.C. (" with a possible error of a
century "). 2 But in 1 897 the tomb of Menes 3 was discovered
by M. de Morgan at Nagada, a little north of Thebes ;
and the objects of art, and the hieroglyphics, found in it
shew that civilization in Egypt was already far advanced.
The pyramids of the fourth dynasty (beginning, according
1 So Sayce, Hilprecht, and others. See, however, below, p. 213.
1 Cf., however, below, p. 215. 3 Cf. p. 165.
34 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
to Petrie, 3998 B.C.), and the remarkable finish and
technique displayed by the sculptures and paintings of the
same period, support the same conclusion. Quite recently,
- also, the new and startling fact has been disclosed that
before the time of Menes the Valley of the Nile was in-
habited by a race entirely different from that generally
known as Egyptian, and probably of Libyan origin, having
a white skin, and dolichocephalous skull, and possessing a
- very different type of civilization. Egypt thus agrees with
Babylonia in shewing equally that the beginnings of man
upon earth must date from a period very considerably
more remote than that assigned by the Biblical chronology
for his creation. 1 Nor is this all. We possess inscriptions
written in three entirely distinct languages, Sumerian,
Babylonian, and Egyptian, all belonging to an age very
much earlier than the date whether 2564 or 3166 B.C.
assigned by the Biblical narrative for the confusion of
tongues, an age, in fact, when, according to the same
narrative, " the whole earth was of one language and of
one speech." The progress of Babylonian and Egypto-
logical research has strikingly confirmed the results
obtained by anthropologists upon other data respecting the
immense antiquity of man upon this earth. The chrono-
logy of the Book of Genesis forms, however, it is evident,
' a carefully constructed scheme : it coheres intimately,
especially in the earlier chapters, with the lives and persons
of the characters mentioned : and, if it deviates from the
reality, not (as is the case in parts of the chronology of
the Kings) by a matter of twenty or thirty years only, but
by whole centuries, it materially confirms the conclusion,
reached in the first instance upon other considerations,
respecting the symbolical character of the narrative to
which it is attached.
1 Cf. pp. 209 f. (where, however, Menes is not assigned to an earlier
date than c. 3800 B.C.), 218.
t FIRST] BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY 35
The fact that these early narratives of Genesis are not,
* in our sense of the term, historical, does not, of course,
* if rightly understood, detract from their theological value.
** Their theological value does not consist in their outward
y^ form ; it consists in the moral and spiritual truths of which
they are the expression. They are, from this point of
- view, analogous to allegory and parable. In their outward
form they relate to that prehistoric age which the
Israelites, like other nations, imagined as preceding the
period to which actual recollections reached back. They .
thus preserve to us the popular conceptions prevalent
J 1 among the Hebrews " as to the origin of the universe and
^ the foundations of human society. Inspiration did not
^ <
I infuse into the mind of a writer accurate scientific know-
t
jedge of things unknown. But the Israelite writer, gifted
by the Holy Spirit, was overruled to draw, here from one
source and there from another, the materials for a con-
"^5 secutive account, which, while it embodied the fulness
and variety of Hebrew tradition, was itself the appointed
medium of Divine instruction." 1 .
.vu 6T ~~
In Gen. xi. 28, 31 we read that Abraham left his native
-^ V3
home in " Ur of the Kasdim," with his father Terah, for the
^purpose of journeying to Canaan ; and that he came as
^ far as Haran, and dwelt there. No confirmation of these
statements has been furnished hitherto by the inscriptions
(for, so far as is at present known, they contain no men-
tion either of Abraham, or of any other ancestor of the
Hebrews) ; but a good deal is known about the two places,
Ur and Haran. 2 The site of Ur 3 was identified in the
1 Ryle, Early Narratives of Genesis ; pp. 135 f.
2 To be pronounced Khdrdn (or Kharrdri), and to be carefully
distinguished from Hdrdn (with the soft aspirate), the name of the
brother of Abraham.
3 In the expression " Ur of the Kasdim," the last three words are
not part of the native name, but must be an addition of Palestinian
origin. Kasdim is the Hebrew form of the Babylonian and Assyrian
36 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
early days of Assyriological study. A huge mound,
about six miles south of the Euphrates, on its right bank,
and a hundred and twenty-five miles from its present
mouth, was excavated by Colonel Taylor in 1854 ; and it
proved to conceal the ruins of the venerable " Ziggurat "
(p. 31) of the moon-god, Sin, the bricks in the lowest
storey of which were all stamped with the words " Ur-bau,
king of Ur, builder of the temple of Nannar." 1 There are
other ruined remains in the neighbourhood of the temple,
covering an oval of about a thousand yards long by eight
hundred broad ; and this must have been the site of the
ancient town. Ur-bau, and his son Dungi, have left many
monuments of themselves, engraved cylinders, and other
works of art, besides numerous buildings, not only in Ur
itself, but also in Larsa, Uruk, Nippur, and elsewhere.
Here are two of their inscriptions :
To Nannar, his king, Ur-bau, king of Ur, has built his temple. He
built the wall of Ur.
Dungi, the mighty, king of Ur, and king of the four quarters of the
world, builder of I-Shidlam, the temple of Nergal, his lord, in Kuta. 2
The date of these two kings was probably about 2800 B.C.
long before Babylon became the capital of what was
afterwards known as Babylonia, and five hundred years
before the time of Abraham (if Amraphel in Gen. xiv. i be
rightly identified with Khammurabi : see below). Although
few of its rulers are known to us by name, Ur was already
an important city. Its position gave it advantages both
commercial and political. The Euphrates anciently flowed
Kaldu (Chaldaeans), a tribe (according to Winckler) first alluded to
in the inscriptions about IIOOB.C., and named repeatedly from 880 B.C. :
they lived then in Lower Babylonia, towards the sea-coast : afterwards,
as they increased in power, they gradually advanced inland : in 721 B.C.
Merodach-baladan, "king of the land of the Kaldu," made himself king
of Babylon ; and, ultimately, under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar,
the Kaldu became the ruling caste in Babylonia.
1 The name by which the moon-god, Sin, was known in Ur.
* The Cuthah or Cuth of 2 Kings xvii. 24, 30; cf. below, p. 102.
FIRST] UR AND HARAN 37
almost by its gates, and ensured easy transport for the
products of Upper Syria, while in the opposite direction
the Wady Rummein brought gold and odoriferous resins
from Arabia, and a caravan-route, marked out by wells,
led across the desert to Southern Syria and the Sinaitic
Peninsula. Trade was already active in these early times :
Gudea, king of Lagash some seventy miles north of Ur
about 2800 B.C., states, for instance, that when engaged
in the construction of a temple, he obtained cedars from
Lebanon and Amanus, as well as many other materials
from other places. 1
At a point some five hundred miles north-west of Ur, a
tributary from the north, called the Belikh, flows into the
Euphrates ; and on the left bank of this tributary, about
sixty miles from the confluence, lay the ancient city of
Haran (or Kharran). From Gen. xxiv. 10, compared with
xxvii. 43, it appears that Kharran was in " Mesopotamia,"
in the Hebrew, " Aram-Naharaim," i.e. " Aram (or Syria) of
the two Rivers." The Egyptian inscriptions mention this
region under the name Naharina ; and the Tel el-Amarna
letters (c. 1400 B.C.) under the names Nachrima and
Narima. The Hebrew designation is clearer than the
English : the region north-east of Palestine was inhabited
largely by Aramaean (or Syrian) tribes ; and " Aram of
Naharaim " denotes that part of this region which lay
between the " two Rivers," whether the rivers meant be the
Euphrates and the Tigris, in the upper part of their courses,
or, as others think more probable, the Euphrates in its
upper course, and the Habor (2 Kings xvii. 6, xviii. 11),
now the Khabour, a river flowing into the Euphrates from
the north, some distance to the east of the Belikh. At
present, the remains of a mediaeval castle, and a few
mounds, are all that mark the site of Kharran ; but for
many centuries, and even millennia, it was a well-known
1 /?/>.*, ii. 78-93. Cf. Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, pp. 610-19.
38 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
and important place. It is often mentioned in the Assyrian
inscriptions. Like Ur, Kharran was, in a special degree,
devoted to the worship of the moon-god ; an ancient
and celebrated temple of the moon-god stood there : by
a remarkable coincidence, Nabo-na'id, the last king of
Babylon (555-538 B.C.), as he tells us himself in two of his
inscriptions, restored the temples of Sin in both Ur and
Kharran.
In the statement that Abraham's home was in Ur, and
that he migrated thence into Canaan, there is naturally, in
the abstract, no difficulty. A difficulty does, however, arise
when it is observed that, whereas Gen. xi. 28 speaks of
Ur as the " land of" Abraham's " nativity," in Gen. xxiv. 7
precisely the same expression is applied (as appears from
a comparison of v. 4, and xxvii. 43) to Kharran ; and that
other passages in the Book of Genesis create strongly the
impression that the writers thought of Kharran as the
home of Abraham's kindred. 1 In other words, two tradi-
tions seem to have been current respecting the primitive
home of the Hebrews, one connecting them with Ur, in
South Babylonia, the other connecting them with Kharran,
* in North-west Mesopotamia. Contract-tablets and other
contemporary inscriptions, recently discovered, bear witness
to the fact that in, or even before, the age of Abraham
persons bearing Hebrew (or Canaanitish) names resided in
' Babylonia, and shew that intercourse between Babylonia
and the West was more active than was once supposed to
be the case : but nothing sufficiently direct has hitherto
been discovered to shew definitely that the ancestors of the
Hebrews migrated from Ur. It is, however, not impossible
1 The expression "beyond the river," in Josh. xxiv. 2, 3, 15, points
to the same conclusion : Kharran (from a standpoint in Palestine) was
" beyond " the Euphrates, but Ur was on the same side as Palestine.
Hommel's explanation (Anc. Heb. Tradition, pp. 323 ff.) of the
way in which the expression might have come to be used of Ur is
very unconvincing.
FIRST] ABRAHAM'S HOME 39
that future discoveries may throw further light upon the
question.
We pass to Gen. xiv., the chapter which narrates the
expedition of the four kings from the East against the five
kings of the Jordan-valley, their defeat of the latter in the
mysterious " vale of Siddim," their capture of Lot, and
Abraham's pursuit of the victors as far as Hobah, on the
north of Damascus, where he recovered Lot and the other
captives. Let us take in order the names mentioned in
v. i, and consider in what respects they have each been
illustrated by archaeology.
i. Amraphel, king of Shin'ar. " Shin'ar " (also Gen. x. 10,
xi. 2, and elsewhere) is a Hebrew name for Babylonia : it
has not, however, been found certainly on the monuments ;
and its origin remains matter of conjecture. Amraphel,
there is little doubt, is a corrupt representation of Kham- I
murabi, the name of the sixth king in the dynastic list
mentioned above (p. 29). Khammurabi, according to a
nearly contemporary chronological register of part of this
dynasty, reigned for forty-three years (2376-2333 B.C.): 1
as his own inscriptions testify, 2 he was a powerful and
successful ruler, who did much both for the material and
for the political welfare of his country ; in fact, by his skill
in organizing and consolidating its resources, he laid the
foundation of its future greatness. In one of his inscrip-
tions he is styled " king of Martu" or the West land, an
expression denoting generally Syria, Phoenicia, and Pales-
tine, and indicating that he claimed to rule as far as
the Mediterranean Sea. In illustration of this claim of
Khammurabi, it deserves mention not only that his great-
1 Cf. below, p. 212. The date is Professor Sayce's (Early Israel,
1899, p. 281). His former date (based on the slightly different figures
of the dynastic list) was 2346-2291 B.C. (Winckler, 2314-2258 B.C. ;
Maspero, 2304-2249).
* K. B., iii. i, pp. 107 ff. ; Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, pp. 40 ff.
40 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
great-grandson, Ammisatana, bears nearly the same title,
" king of the wide West land," but also that similar claims
are made on behalf of much earlier rulers of Babylonia :
Lugal-zaggisi (above, p. 29) claims in his inscriptions to have
been invested with a domain extending from the Persian
Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea ; Sargon of Agade 1 a
powerful ruler, reigning about 3800 B.C., 2 the temple built by
whom at Nippur has been excavated recently by the Penn-
sylvania expedition is stated in a contemporary inscription
to have subjugated " the land of Amurru " (the Amorites),
on the north of Canaan ; 3 and Sargon's son Nara"m-Sin
(who built huge fortifications at Nippur) styles himself on
his bricks " king of the four quarters (of the earth)." 4
2. Arioch, king of Ellasar. In all probability Eriaku
(or Riaku), king of Larsa now Senkereh, about midway
between Babylon and the mouth of the Euphrates whose
name is mentioned in many inscriptions, 6 and who was
contemporary with Khammurabi. Here are two inscrip-
tions, dating from his reign :
To Nana, daughter of Sin [the moon-god], their mistress, Kudurmabuk,
the adda ["father," i.e. ruler] of Jamutbal, and Eriaku his son, the
mighty shepherd of Nippur, the defender of Ur, king of Larsa, king of
Sumer and Akkad, have built the temple which she loves, etc.
To Nannar, his king, Kudurmabuk, the adda of Martu (the West
land), when Nannar heard his prayer, built the temple I-Nun-mach, for
his own life, and for the life of Eriaku, king of Larsa.
1 A place near Babylon, but not at present certainly identified.
* Cf. the note on p. 33.
3 M. de Sarzec found at Telloh (the site of the ancient Lagash)
contract-tablets, dated " In the year in which Sargon conquered the land
of Amurru " : see Thureau-Dangin, in the Contptes Rendus de VAcad.
fF Inscriptions, 1896, pp. 357f.
4 The magniloquent title borne regularly in later times by the kings
of both Babylonia and Assyria.
5 K. B., iii. I, pp. 93 ff. The reading of the name, it should be added,
has been disputed ; and some Assyriologists prefer still to read it
Rim-Sin ; but there has been latterly a growing consensus in favour of
Riaku or Eriakn.
FIRST] AMRAPHEL AND ARIOCH 41
Eriaku was thus ruler of Larsa, Nippur, and Ur ; and in
other similar inscriptions he is described further as con-
quering Eridu (above, p. 20) and Nisin. The conquest
of Nisin must have been an important event in Eriaku's
reign ; for contract-tablets are dated by it : there is one
which shews that Eriaku must have continued in power at
least twenty-eight years after it. All the places mentioned
are in South Babylonia, Nippur being the most northerly ;
and this therefore is the region in which we must picture
the kingdom of Eriaku as situated. Further, Eriaku is
said to be the son of Kudurmabuk, adda of Jamutbal.
Kudurmabuk, now, is not a Babylonian, but an Elamitish
name, 1 Elam being the region, largely mountainous, across
the Tigris, to the east of Babylonia, often mentioned in the
inscriptions ; and Jamutbal appears from other notices to
have been a province in the eastern part of South Babylonia,
bordering on Elam, and at this time (as the name Kudur-
mabuk shews) under Elamite dominion. These inscriptions
thus shew that at the time to which they relate, the Elamite
power had obtained a footing in South Babylonia :
Kudurmabuk, we may suppose, ruled himself in Jamutbal,
or, as we might call it, West Elam, and, supported by
him, his son, Eriaku, maintained himself in Larsa and the
surrounding parts of South Babylonia. The title "adda
of Martu," or the West land, if the expression, as seems
natural, is to have the same meaning which it bears else-
where in the inscriptions, will imply that Kudurmabuk
claimed whether it was really exercised, or not, we do not
know the same kind of authority over Syria and the
West which we have seen was claimed by Khammurabi.
Eventually, however, the Elamite rule in South Babylonia
was brought to an end through the subjugation of Eriaku,
as well as of his father Kudurmabuk, by the Babylonian
1 Kudur (meaning perhaps " servant ") occurs in other names known
to belong to Elam.
42 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
king Khammurabi. We read, viz., in another inscription
belonging to the same period :
On the 23rd day of Shebat, in the year when Khammurabi, through
the might of Anu and Bel, established his possessions, [and] his hand
overthrew (?) the ad(f)-da of Jamutbal, and King Eriaku.
It may be conjectured that it was after this victory, which
secured Khammurabi's power throughout Babylonia, that
he assumed the title " king of Martu" quoted above.
3. Chedorlaomer, king of Elam. Elam is a well-known
name ; but until lately no trace of Chedorlaomer had been
found on the monuments. The component parts of the
name had indeed been found : Kudur, as has just been
remarked, was known independently to be an Elamitish
word ; and La'omer or, as it might be pronounced,
Lagomer (LXX. Aoyo^fiop') was evidently the same as
Lagamar, the name of an Elamite god, mentioned by
Asshurbanipal (about 640 B.C.) : but the name itself had
not been met with. In 1895, however, Mr. T. G. Pinches
discovered in the British Museum three inscribed clay
tablets, which proved to relate to this period, and to con-
tain what can hardly be doubted to be the name Chedor-
lagomer. It is true, these tablets are of very late date
(c. 300 B.C.), and are written in a florid, poetical style, so
that they have not the value of contemporary testimony ;
at the same time, it is reasonable to suppose that they
are based upon more ancient materials, and preserve the
memory of genuine historical facts. The tablets are
unhappily, in parts, much mutilated ; but enough remains
to indicate the general character of the events recorded.
A few extracts may be quoted (in Mr. Pinches' trans-
lation) ' :
The gods .... in their faithful counsel to Kudurlachgumal, king of
the land of Elam, said (?) " Descend," and the thing that unto them
Transactions of the Victoria Institute, xxix. (1897), pp. 56, 65.
FIRST] CHEDORLAOMER 43
was good [they performed, and] he exercised sovereignty in Babylon,
the city of Kardunias, 1 [and] he placed [his throne ?] in Babylon, the
city of the king of the gods, Merodach Dur-mach-i-lani,
the son of Eri-6kua, who [had carried off?] the spoil, sat [on] the
throne of dominion.
One of the other inscriptions, after several (mutilated) allu-
sions to the " Elamite enemy," and his doings, continues :
Who is Kudurlachgu[mal], the maker of the evils ? He has gathered
also the Umman-man[da] ; - .... he has laid in ruins ....
After this it states that the Elamite enemy " set his face
to go towards Borsippa" ; and finally, after subduing the
nobles of .... with the sword and pillaging the temples,
that he returned with their spoil to Elam.
The gist of these inscriptions is thus to describe how
Kudurlachgumal or, as the name is read by Hommel and
Zimmern, Kudurdugmal invaded Babylonia with his
troops, plundering its cities and temples, and exercising
sovereignty in Babylon itself. If, now, Kudurlachgumal
be rightly identified with Chedorlaomer, the Eri-ekua
mentioned in the same inscriptions can hardly be different
from the Eriaku, king of Larsa, who has just been referred
to. And the third inscription names in addition one
" Tudchula, son of Gazza," who, though the connexion in
which he is mentioned is obscure (through the mutilation
of the tablet), may well be identical with the fourth king,
"Tid'al, king of Goyim," named in Gen. xiv. I. 3
The inscriptions do not explain the relative positions of
Kudurlachgumal and Kudurmabuk ; but it may be con-
jectured that Kudurlachgumal was over-lord of Kudur-
1 The district surrounding Babylon.
2 A term denoting generally hordes from the North.
3 It ought to be mentioned that Mr. L. W. King, in his recently
published Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi (1898), questions
the correctness of these three identifications. In particular, he observes,
neither Eri-6kua nor Tudchula is styled " king," and the reading of
the middle part of the name Kudurlachgumal is still conjectural. Mr.
Ball also questions the identifications (Light from the East, p. 70.)
44 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
mabuk (who is called only " adda of Jamutbal," not " king
of Elam "), and of his son Eriaku, king of Larsa. Kudur-
lachgumal's victories in Babylonia will naturally have
preceded Khammurabi's final and successful endeavour to
shake off the Elamite supremacy, and bring to an end the
kingdom of Eriaku. Numerous letters and despatches of
Khammurabi have recently been discovered ; and in one
of these, now at Constantinople, as translated by Father
Scheil in 1896, there occurred the name Kudurnuchgamar,
which was supposed for a while to correspond likewise to
Chedorla'omer. 1 Mr. King has, however, now shewn,
by means of a photograph of the inscription in question,
that the name had been transcribed incorrectly, and that
it is in reality that of an officer of Khammurabi, named
Inuhsamar?
4. Tid'al, king of Goyim. Probably the Tudchula, just
mentioned. " Goyim " is the ordinary Hebrew word for
" nations " (hence Auth. Vers. " king of nations ") ; but as
this yields no satisfactory sense, the term is rendered
in the Revised Version as a proper name. No people
called Goyim is, however, known from the monuments ;
and hence Sir H. Rawlinson's conjecture has been widely
accepted, that the name is a corruption of Gutim, the Guti
of the inscriptions, a people whose home was to the north
of Babylon, in the mountainous district on the east of the
Little Zab, corresponding to the eastern part of the present
Kurdistan.
Let us sum up what the monuments have taught us
respecting Gen. xiv. They have brought the four kings
from the East, who were previously but mere names, into
the light of history, and have told us many interesting
particulars about three of them, especially about Amraphel
1 See Scheil, ap. Sayce, Early Hist, of the Hebrews, pp. 27 f.
2 King, I.e., pp. xxxiv-xxxvi. Professor Sayce agrees {Expos. Times
March 1899, p. 267) that Father Scheil's reading is incorrect.
FIRST] CHEDORLAOMER'S CAMPAIGN 45
(Khammurabi). They have shewn further that these four ,
kings were really contemporaries, and that at least three .
of them really ruled over the countries which they are said
in Gen. xiv. to have ruled, two facts which may be
taken as an indication that the author of the narrative
derived his names from some trustworthy source, in which
(probably) they were mentioned together. And they have
shewn, thirdly, that several rulers of Babylonia, as well as
one Elamite ruler (Kudurmabuk), claimed authority over
the " West land," and that an invasion of Palestine and
neighbouring countries on the part, at least, of a ruler
of Babylonia (Sargon), was, in the abstract, within the
military possibilities of the age. The monuments have
not shewn more than this. They make no mention of the
particular expedition into Canaan, which forms the principal
subject of Gen. xiv. ; and they name neither Abraham, nor
Melchizedek, nor any one of the five Canaanite kings (v. 2),
against whom the expedition was directed. Their " con-
firmation " of the Biblical narrative is thus limited to the
statements respecting the four kings contained in v. i.
The historical character of the four kings themselves has
never been seriously questioned. On the other hand, the
narrative which follows has been felt by many to contain,
at least in some of its details, historical improbabilities ;
but whether that is the case or not, the inscriptions which
have been hitherto found do not remove them ; for not one
of the details of the expedition has received any corrobora-
tion from them. The inferences which these inscriptions
authorize respecting the historical accuracy of the narrative
in Gen. xiv. have been much exaggerated. The evidence
that the campaign described in this chapter was historical
is for the present confined to that which is supplied by the
Biblical narrative itself. 1
1 See further two papers by the present writer in the Guardian,
March 1 1 and April 8, 1 896 ; or G. B. Gray in the Expositor, May,
46 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
The chapters of Genesis which now follow receive little
light from archaeology, only an occasional word or name
being capable of illustration from monumental sources.
A few examples will be sufficient. The mention of the
Philistines in xxi. 32, 34, xxvi. I, 8, 14, 15, 18 if not in
Exod. xiii. 17 as well is very probably an anachronism :
Hebrew tradition knew that the Philistines were immi-
grants, and declared that they came from Caphtor
(Amos ix. 7, Jer. xlvii. 4), i.e. (probably) Crete ; and
there are at least substantial reasons for identifying them
(with W. Max Muller, Maspero, and Sayce) with the
Purasati, a piratical people, who, with other sea-faring
tribes from the coasts of Asia Minor or the Aegean isles,
made a descent upon Egypt in the time of Ramses III.
(after the Exodus), and who appear to have subse-
quently established themselves on the south-west coast
of Canaan, in the five cities, so often mentioned in the
Old Testament (e.g. i Sam. vi. 17) as the strongholds
of the Philistines. If this view be correct, the Philistines
will evidently not yet have been settled in Canaan in
the age of Abraham. The Buz and Hazo of Gen. xxii.
21, 22 (sons of Nahor) are not improbably the tribes of
Bazu and Hazu, mentioned by Esarhaddon, who dwelt
apparently somewhere on the eastern border of Gilead.
'Ephah (xxv. 4 ; see also Isa. Ix. 6), a son of Abraham
by Keturah, is probably the Arabian tribe Khayapa,
whom Tiglath-pileser III. and Sargon speak of subduing;
and the Ishmaelite tribe Kedar (xxv. 13 ; also Isa. Ix. 6,
3, pp. 342-6. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the inscriptions at
present known till c. 1400 B.C., some nine centuries after the date of
Khammurabi : see p. 73.
The reader will probably have noticed that the inscriptions speak
of Kudurlachgumal and Khammurabi, not as allies, but as foes : there
is, however, nothing unreasonable in the conjecture, that until Kham-
murabi succeeded in freeing himself from the Elamite supremacy, he
was obliged by Kudurlachgumal to take part with him in his campaigns.
FIRST] THE PHILISTINES AND KEDAR 47
and elsewhere) is unquestionably the Kidrai, whose terri-
tory was invaded by Asshurbanipal. "Gad" (xxx. u)
is known, from Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions, to
have been an old Semitic god of fortune (cf. Isa. Ixv. n).
Mr. Tomkins and Professor Sayce may be right in ex-
plaining the name Beth-lehem (xxxv. 19, and elsewhere)
as meaning " House (i.e. Temple) of Lachmu," and as
preserving a recollection of Babylonian influence in
Canaan (see p. 72), Lachmu being the name of a
Babylonian god (above, p. 10). A few other illus-
trations similar to these could be instanced ; but they
are not of sufficient general interest to be particularized
here. Chap, xxxvi. is valuable historically, on account
of the information respecting Edom contained in it :
the country is frequently mentioned in the Assyrian
inscriptions ; but unfortunately, no native Edomite in-
scriptions have been hitherto discovered. We may pass
on therefore to the chapters (Gen. xxxix.-l.) dealing
with the history of Joseph.
These chapters, as has long been observed, display,
in certain parts, a marked familiarity with Egypt ; and
many interesting illustrations of statements or allusions
contained in the narrative have been supplied by
the monuments. 1 Although the position of authority
assigned to Joseph in Potiphar's house (Gen. xxxix. 4-6)
can hardly be said to be distinctively Egyptian, yet it
agrees with what we learn from the monuments respect-
ing the organization of great establishments in Egypt :
mention is frequently made in them of the superintendents
of different departments, as the slaves, the fields, the
cattle, etc., and in particular of the mer-per> or " master
of the house." To the story of Joseph and his master's
1 See more fully, on the subject of the following pages, the writer's
article JOSEPH in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, where references to
authorities are also more completely given.
48 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
wife there is a curious parallel in the popular Egyptian
romance, called the Tale of the Two Brothers, written
under the nineteenth dynasty. 1 The tomb of Ramses III.
(of the twentieth dynasty), at Thebes, furnishes an illus-
tration of a royal bakery : 2 in it we see a number of
figures engaged in different processes of bread-making,
and among them one carrying a tray containing rolls
of bread upon his head (Gen. xl. 16) : mention is also
made in the inscriptions of a "superintendent of the
bakery," corresponding to the " chief of the bakers "
in Genesis. " Butlers " or " cup-bearers," the word for
both in Hebrew is the same, meaning literally " the one
giving to drink "though, naturally, not an institution
peculiar to Egypt, being found in Persia (Neh. i. 11),
and elsewhere, are represented in the tomb of Paheri,
at El Kab, in the act of offering wine to the guests :
the "chief of the butlers" is considered by Chabas and
Ebers to correspond to the "conducteur des controleurs
qui goutent le vin," mentioned in a list of Egyptian
court-officials ; and Ebers has even illustrated from a
text found in the temple at Edfu, and published by
M. Naville, the custom of squeezing grapes into water
(Gen. xl. 11), for the purpose of producing a refreshing
beverage. The birthday of the Pharaoh (Gen. xl. 20),
at least in the Ptolemaic period, as we learn from the
Canopus and Rosetta decrees (239 B.C. and 195 B.C.), was
celebrated with festivities, and the granting of amnesties
to prisoners.
Pharaoh's dreams, both in themselves, and in their sub-
ject-matter, are appropriate to the country. In Egypt,
as in Babylon, much weight was attached to dreams ;
and the monarchs of both countries are not unfrequently
1 It is translated in Pe'rie's Egyptian Tales (1895), ii., pp. 36 ff.
2 Wilkinson-Birch, Ancient Egyptians, ed. 1878, ii. 34; or Erman,
Ufe in Ancient Egypt (1894), p. 191.
FIRST] JOSEPH IN EGYPT 49
represented as taking important steps at the suggestion of
a dream. 1 The fertility of the soil of Egypt is dependent
upon the Nile ; and Hat-hor, and Isis more especially,
seem at times to represent the land which it fertilizes.
The cow being sacred to both these goddesses, kine
emerging from the Nile would be a natural emblem of
fruitful seasons, and might moreover appear naturally in
a dream relating to the fertility of the soil. The Egyptian
hierarchy was highly organized ; and among the priestly
classes were "sacred scribes" (7e/>oypa//,/iarei9, in the
Greek text of the Canopus inscription), or " knowers of
things," as they are termed in the Egyptian text, the
possessors of esoteric lore, whom the Pharaoh was wont
to consult in any difficulty (Gen. xli. 8). Joseph's
shaving himself before appearing in the presence of
Pharaoh (Gen. xli. 14) is in accordance with Egyptian
custom : upon the monuments, only foreigners, or Egyptians
of inferior rank, are represented as growing beards. The
practice of decorating a court-official with ornaments
of gold, including chains (Gen. xli. 42), as a mark of
royal favour, is thoroughly Egyptian. 2 The inscriptions
also supply examples of foreigners rising to posts of
political importance in Egypt, and adopting then a
change of name. 3
Joseph's plan of laying up corn in store-houses is in
agreement with Egyptian institutions : in all important
cities granaries were established, partly for the reception of
the corn-tax (an important item in the Egyptian revenue),
partly to provide maintenance for soldiers and other public
officials : the " superintendent of the granaries " was an
important officer of state, whose duty it was to take care
that they were properly filled, and who also had to furnish
1 Cf. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 266.
1 Erman, pp. u8f, with the illustrations on pp. 120, 208; cf. p. 108.
3 Erman, pp. 105 f,, 517 f., 518 note.
4
50 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
the king annually with an "account of the harvests of
the south and of the north." 1 Famines of long duration,
due to the Nile failing to overflow, are not unknown in
Egypt : not to mention the late and questionable testimony
of the inscription, of the third century B.C., copied by Mr.
Wilbour at Sehel (an island in the First Cataract), which
mentions a seven-years' famine under King Toser (?) of
the third dynasty (c. 4400 B.C.), 2 or the famine attested
by the Arabian historian El Makrizi for A.D. 1064-1071,
the sepulchral inscription of one Baba, found at El Kab, in
Upper Egypt, represents the deceased, in the course of an
enumeration of his virtues and charitable deeds, as saying :
" I collected corn, as a friend of the harvest-god ; I was
watchful at the time of sowing. And when a famine arose,
lasting many years, I distributed corn to the city each year
of famine"* The age of Baba (latter half of the middle
kingdom) would coincide approximately with that of
Joseph ; and it has been conjectured that the famine
referred to may even be the same. In illustration of the
measures said to have been adopted by Joseph, there
may be quoted the words in which Ameni, governor
of the "nome of the Gazelle," under Usertesen I., of the
twelfth dynasty, states that he discharged his office : " In
my time there were no poor, and none were hungry in
my day. When the years of famine came, I ploughed all
the fields of the nome ; I kept the inhabitants alive, and
gave them food, so that not one was hungry." The
statement (Gen. xlvi. 34) that " every shepherd is an
abomination to the Egyptians" is not directly supported
by the monuments : but the keepers of oxen and swine
were considered in Egypt to follow a degrading occupa-
1 Erman, p. 108; cf. pp. Si, 86, 89, 95.
- Brugsch, Steininschrift und Bibelwort (1891), pp. 88-97; Sayce,
Monuments, pp. 217 f.
3 Brugsch, Hist, of Egypt (ed. 1891), p. 121.
FIRST] JOSEPH IN EGYPT 51
tion. They are depicted as dirty, unshaven, poorly clad,
and even as dwarfs and deformed ; and the shepherds
seem here to be treated similarly. There are parallels
for parties of foreigners, such as were Jacob and his sons,
receiving permission to settle in Egypt Under Hor-em-
heb, of the eighteenth dynasty, a troop of Menttu, or
nomads, whose lands had been ravaged by their enemies,
appeal to the Pharaoh, and receive from him permission to
settle in a prescribed locality ; and an instance is cited
below (p. 58) of a similar permission being granted to a
body of Shasu, or Bedawin, under Merenptah, of the
nineteenth dynasty. The peculiar system of land-tenure
(xlvii. 26), according to which all land in Egypt, excepting
the priests', belonged to the Pharaohs, and was rented by
individuals from the crown upon an annual payment of
one-fifth of the produce, and which is said to have been
originated by Joseph, must have prevailed in the narrator's
day ; and it is so far in accordance with the testimony
of the monuments that, in the New Empire (which arose
after the expulsion of the Hyksos 1 ), " the old aristocracy "
is found to have " made way for royal officials ; and the
landed property has passed out of the hands of the old
families into the possession of the crown and of the great
temples." 2 The inscriptions at present known do not,
however, mention particulars respecting the system of
land-tenure, or state by whom it was introduced.
The monuments do not help us, except indirectly, to fix
the date of Joseph. As in the Book of Exodus, the name
of the Pharaoh is not mentioned ; and, in view of the fixity
of Egyptian institutions, the allusions in his biography to
Egyptian manners and customs are not sufficiently dis-
tinctive to furnish a clue to the age in which he lived.
1 A race of foreign invaders, who held Egypt, according to Manetho,
for 511 years (2098-1587 B.C., Petrie).
* Erman, p. 102.
52 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
There are, however, as will appear more fully below,
strong reasons for supposing Ramses II. to be the Pharaoh
of the Oppression ; and if we argue back from this datum,
it becomes probable that Joseph's elevation is to be placed
under one of the later Hyksos kings. And this, in fact, is
the date adopted by the majority of modern Egyptologists.
The Egyptian names occurring in the history of Joseph
have all been explained on the basis of data supplied
by the monuments. Brugsch 1 and Ebers both agree with
Steindorff 2 that Potiphar (of which Poti-phera, Gen. xli. 50,
is generally considered to be only a Hebrew variant),
means Gift of Ra, the sun-god, and that Zaphenath-
pa'aneach, the Egyptian name given to Joseph (Gen. xli. 45),
means God speaks, and he lives ; while Ebers and Steindorff
agree in explaining Asenath as Dedicated to Neith. Names
formed after all these types are common in the Egyptian
inscriptions ; but, singularly enough, not till long after the
age to which (upon any view of the chronology) Joseph
must be placed : names of the first two types (though there
is one of the type Potiphar, known earlier, borne by a
foreigner) appear otherwise first in the twenty-second
dynasty (that of Shishak, in the time of Rehoboam) ; those
of the type Asenath are met with occasionally in earlier
times, but only become frequent at about the same period.
The combination, in a single narrative, of names, all
otherwise either rare or unknown at an early period, is
remarkable ; and though future discoveries may correct
the inference, it is impossible not to feel that it creates a
presumption against their being historical.
The situation of the land of Goshen (Gen. xlv. 10, etc.),
though a very probable determination was afforded by the
rendering of the Septuagint, has been fixed more closely by
the discoveries of M. Naville. This clever and successful
1 Steininschrift, p. 83.
J Zeitschr.fur Aeg. Sprache, xxxii. (1892), pp. 50-2.
FIRST] THE SITE OF GOSHEN 53
explorer, at the end of 1884, came accidentally upon a
large village about forty miles north-north-east of Cairo,
called Saft el-Henneh, where he observed a monument
bearing the name of Nectanebo, the last of the Pharaohs
(367-350 B.C.), and which he perceived at once to be
the site of a large ancient city. Excavating on this spot
in the following year, he found the remains of a shrine
erected by Nectanebo to the god Sopt, with inscrip-
tions which shewed, among other things, that the place
on which the shrine stood bore the name of Kes. Now,
ancient hieroglyphic lists of the " nomes," or administrative
districts, of Egypt mention Kesem as the twentieth nome
of Lower Egypt, and state that its religious capital was
Pa-sopt\ Kesem, however, is simply the older and fuller
form of Kes, while the name Sopt is manifestly preserved
in the modern Saft. It follows that Kesem was the .
ancient name of the district surrounding Saft. Assuming
now, as we may do, the identity of Kesem with the Hebrew
GosJien (or, as it might be vocalized, Ges/ien), we obtain the
situation of the " land of Goshen " ; it must have been the
district around Saft, " within the triangle lying between the
villages of Saft, Belbeis, and Tel el-Kebir." 1 In the age of "
Joseph, however, Kesem did not yet exist as an indepen- <
dent nome. From texts of the nineteenth and twentieth
dynasties it is inferred by M. Naville that " it was not an
organized province occupied by an agricultural population ;
it was part of the marshland called the water of Ra, in
which the city of" Bairest, elsewhere called Per-Bairest,
and believed to be the modern Belbeis, " was situate. It
could be given by the king to foreigners, without despoil-
ing the native population. It must have been something
1 The same locality is indicated by the rendering of the Septuagint, .
" Gesera of Arabia"; for "Arabia," as we learn from the geographer
Ptolemy, was the name of a nome situated in the same direction, and
having as its capital a place called Phakusa, which is just Kes, with .
the Egyptian article Pa.
54 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
very like the borders of the present Sharkiyeh, north
of Fakoos, where the Bedawin have their camps of
black tents and graze their large flocks of cattle." The
expression "land of Rameses" (Gen. xlvii. n) has not
been illustrated from the monuments : it is considered
by M. Naville to denote a larger area than the " land of
Goshen," and to include that part of the Delta which lies
to the east of the Tanitic branch of the Nile, a region
which Ramses II. enriched with numerous works of
architecture. If this be the true origin of the name,
it is plain that the writer of Gen. xlvii. n must have
transferred to the age of Joseph relations which did not
begin to exist till long subsequently.
We may pass now to the Book of Exodus.
About thirty miles east of Saft lies a mound bearing the
name of Tell el-Maskhuta, the " mound of the statue," so
called from the statue of a king sitting between two gods,
which has long existed there. The inscription on the
statue shews that the king is Ramses II., and that the two
gods are Ra and Turn, both forms of the solar-deity. It
was on this spot that M. Naville in 1883 first began his
1 excavations for the Egypt Exploration Fund. He soon met
with inscriptions making it evident that the ancient name
of the place was Pi-Tutn, the "abode of Turn," evidently
' the Pithom of Exod. i. u, one of the two store-cities built
by the Israelites for the Egyptian king. Proceeding
further, he found that Pithom was a city forming a square
of about 220 yards each way, enclosed by enormous brick
walls, and containing store-chambers, built likewise of
bricks, and a temple. Inscriptions found within the area
covered by the city shewed that it had been founded by
Ramses 1 1., in all probability, partly as a store-house for
supplying provisions to Egyptian armies about to cross
the desert, and partly as a fortress for the protection of
FIRST] PITHOM AND RAAMSES 55
the exposed eastern frontier of Egypt. Other inscriptions
brought to light at the same spot shewed that Pithom
had been enlarged, or beautified, by later kings ; but no
notice was found of the Israelites, as its builders. The
other store-city, stated to have been built by the Israelites,
was Raamses. Pa-Ramessu Meriamun (i.e. "the Place of -
Ramses 1 1.") is a name often given in the papyri to Zoan,
i.e. Tanis, a place on one of the branches of the Nile,
about thirty miles north-north-west of Pithom, which,
though built at least as early as the time of Amenem-
het I., of the twelfth dynasty, was so much added to by
Ramses II. that he is called by M. Naville its "second
founder " ; and Brugsch and Ebers both consider that Zoan _
is the place here meant. Zoan is, however, mentioned
elsewhere in the Old Testament under its proper name ;
and as Ramses built largely at many different places in
the Eastern Delta, others l think that one of these, not at
present identified, is the Raamses built by the Israelites.
In addition to the interest attaching independently to
M. Naville's discoveries at Pithom, one fact fixed by him
is important historically : for if Ramses be its founder,
and it was built as narrated in Exod. i. n, it -follows that
Ramses II. (1275-1208 B.C., Petrie) was the Pharaoh of;
the Oppression (Exod. i. 8 ii. 23), and that consequently
the Exodus could not have taken place until (Exod. ii. 23)
the reign of his successor had begun.
The corvte was a familiar institution in ancient Egypt :
if stone had to be procured from the quarries, if a temple
or palace had to be built, or a gigantic statue hauled to its
place, if dykes or canals needed repairing, all these works
were carried out by gangs of men working compulsorily
under overseers, who were not sparing in their choice
of means for curing idleness. The native peasants were
not exempt from the painful necessity oi serving in the
1 So, in particular, Maspero, Rev. Archeol., xxxiv. (1879), pp. 323 f.
56 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
corvte ; but criminals and prisoners of war were naturally
' those most frequently employed in it. 1 Representations of
captives so employed for the purpose of making bricks
have been found on the monuments. In the sepulchral
chamber of Rekhmara at Thebes there is a graphic illus-
tration of a body of men busily engaged in the work : a
superscription over the scene states that the labourers
are "prisoners whom Thothmes III. brought home for the
works in the temple of his father Amen " in Thebes : 2 and
. taskmasters carrying wands are seen standing over them. 3
An inscription, forming evidently part of a foreman's
report, which has been translated by Brugsch and Chabas,
is also worth quoting in the same connexion :
Number of builders, 12, besides men for moulding the bricks in their
own towns (?), brought to work on the house. They are making the
due number of bricks every day : they are not remiss in their labours for
the new house. I have thus obeyed the command given by my master.
But no representation of the Israelites as thus employed
or, indeed, as resident in Egypt at all has been found
hitherto. 4
1 The corvee was introduced into Israel by Solomon, if not by David,
/ for the construction of his buildings, though the fact is obscured in the
English versions by inadequate renderings of the Hebrew word em-
ployed : it is what is really meant by the " tribute " of 2 Sam. xx. 24,
and the "levy" of I Kings iv. 6, v. 13, xii. 18. The Hebrew word
' in these passages is the same as that which is used in Exod. i. n.
* The writer is indebted to Mr. F. LI. Griffith for many valuable
improvements on pp. 56-61, partly in the text, and partly in the trans-
lations (especially those on pp. 59, 60).
3 See Wilkinson-Birch, i. 344, or Erman, pp. 417 f.
4 In two papyri, belonging to the reign of Ramses II., the writer, an
officer of the commissariat-department, reports to the Pharaoh that he
has executed his orders to "give corn to the Egyptian soldiers and to
the Aperiu who are engaged in drawing stones to the great bechen, or
fortified enclosure, of Pa-Ramses." It was supposed by Chabas that
these Aperiu were the Hebrews; but the identification has not been
generally accepted by other Egyptologists, partly on the ground that
the Egyptian word does not correspond to " Hebrew " as it should
do, and partly because a body of Aperiu is mentioned as settled at
Heliopolis in the time of Ramses III., and another body is mentioned
FIRST] THE BORDER-FORTS OF EGYPT 57
In the account of the route taken by the Israelites at the
Exodus, it is stated that after leaving Rameses, the places
next passed by them were Succoth, and Etham " in the
edge of the wilderness," after which they turned back, and
encamped at Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in
front of Baal-zephon (Exod. xii. 37, xiii. 20, xiv. 2, 9).
There are several inscriptions known which throw light
upon the topography of the region here in question.
The natural defences of Egypt on its north-eastern
frontier were strong, but the almost waterless desert of the
peninsula of Suez was threaded by two routes. One of
these ran along the outlying coast of the Levant, where
a series of wells afforded a scanty living to the Bedawin,
and provided travellers with the means of continuing their
journey ; the other was connected with the valleys of
Sinai, and entered Egypt by the fertile and marshy Wady
Tumilat. Some believe that a wall was carried right
across the Isthmus of Suez in ancient times to prevent
on the one hand the inroads of Bedawin, and on the
other the escape of deserters or other fugitives from Egypt.
In a description written by Sinuhit, a political exile from
Egypt, in the reign of Usertesen I. (2758-2714 B.C., Petrie),
of the adventures which befell him on his flight, there is
an interesting allusion to these defences, and to the manner
in which they were guarded :
Then l I fled on foot, northward, and reached the " Walls " (anbu)
of the Ruler, built to repel the Sati. I crouched in a bush for fear of
being seen by the guards, changed each day, who watch on the top.
At nightfall I set forth, and at the lighting of the day I reached Peten,
and skirted the lake of Kemur, etc.
The name Kemur is applied apparently at all times
to the Bitter Lakes ; but in the Pyramid Texts of the Old
as engaged in the quarries at Hamamat in the time of Ramses IV., both
being long after the period of the Exodus (see Brugsch, Hist., pp. 318 f. ;
Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, p. 443 note).
1 Petrie, Egyptian Tales, i. loof. Cf. Erman, pp. 537 f.
58 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
Kingdom it is the name of a great wall or fort, implying
that in a remote period the region of the Lakes had been
guarded by a wall.
In the New Kingdom we find each of the two routes
to Egypt guarded on the frontier by an important fortress,
called a khetem, "closed place," "fortress," "castle." On
the northern route was the " Castle in Zaru," on the
southern the " Castle in Theku." The northern route
was by far the more important, as being the direct road
to and from Syria. The southern route led only to the
mines of Sinai. Besides the two great khetems on the
eastern frontier, there were also towers (bekhen\ watch-
towers (migdols), etc., probably outposts along the route.
The exact sites of the " Khetems " of Zaru and Theku
are still uncertain, but undoubtedly they both lay very
near the line of the present Suez Canal, on the edge of
the cultivable land. Zaru was a great place under the
Hyksos domination. Through it, in the eighteenth dynasty,
Thothmes III. led his conquering hosts; and on the
walls of Karnak the castle in Zaru is pictured in the
scene of the triumphant return of Seti I. (father of
Ramses II.) from his Syrian conquest. The primary
occasion of Seti's expedition had been the rebellion of
the Shasu nomads between Egypt and Syria against the
authority of Egypt, and their stirring up of the Syrians
to participate in their venture. As the result of this
expedition we read that
In the first year of King Seti there took place by the strong arm
of Pharaoh the annihilation of the miserable Shasu, from the castle
(khetem) of Zaru as far ?.s Pa-Kan'ana.
Pa-Kan'ana has been identified with a ruined site
Kanaan, a little south of Hebron. 1
About a century after Seti's expedition, in the eighth
year of Merenptah (the successor of Ramses II., and in
1 Maspero, I.e., p. 370 nott\ ct. on Zaru pp. 122, 123.
FIRST] INSCRIPTIONS OF MERENPTAH 59
all probability the Pharaoh of the Exodus), the Shasu
appear in a different role. They now ask and obtain per-
mission to pass the southern border-fortress, in order to
find food and pasture for themselves and their herds in
the rich pasture-land about Pithom. An Egyptian officer
reports to the Pharaoh on the subject as follows :
Another matter for the satisfaction of my master's heart. We have
allowed the tribes of the Shasu of Atuma to pass the castle (khetenf)
of King Merenptah which is in Theku, towards the lakes of Pithom
of King Merenptah which is in Theku, in order to obtain a living for
themselves and their cattle in the great estate of Pharaoh, who is the
beneficent sun in every land, in the year 8 ....
Another inscription, belonging to Merenptah's reign, has
been supposed, in its references to foreigners established
in the Delta, to preserve an allusion to the Israelites ;
but its terms, when carefully examined, leave it doubtful
whether that is really the case. The inscription, which is
inscribed on one of the walls of the temple of Karnak,
recounts in high-flown language Merenptah's overthrow
of the invading Libyans in his fifth year. After the
heading we have a description of the Pharaoh as protector
of On (Heliopolis) and Memphis : the inscription then
continues (if we may supply from the context some words,
which are here missing) :
7 [foreigners of some kind had entered the land, setting up] tents in
front of the city of Per-Bairest, making a dwelling-place (?) on the arable
land (shtdf) of Atiu ; 8 [for the district] was without protection, it was
left as pasture-land (sha) for cattle because\of the nine bows (i.e. the
foreigners), it was abandoned in the times of the ancestors. The kings
of Upper Egypt sat with their councillors, * the kings of Lower
Egypt at the helm of their city, surrounded by the diwan of the two
lands, (helpless) for want of soldiers, having no warriors to oppose to
them. Then it came to pass that 10 [Merenptah (?)]?arose on the throne
of Horus, to give life to men, etc.
After this, we read, the king collected his forces, and
prepared to meet the invaders.
Heliopolis (seven miles north-east of the modern Cairo)
was about thirty miles south-west of the region identified
60 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
above (p. 53) with Goshen ; and Atiu was the river of
Heliopolis, i.e. the Pelusiac branch of the Nile (which,
a little lower down its course, passed through Goshen).
Per-Bairest, as has been already remarked (ibid.), is
thought to be the modern Belbeis, on the southern border
of Goshen. The description of the helpless condition of
the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt is not to be taken
au pied de la lettre : the glorious age of Ramses II. was
only just past. It is unfortunate that the inscription is
mutilated at a crucial point (line 7) ; but judging from
the parts which remain, the reference seems to be to a
vacant district in front of Per-Bairest, which had been
occupied recently by invaders, rather than to one which
had been given up by previous kings to a body of foreign
settlers.
From the same reign a happy chance has also preserved
for us some of the entries made by Paembasa, a scribe
stationed (apparently) at Zaru, respecting persons crossing
the frontier. Here are two of them :
In the 3rd year, on the 1 5th of Pachon. There went out the servant
of Ba'al- ..... son of Zapur, of Gaza, who had for Syria two letters as
follows : to Chay, the superintendent of the peasantry, 1 one letter,
to Ba'al- . . . . , the prince of Tyre, one letter.
In the 3rd year, on the I7th ot Pachon. There came the chiefs of
the mercenaries at the Well of Merenptah, in the sand hills (?), in order
to hold an inspection in the castle (khetem) which is in Zaru.
From the reign of Merenptah's successor, Seti II., we
have the report of a scribe, who had been sent out to
overtake two fugitive servants of the Egyptian king :
I started from the court of the palace (at Tanis or Memphis?) on the
9th of Epiphi [July], in the evening, in pursuit of the two slaves. Now
I arrived at the sgr of Theku on the loth of Epiphi, and was told
that they spoke of (or purposed) the south (i.e. of taking the southern
route?) they passed on on the gth of Epiphi. I went to the castle
(khetem) (i.e. of Theku) ; and was told, " The horseman (or groom), who
1 According to Brugsch and Erman (pp. 538 f.), colonies of Egyptian
1 workmen, resident in Palestine.
FIRST] SUCCOTH AND ETHAM 6 1
comes from abroad (or rather, perhaps, who travels to and from Egypt),
[says] that they passed the anb.t (enclosure?) north of the watch-tower
(migdol} of Seti Merenptah."
Manifestly, these extracts place us in the same neigh-
bourhood as the opening stages of the Exodus : the Shasu
pass from the desert into Egypt, the officer of Seti II.
passes from Egypt into the desert, by the same route,
approximately, as that which, according to the Pentateuch,
was taken by the Israelites. But whether the places
named are the same is still uncertain. Succoth may be the
Theku of the inscriptions, Hebraized so as to agree with
the Hebrew word for " booths " (Gen. xxxiii. 1 7) ; but this
identification is open to the objection that, according to the
geographical lists, Theku was the name of a district con-
nected with Pithom, whereas the Hebrew narrative appears
to require a definite station on the route. Succoth was
perhaps the khetem of Theku, otherwise this khetem may
be Etham. 1 M. Naville identified Atuma with Etham ;
but the passage in the flight of Sinuhit to which he appeals
seems to require a locality further from Egypt, and is
moreover read differently by other Egyptologists : hence
those authorities are probably right who identify Atuma
with Edom. Migdol, Baal-zephon, and Pi-hahiroth are
all quite uncertain. Migdol is a Hebrew word signifying
" tower," and in the Egyptian form Maktl occurs frequently
in the inscriptions ; but we have no means of knowing
what " Migdol " is here meant. A " Migdol " of Merenptah
is mentioned in the report of Seti II.'s officer ; and it is
possible that that is the same as the Migdol of Exod.
xiv. 2 : but nothing more definite can be said. Mention
is also made in a papyrus of a (Phoenician) deity called
Bali-zapuna, whence Brugsch and Ebers derive the name
Baal-zephon ; but the situation of this place remains
1 Though a stronger guttural, corresponding to the Egyptian kh,
would have been expected, had Etham been the Hebrew transcription
of khetem. Maspero {Rev. Arch., p. 324) questions the identification.
62 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
conjectural. Archaeological research has not as yet suc-
ceeded in making clear the route of the Exodus. 1
The date of the Exodus cannot be determined precisely
by means of the Egyptian monuments, as they contain
no unambiguous reference to it ; but there are strong
reasons (cf. p. 55) for holding Ramses II., of the nine-
teenth dynasty (1275-1208 B.C.), to be the Pharaoh of the
Oppression (Exod. i. 8 ii. 22) ; and hence his successor
(cf. Exod. ii. 23), Merenptah, has been generally considered
to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus (Exod. v.-xv.). Until
1896 no mention whatever of the Israelites had been found
upon the Egyptian monuments ; but in that year Professor
Petrie made the interesting discovery, in the course of his
excavations at Thebes, of a large stele, which, upon exa-
mination, proved to contain a notice of them. 2 It had been
long known that Merenptah in his fifth year had gained
at Prosopis a great victory over the Libyans, who had
invaded the Delta with a formidable body of allies : the
narrative of his success, inscribed at Karnak, may be read
at length in Brugsch's History of Egypt, pp. 311-5. The
inscription found by Professor Petrie consists, for the greater
part, of a grandiloquent description of the same occurrence :
no longer, says the author, is the land disturbed with
preparations for repelling the invader ; Egypt is again at
peace :
The 3 villages are again settled. He who prepares his harvest
will eat it. Ra has turned himself (favourably) to Egypt. He is born
for the purpose ol avenging it, the King Merenptah. Chiefs are
prostrate, saying " Peace ! " 4 Not one among the nine bows (the
1 Cf. p. 9 of the Atlas of Ancient Egypt, published by the Egypt
Exploration Fund: "Up to the present time, none of the various
theories can claim sufficient proof to warrant an exclusive acceptance."
3 Petrie, Contemporary Review, May, 1896, pp. 617 ff.
3 The translation is based in the main upon that of Spiegelberg, in
the Zeitschr. fiir Aeg. Sprache, xxxiv. (1896), pp. 14, 23 f., compared
with Breasted's in the Biblical World, 1897, pp. 63 f.
4 A token of submission to the victor.
FIRST] MERENPTAH AND ISRAEL 63
barbarians) raises his head. Vanquished are the Tehennu (Libyans) ;
the Khita (Hittites) are pacified ; Pa-Kan'ana (Canaan) is prisoner in
every evil ; Askalni (Ashkelon) is carried away ; Gezer l is taken ;
Yenoam J is annihilated ; Ysiraal is desolated, its seed (or fruit) is \
not; 3 Charu 4 has become as widows for Egypt; 5 all lands together
are in peace. Every one that was a marauder hath been subdued by the
King Merenptah, who gives life like the sun every day.
The terms in which Israel is mentioned are not sufficiently
explicit to make it certain what is referred to : but the
important point to observe is that, whereas the other places -
(or peoples) named in the inscription have all the deter-
minative for " country," Ysiraal has the determinative for ,
" men " : it follows that the reference is not to the land of
Israel, but to Israel as a tribe or people, whether migratory,
or on the march. From the position in which Israel is
mentioned in close proximity to towns or districts of
Palestine it is inferred by Steindorff and Breasted that
it was already in Canaan, and had sustained a defeat there
at the hands of Merenptah, whether the Israelites meant
be, as Professor Petrie was inclined to conjecture, the
descendants of individual Hebrews, who had been left
behind in Canaan, when the body of the nation migrated
into Egypt, 6 or who had returned thither after the end
of the famine ; or whether (Steindorff) the Israelites left
1 About half-way between Joppa and Jerusalem.
* Generally identified with Ydn&h, a village seven miles east of Tyre ;
but according to Naville (Recueil de Travaux, xx. 34 f.) Jamneia in
Judah.
3 I.e. its crops, or supplies of produce, are destroyed. Others
understand " seed " in the sense of posterity ; but the parallels quoted
by Spiegelberg and Breasted certainly support the other interpretation,
which is also that of Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, pp. 436, 443
(" n'a plus de graine ").
* A people in the south or south-east of Palestine, perhaps the Horites
(Gen. xxxvi. 20-30) of Edom (Maspero, Hommel, Naville).
5 Fig. for, are helpless before the attacks of Egypt. The expression,
as Mr. Griffith remarks, is no doubt chosen for the sake of the play on
Charu, the word for " widows " being char.ot.
6 So Maspero, p. 444 (alternatively), " un clan oubli6 aux monts de
Canaan."
64 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
Egypt earlier than is commonly supposed, perhaps under
Amenophis IV. (c. 1400 B.C.), 1 and so had by 1200 B.C.
(the date of the inscription) obtained possession of part of
'Western Palestine. Others, on the contrary, think that it
is equally consonant with the terms of the inscription to
suppose that the Israelites were in the wilderness on the
south of Canaan : the Libyan attack on Egypt (though not
mentioned in the Book of Exodus) might have seemed to
afford them a favourable opportunity for escaping from
bondage ; and the disappearance of a subject-people in the
desert may well have been described in the high-flown
phraseology of the inscription as its ruin or desolation. 2
In point of fact, the statement in the inscription is too
indefinite to enable us to pronounce confidently on the
nature of the occurrences to which it alludes. But it must
be owned that the inference which would naturally be
drawn from it is that expressed by Mr. Crum 3 ; viz. " that
Israel, or a part of that people, was already in some part of
Syria, and had been in hostile contact with Egypt." At the
same time, though obviously a statement which describes a
nation as " desolated " cannot be regarded as " confirming "
an account which tells of its triumphant deliverance, the
opinion that the inscription gives the Egyptian version of
the Exodus is one which may not unreasonably be held
by those who are satisfied, on independent grounds, of the
substantial correctness of the Biblical narrative. Even this
opinion, however, can only be adopted provisionally : and
it must be clearly understood that either this, or any other
explanation which may be proposed, may be shewn any
day to be untenable by the discovery of a fresh inscription
1 In this case, however, unless, indeed, they left Egypt in more
than one detachment, they cannot have built Pithom and Raamses
(Exod. i. il), which, as was shewn above, could not have been founded
before the time of Ramses II.
* Naville ; Maspero, I.e. (alternatively).
3 In Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, i. 665 .
FiRSi] THE SITE OF SINAI 65
speaking more explicitly, or mentioning facts about the
Israelites at present unknown.
The site of Pithom has been fixed by archaeology ; that
of Etham is still doubtful, though no doubt it may be fixed
approximately : on the rest of the forty stations passed
by the Israelites, according to Numb, xxxiii., on their
journey to Canaan, very little light has been shed by
archaeology. Two or three sites, still retaining their
ancient names, have been recovered by travellers (the most
notable being Kadesh) : some others may be fixed ap-
proximately ; but of the position of the majority, we are
quite ignorant. Even the site of Sinai itself is disputed.
The oldest known tradition identifies it with Jebel Serbal,
but this tradition cannot be traced back with certainty
beyond the third century A.D. ; a somewhat later tradition
(sixth century) identifies it with Jebel Musa (about thirty
miles east of Jebel Serbal). Professor Sayce argues that
it was not in the Sinaitic peninsula at all, but on the east
side of the Gulf of Akaba : in the days of the Exodus,
he points out, the western side of the Sinaitic peninsula
was an Egyptian province : there were in it valuable
mines of copper and malachite, 1 which were worked for
the Egyptian kings, and the workmen engaged in these
mines were protected by Egyptian soldiers : hence " to
have gone into the province of Mafka would have been
not only to return to Egypt, but to an Egypt more
strictly garrisoned, and more hostile to the wandering
tribes of Asia, than Egypt itself"; the Israelites, like
Sinuhit, if they wished to place themselves beyond the
power of the Pharaoh, would naturally make their way at
once to the land of Edom. 2
Let us endeavour to estimate the bearing of what has
1 Cf. Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, pp. 349-58 (with plans and
illustrations).
3 Sayce, Monuments, pp. 265 f.
5
66 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
been adduced from the Egyptian inscriptions upon the
narratives of Joseph, of Israel in Egypt, and of the Exodus.
The first thing to notice is that there is no mention what-
ever in the inscriptions of any person named in these
narratives, and only indirect and uncertain allusions to any
event named in them : there is a passage (p. 59) which may
refer to the Israelites in Goshen, and there is another
passage (p. 63) which, though it says actually that Israel
is " desolated," may be understood as giving the Egyptian
version of the Exodus. Otherwise, it is exclusively customs,
institutions, and places, mentioned or alluded to in the
Biblical narratives, which receive elucidation from Egyptian
sources. The fact that the illustrations furnished by the
monuments relate not to historical events, but to subjects
such as these, considerably diminishes their value as
evidence of the historical character of the events narrated.
Customs and institutions, especially in Egypt, and names
of places generally in the ancient world, rarely varied from
age to age : the allusions to the former are moreover
mostly of a general kind, being seldom or never so precise
and technical as to imply personal cognizance of the facts
described ; while the places mentioned are few in number,
and all such as might be readily known to Israelites travelling
from Palestine into Egypt. The indirect circumstantial
evidence, in other words, is neither large enough nor
minute enough to take the place of the direct historical
corroboration which at present the inscriptions do not
supply for these parts of the Biblical narrative.
There is, however, a critical consideration which deserves
to be taken into account. The narratives respecting
Joseph are held by critics to consist in the main of a
combination of two narratives, originally distinct, both of
1 which display that familiarity with Egypt which has been
referred to. This fact tends to shew that it was inherent
in the common tradition, which (with slight differences in
FIRST] ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PENTATEUCH 67
detail) both the narratives represent, and increases the
probability that that tradition rests ultimately upon a i
foundation in fact. The question of the credibility of the
Pentateuchal narratives cannot, it must be remembered,
be either discussed or settled solely upon the basis of
archaeology. The credibility of a narrative depends in
part upon such questions as whether or not it is the work
ol a contemporary hand, and whether or not it contains
intrinsic improbabilities ; and these are questions which
cannot be answered by archaeology alone. The Egyptian
colouring of the Pentateuchal narratives is certainly in-
sufficient to shew that they were committed to writing by
a contemporary hand. And in some of the details, for
instance, of the narrative of Joseph, there are unquestion-
ably improbabilities, though this is not the place to
consider their nature, or the precise weight that they may
possess. On the other hand, the general course of Joseph's
career (apart from particular details) cannot be said to be
improbable : the Egyptian monuments supply examples
of foreigners rising to positions of distinction at the court
of the Pharaohs ; while, as has been just remarked, the
general congruity of the narrative with what is known
independently of ancient Egyptian institutions may be
regarded as supporting the opinion that the traditions
underlying it are based upon a foundation of fact. On
the whole, therefore, it may be said that, while not definite
enough to be conclusive, and while affording no guarantee
for the historical character of particular details, the
Egyptian inscriptions tend to shew that the Biblical
traditions respecting Joseph embody a genuine nucleus
of historical fact.
Not so much can be said of the testimony of the inscrip-
tions to the Oppression and the Exodus. Of course, those
who accept these facts as narrated in the Book of Exodus,
will find in the inscriptions interesting antiquarian and
68 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
topographical illustrations of them : but those who seek
corroboration of the facts from the monuments will be
disappointed. There is certainly no sufficient reason for
questioning that the Israelites were long resident in Egypt,
that they built there the two cities Pithom and Raamses,
and that afterwards, under the leadership of Moses, they
successfully escaped from the land of bondage : but none
of these facts are vouched for by the inscriptions at present
known. The discovery of the site of Pithom, for instance,
valuable as it is archaeologically, is not evidence that the
Israelites built the town. The mention in inscriptions
of other persons passing to and fro by Succoth and Etham
is not evidence that the Israelites left Egypt by that route,
or indeed that they left Egypt at all. What we know
about " Goshen " is consistent with the residence there of
a comparatively small band of foreign settlers, but not (as
Professor Sayce has pointed out *) with the numbers which,
according to the Pentateuch, resided in it at the time of the
Exodus. The utmost that can be said is that, from the
fact of the topography of the first two or three stations of
the Exodus being in agreement with what the monuments
attest for the age of the nineteenth dynasty, a presumption
arises that the tradition was a well-founded one which
brought the Israelites by that route. 2
The Asiatic campaigns of the Egyptian kings of the
eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties made Palestine and
1 Early History of the Hebrews, p. 212.
2 The non-mention of the name of either of the Pharaohs in the Book
of Exodus, as also of the place at which they held their court, is strong
, archaeological evidence that the narrative is not the work of a contem-
porary hand. On the former point, comp. Sayce, Monuments, p. 228,
who observes that in native and contemporaneous documents, though
the term " Pharaoh " (i.e. " Per-aa," great house) is often employed, it is
1 only after the king's personal name has been already specified. The
absence, also, in the narrative of the Exodus, of any notice of the line
of border-forts, and of the troops by which they were guarded, points
in the same direction.
FIRST] PALESTINE BEFORE THE EXODUS 69
Syria known to the Egyptians ; and it is interesting to
find, from the Egyptian records of this period, that many
places bear already the same names by which they are
known in Biblical times. Thothmes III. (1503-1449 B.C.)
has left, inscribed on the walls of his temple at Karnak, a
list of three hundred and fifty places in these countries
owning his suzerainty, the first hundred and nineteen of
which are within, or near, the borders of Canaan. 1 It must
be admitted that the identifications of many of these places
are uncertain, and others seem to have been exceedingly
unimportant places, mentioned only incidentally in the
Old Testament ; but a few are better known. We may
instance No. 2 Megiddo, 2 28 Astr-tu (Ashteroth-karnaim,
Gen. xiv. 5 ; or Ashtaroth, Deut. i. 4), 42 Taanach (Judg.
v. 19), 43 Ibleam (Josh. xvii. 11), 47 Acco (Judg. i. 31),
58 Sharuchcn (Josh. xix. 6), 62 Joppa, 65 Ono (Ezraii. 33),
87 Rchob (Josh. xix. 28), 104 Gezer (Judg. i. 29), m Beth-
anath in Naphtali (Judg. i. 33): two names, also, which
transliterated into Hebrew would become Joseph-el and
Jacob-el (Nos. 78 and 102), are remarkable, as including
the names of two patriarchs. The inscriptions of Seti I.
and Ramses II. (of the nineteenth dynasty), and of
Ramses III. (of the twentieth dynasty), furnish similar
lists. 3 There exists, further, a curious and interesting
papyrus, called The Travels of a Mohar? written during the
reign of Ramses II. (1275-1208 B.C.), the author of which,
a litterateur of the age, draws an imaginative sketch of a
1 The list has been studied most thoroughly by Maspero, Trans, of
the Victoria Institute, 1886, pp. 297 ff., 1888, pp. 53 ff.; and W. Max
Muller, Asien und Europa nach altaegyptischen Denkmcilern (1893),
pp. 157 if. See also Tomkins, in RP?,\\, pp. 25 f., 43 if. ; Sayce,
Patriarchal Palestine, pp. 225 ff.
2 The names are cited here, as a rule, in their familiar English forms.
3 See W. Max Muller, pp. 191 if., for that of Seti I. : and for those of
Ramses II. and III., RP*, vi. f 24 if., 31 ff.; W. Max Muller, pp. 164-6
227 ff. ; Sayce, I.e., pp. 235-40.
4 An Assyrian official title.
70 HEBREW AUTHORITY L PART
tour through Palestine. 1 Among the places mentioned by
him are Gebal (Josh. xiii. 5, Ezek. xxvii. 9), Biruti (Beyrout),
Zidon, Zarephath, and Tyre, in Phoenicia ; Achshaph (Josh.
xi. i); the " mountain of User" a name which has been
supposed to indicate that the tribe of Asher was already in
pre-Mosaic times settled in its home in the north of Canaan ;
the " mountain of Sakama " (Shechem) ; Hazor in Naphtali
(Josh. xi. i, etc.) ; Kiriath-anab and Beth-sopher as
W. Max Miiller has pointed out, scribal errors for Beth-
anab (Anab in Judah, Josh. xv. 50) and /STirw/A-sopher
(the Kiriath-sepher of Josh. xv. 15, Judg. i. u pre-
viously, it is there stated, called " Debir," the adyton, or
inmost sanctuary of a temple) ; Beth-sha-el (i.e. as it seems,
a Babylonian equivalent of Beth-el 2 ); Megiddo, Joppa,
and Gaza. " Kiriath-sopher " means " city of the scribe,"
for which "Kiriath-sepher" of the Old Testament i.e.
" city of book(s) " is probably an incorrect vocalization.
The place may have been the residence of a family or
guild of scribes ; but the name forms a slender basis
on which to found far-reaching inferences respecting the
literary culture of the ancient inhabitants of Palestine. 3
On the condition of Canaan before the Hebrew occupa-
tion new and surprising light has recently been thrown by
the discoveries now commonly associated with the name
of Tel el-Amarna. Tel el-Amarna is a spot about 170
miles south of Cairo, the site of a new capital built by
Amenophis IV., of the eighteenth dynasty, as a centre for
the worship of the sun-god, which he sought to encourage
1 The Papyrus Anastasi I. See Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt,
pp. 380 ff. ; W. Max Miiller, pp. 57, 172-5, 184-7, 394; Sayce, I.e.,
pp. 204 f., 209-24.
2 Erman, as cited by Miiller, pp. 153, 192 t. The ska is Babylonian
(cf. Methu-sha-el, above, p. 22). The Bethel meant cannot, however,
be the well-known Bethel in Benjamin, but must be one not mentioned
in the Old Testament, in or near the plain of the Kishon
3 Sayce, Monuments, p. 54.
FIRST] THE TEL EL-AMARNA TABLETS 71
and his devotion to which led him to assume the title of
Khu-n-Aten,or " Light of the Solar Disk." Somefe//a/iin,
digging here in 1887, came across a collection of more than
three hundred clay tablets, written in the cuneiform char- ,
acters of Babylonia, which, after examination, turned out
to be a part of the official archives of Amenophis III.
and Amenophis IV., and to consist of letters and reports
addressed to these kings by their officials, and by Eastern
rulers having relations with Egypt. The latter, about
forty in number, are chiefly from kings of the Hittites (on
the north of Palestine), of the Mitanni (in the north of
Mesopotamia), of Assyria, and of Babylonia ; the former,
which constitute the bulk of the correspondence, and are
also the richer in historical interest, are principally from
governors stationed by the Egyptian kings at various places
in Palestine, Phoenicia, and Syria. It had long been
known that the Pharaohs of this age, especially Thothmes I.
and II., shortly before Amenophis III., and Seti I. and
Ramses II., shortly afterwards, had led their victorious
armies over Western Asia, as far even as Mesopotamia : 1
but it was not known before by what means the Egyptians
sought to organize and maintain the power which they had
thus acquired. The correspondence discovered at Tel el- ,
Amarna shews that, at about 1400 B.C., Palestine and the
neighbouring countries formed an Egyptian province, under
the rule of Egyptian governors, stationed in the principal
towns, and (what is more remarkable) communicating with
their superiors in the Babylonian language. This last- "
named circumstance is particularly noticeable. It affords,
1 Thothmes I. erected a stele on the middle course of the Euphrates,
near Carchemish, to mark the limit which his arms had reached (
(Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, p. 210). Another interesting monu-
ment of the same successes is the monolith known as "Job's Stone,"
at Sa'diyeh (in the ancient Bashan), with an inscription proving, as
Erman has shewn, that it was erected in honour of Ramses II. (See
the article ASHTAROTH, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, with the
references.)
72 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
namely, conclusive evidence that for long previously Canaan
1 had been under Babylonian influence. When, or how, this
influence began we do not, indeed, know : we are hardly in
a position to affirm that it had been continuous since those
early days when Lugal-zaggisi, Sargon, Khammurabi, and
Ammisatana claimed authority over the " land of Martu,"
. or the West land ; * but at all events Canaan had remained
subject to it so long, that, at least for official purposes, the
practice of using the language and writing of Babylonia
continued to prevail, even after Canaan had become a
. province of the Egyptian empire. The Babylonian king
who corresponds with Amenophis IV. is Burnaburiash (II.).
one of the kings of that Cassite dynasty which (p. 29)
ruled in Babylon for five hundred and seventy-six years
(1786-1211 B.C.): and it was perhaps under this dynasty
that the influence of Babylonia become stronger in Palestine
than it had been before. Primarily, no doubt, the in-
fluence was political ; but it would naturally bring with it
elements of civilization, of arts and sciences, and of religious
belief.
We learn from these letters that the Egyptians had
at the time considerable difficulty in maintaining their
authority in Syria and Palestine : their power was
threatened, namely, partly by the Hittites and other
powerful neighbours, partly by the native population,
partly by intrigues and rivalries between the Egyptian
governors themselves : accordingly the writers of the reports
frequently dilate upon the dangers to which they are
exposed, beg urgently for assistance, bring charges of
disloyalty against other governors, and protest emphati-
cally their own fidelity. 2 The principal districts and
1 See above, pp. 29, 39, 40.
s See the luminous summary of the Tel el-Amarna letters, and of
( the political movements disclosed by them, in Professor Petrie's Syria
anct Egypt in the Tell el Amarna Letters (1898).
FIRST] STATE OF PALESTINE, 1400 B.C. 73
places mentioned are, in the north, the land of Amurru
(the Amorites), Birutu (Beyrout), Ziduna (Zidon), Zurru
(Tyre), Zumur (Zemar, Gen. x. 18); the city of Ziri-
bashani, no doubt some place in Bashan, on the east of
Jordan ; in the centre of Palestine, Acco and Megiddo ;
in the south, Joppa, Gezer, Urusalim (Jerusalem), Ashkelon,
Lachish, and Gaza : all these are under Egyptian governors. '
Seven of the letters are from Abdi-khiba, governor of
Jerusalem. He, too, like many of the other governors,
is in difficulties. He is hard-pressed by formidable
foes, termed the Chabiri : the neighbouring cities of
Gezer, Lachish, and Ashkelon are aiding the enemy :
he has been slandered to the king, and accused of
disloyalty. But he protests emphatically his innocence:
he owes his position, not to his father or his mother,
but to the king : 1 gratitude alone therefore would
have preserved him from the thought of plotting against
him. He is beset by foes, and prays earnestly for
troops : if they are not sent, the country is lost to
Egypt. 2
The position occupied by the Amorites is noticeable. J
In the Hebrew traditions of the conquest of Canaan,
they are represented as occupying partly a region on
the east of Jordan, ruled by Sihon, partly a considerable
portion of the territory west of Jordan ; but in the age
of the Tel el-Amarna letters, as is clear from the manner
" Behold, neither my father nor my mother has established me in
this place : the arm of the mighty king has caused me to enter the
house of my father." See Ball, Light from the East, p. 89.
* The letters of Abdi-khiba have been supposed to throw light upon
the figure of Melchizedek, " king of Salem," and " priest of 'El 'Elyon
(God Most High)," in Gen. xiv. But the inference is not justified:
there is no indication in the letters either that an " 'El 'Elyon " was
worshipped in Jerusalem, or that Abdi-khiba was his " priest " ; more-
over, the letters relate to a period (if Amraphel in Gen. xiv. I is rightly
identified with Khammurabi) nine hundred years subsequent to the
age of Melchizedek. See the writer's paper in the Guardian, April 8,
1896.
74 HEBREW AUTHORITY
in which they are mentioned, they are exclusively on
the north of Canaan, and in fact occupy a particular
district at the back of Phoenicia, on the Orontes. They
appear in the same locality in the inscriptions of Seti I.,
and Ramses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, and even
later, in those of Ramses III., of the twentieth dynasty,
after the time of the Exodus. 1 It may be conjectured
that, while the district north of Phoenicia continued to
retain the name of "land of Amar," branches of the
nation gradually pushed forward, and gained a footing
on the territory, upon both sides of Jordan, afterwards
occupied by the Israelites. 2
Two other interesting illustrations of the condition of
Canaan before the Hebrew occupation may be here con-
veniently noticed. The first is afforded by the one spot in
Palestine, besides Jerusalem, which has been systematically
excavated. Mr. (now Dr.) F. J. Bliss, following in the steps
of Professor Flinders Petrie, and excavating in 1891 in the
south-west of Judah, discovered, buried under the huge
mound called Tell el-Hesy, the remains of no less than
' eleven different cities, superimposed one on the top of
another, shewing that when one city had been burnt, or
otherwise destroyed, another, after no long interval of time,
had arisen in its place. A cuneiform tablet, found in the
debris of the fourth city, and shewn by its character and
contents to belong to the same age as the tablets discovered
at Tel el-Amarna, 3 fixes the date of that city to about
1450 B.C. : the pottery, Egyptian scarabs, and other
remains, found in the other strata of the mound, make
it probable that the earliest city is not later than 1700 B.C.,
- and that the latest dates from about 400 B.C. 4 It is
1 W. Max M tiller, Asien und Europa, pp. 217 ff.
- The use of the term in Gen. xiv. 7, 13, xv. 16, xlviii. 22, must be
proleptic.
3 Petrie, Syria and Egypt, No. 235; in Winckler's edition, No. 219.
4 See F. J. Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities (1894).
FIRST] EXCAVATION OF LACH1SI1 75
highly probable that Tell el-Hesy stands on the site of
the ancient Lachish, a city mentioned in the Tel el-Amarna '
letters, stated in Josh. x. 32 to have been captured by
the Israelites, according to 2 Chron. xi. 9 fortified by
Rehoboam, and known, from one of his own inscrip-
tions (see p. 1 08), to have been taken by Sennacherib.
The place was evidently an old Canaanite stronghold, such
as were, no doubt, most or all of the towns mentioned in
the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, and of a kind of which,
we may be sure, there were many examples in the age
when the Egyptian Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nine-
teenth dynasties were in the habit of marching their armies
through Palestine. The Israelites also had traditions of the
fortified cities (Numb. xiii. 28), described rhetorically as
"fenced up to heaven" (Deut. i. 28, ix. i), which their
forefathers, when entering Canaan, had to storm. 1 The
history of Lachish, as told by the mound which now marks
its site, testifies to the indomitable perseverance of its
inhabitants, who, one generation after another, never
neglected to rebuild their ruined fortress. The valuable
results obtained at Tell el-Hesy make it almost certain
that, if only the means were forthcoming for similar
excavations to be carried on at other favourable spots in
Palestine, such as the eye of an expert could readily
indicate, discoveries of equal, if not of greater interest,
would reward the labours of the explorer.
The other illustration of the condition of Canaan before
1 It should, however, be explained, to avoid misunderstanding, that
there is no archaeological evidence that the original builders of Lachish
were specifically Amorites. It is true, the place is sometimes described
popularly as an " Amorite " stronghold, and the pottery found in the
debris of the two earliest cities is called by Dr. Bliss "Amorite"; but
Dr. Bliss distinctly explains (p. 41) that he does not use this word in an
ethnological sense, but simply in the sense of " pre-Israelitish," for * hi
purpose of distinguishing the oldest types of pottery found on the site
from the definitely " Phoenician " pottery found in the strata representing
the cities next following.
76 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
the Israelite occupation is furnished by the Tel el-Amarna
letters. These letters, as stated above, are written in the
language of Babylonia (which is allied to Hebrew, though
by no means identical with it) ; but from time to time
Canaanite words are used, either independently, or for the
purpose of glossing or explaining a Babylonian expression
in the more familiar dialect of the scribe who was writing
the despatch ; and these Canaanite words are hardly dis-
tinguishable from Hebrew. 1 These letters thus shew that
the pre-Israelitish inhabitants of Canaan were closely akin
to the Hebrews, and that they spoke substantially the
same language. 2 The same fact follows from many of the
names of places preserved to us from a period later than
that of the Tel el-Amarna letters, but earlier than the
Hebrew immigration into Canaan, in the inscriptions of the
Egyptian kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties
(above, pp. 69 f.) : the names have in many cases evidently
Hebrew etymologies. Divided religiously, the Hebrews
and the Canaanites were in language and civilization closely
allied.
An interesting illustration of the sacrificial laws in
Leviticus is afforded by the Carthaginian inscription, now
at Marseilles, prescribing the dues payable to the priests
by the persons offering certain sacrifices. The inscription
contains some words of doubtful or unknown meaning, and is
also in parts imperfect ; but the general sense is sufficiently
clear, and the missing parts can in some cases be supplied
partly from parallel passages in the same inscription,
partly from fragments of inscriptions, of similar import,
and couched in similar phraseology, which have been
1 The fact was pointed out by Zinnnern in the Zcitschrift des
Deutschen Paliistina-Vereins, 1890, pp. 146 f. ; and has often been
noticed since, e.g., by Sayce, Monuments, p. 356.
2 Isaiah calls Hebrew " the language of Canaan " (xix. 1 8).
FIRST] THE MARSEILLES INSCRIPTION 77
discovered in the neighbourhood of the ancient Carthage.
The following is a translation of it a :
1 Temple of Baaf- ]. Tari[ft of pay] merits," e[rected by the
superintendents of the payjments in the time of [ ]baal, the
suffete, son of Bodtanit, son of Bod[eshmun, and of F.Talazbaal] * the
suffete, son of Bodeshmun, son of Halazbaal, and their colleagues.
3 For an ox, whether it be a whole-offering, or a prayer(?)-offering, or
a whole thank-offering, the priests shall have 10 (shekels) of silver for
each ; and if it be a whole-offering, they shall have, besides this payment,
[300 shekels of flejsh ; 4 and if it be a prayer(?)-offering, the
(?) d and the (?) a ; but the skin, and the (?), d and
the feet, and the rest of the flesh, shall belong to the person offering the
sacrifice.
* For a calf whose horns are imperfect (?) (?), or for a
hart, 6 whether it be a whole-offering, or a prayer(?)-offering, or a whole
thank-offering, the priests shall have 5 (shekels) of silver [for each ;
and if it be a whole-offering, they shall have, bejsides 6 this payment,
1 50 shekels of flesh ; and if it be a prayer(?)-offering, the
(?) and the (?) ; but the skin, and the (?), and the
fee[t, and the rest of the flesh, shall belong to the person offering the
sacrifice].
7 For a ram, or for a goat, whether it be a whole-offering, or a
prayer(?)-offering, or a whole thank-offering, the priests shall have
I shekel, and 2 zars, of silver for each ; and if it be a prayer(?)-offering,
they shall [have, besides this payment, the (?)], 8 and the
(?); but the skin, and the (?), and the feet, and
the rest of the flesh, shall belong to the person offering the sacrifice.
9 For a lamb, or for a kid, or for the young (?) of a hart, whether it be
a whole-offering, or a prayer(?) -offering, or a whole thank-offering, the
priests shall have three-fourths (of a shekel), and [ ] zars, of silver
[for each ; and if it be a prayer(?)-offering, they shall have, besides] 10 this
payment, the (?), and the (?) ; but the skin, and the
(?), and the feet, and the rest of the flesh, shall belong to
the person offerfing the sacrifice].
* Professor Noldeke, of Strassburg, who is generally recognized as
the leading living authority on the Semitic languages, and \vhom the
writer consulted on the feasibility of reducing the uncertainties in the
translation, gave it as his opinion that, with our present knowledge, it
was not possible to do so.
b Or imposts, dues (the word rendered " tax " in 2 Chron. xxiv. 6, 9).
c The title of the chief magistrate at Carthage ; lit. judge,
d Terms of unknown meaning, denoting parts of the animals
offered.
e Or (the word being differently vocalized) a ram ; but this rendering
leads to difficulties in lines 7 and 9.
;8 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
11 For a bird, whether domestic (?) or wild (?), whether it be a whole
thank-offering, or a (?), or a (?), the priests shall
have three-fourths (of a shekel), and 2 ears, of silver for each ; but the
fl[esh] shall belong [to the person offering the sacrifice].
12 For a bird (?), or sacred first-fruits, or a sacrifice of game (?), or
a sacrifice of oil, the priests shall have 10 a\gordhsT-~\ for each.
13 In every .prayer(?)-offering, which is presented before the gods,
the priests shall have the (?), and the (?) ; and in the
prayer(?)-offering [ ].
14 For a cake, u and for milk, and for fat, and for every sacrifice
which a man may offer for a meal-offering, [the priests] shall [have
]
15 For every sacrifice which a man may offer who is poor in cattle or
birds, the priests shall have [nothing].
16 Every (?), and every (?), and every (?j,
and all men who may sacrifice [ ,] "these men
[shall give] as payment for each sacrifice, according as is prescribed
in the regulations [
18 Every payment which is not prescribed in this table shall be made
according to the regulations which [were drawn up by the superin-
tendents of the payments in the time of [ ]baal son of Bodtan]it,
19 and Halazbaal son of Bodeshmun, and their colleagues.
20 Every priest who may accept a payment other than that which is
prescribed in this table, shall be fin[ed ].
21 Every person offering a sacrifice who shall not give ] for
the payment which [ ]
The tablet is not probably earlier than the fifth or fourth
century B.C. ; but it affords, nevertheless, a welcome
illustration of the sacrificial institutions of the Phoenicians.
Of course the regulations are not identical with those laid
down in Leviticus ; but there is a general resemblance
between them : several of the technical terms are the same ;
and both are manifestly expressions of the same general
religious ideas. The word rendered wliole-offering (mean-
ing an animal of which the whole was offered upon the
altar) is one which is used in Deut. xxxiii. 10 and
Vs. li. 19 of the burnt-offering: the word for " thank-
* See i Sam. ii. 36 Heb. ("an agorah ol silver"). Perhaps the sam-.-
coin as the gcrdli, the twentieth part of a shekel (Exod. xxx. 13, and
elsewhere).
b Properly, something moistened or mixed : the corresponding verb
occurs, also of the "meal-oftering," in Lev. ii. 4, 5, and elsewhere.
FIRST] CARTHAGINIAN SACRIFICIAL USAGES 79
offering " is the one which regularly stands in Hebrew for
the "peace-" or "thank-offering" (Lev. iii. i, 6, etc.) ; and
the " meal -offering " of line 14 is verbally the same as the
"meal-offering" of Lev. ii. I, etc. The animals, and other
objects, offered as sacrifices are largely the same as those
which were offered by the Hebrews. The regulations
assigning certain specified parts of the sacrifice to the
priests, and to the worshipper, respectively, are analogous
to those in Lev. vi. 26, vii. 8, 31-4, Deut. xviii. 3, 4, etc.
With the consideration shewn for the poor in line 15
may be compared Lev. v. 7, 11, xii. 8, xiv. 21 (in the
last of which passages the word for " poor " is the same l ).
1 On the difficulties of the text the curious reader may consult the
notes in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Pars I. Tom. i.
No. 165 ; or (more briefly) Ball's Light from the East, p. 250 ff.
There are elements, it may be remarked, in Mr. Ball's translation of
the Inscription, including even some of the expressions resembling
those occurring in the Old Testament, which are far from certain.
[>AKT
///. The Kings and After
WE may pass now to the Books of Kings. The inter-
mediate books, though the inscriptions furnish some eluci-
dations of the names of deities, or places, or foreign tribes
occurring in them from time to time, 1 supply no examples of
really important light being thrown upon the narrative by
archaeology. During the whole period from Merenptah
to the division of the kingdom under Rehoboam, there is
no mention, upon the monuments at present known, either
of the Israelites in general, or of individual leaders or
kings, or of any of the foreign wars or invasions by which,
during this period, the Old Testament describes them as
being assailed : so far as the inscriptions are concerned,
the history of Israel during this entire period is a blank.
But when we come to the period embraced by the Books of
Kings, there is a change. Omri and Ahab are named in a
contemporary Moabite inscription. In particular, Assyria,
from the ninth century B.C., enters into more direct relations
with Israel and Judah than (so far as we know) she had
done previously. It was the most brilliant period of
Assyrian history ; and the kings of Nineveh, in their almost
annual military expeditions, often came into hostile contact
with the peoples of Western Asia : they had thus in
their inscriptions frequent occasion to mention by name
the kings of Israel or Judah, or to notice public events
recorded in the Old Testament. More than this, the
1 Some instances will be found below, pp. I39ff,
80
FIRST] 1HE PEOPLE OF SHEBA 8 1
information which the monuments supply of the move-
ments and policy of the Assyrian kings not unfrequently
sheds a valuable light upon the writings of the prophets,
and throws a new meaning into their words. The writer
regrets that the limits of space at his disposal do not
permit him to illustrate the last-mentioned subject as fully
as he would wish. Before, however, we proceed to the
Assyrian inscriptions, some monuments of a different kind
deserve to be noticed.
In i Kings x. we read of the visit of the Queen of Sheba
to Solomon, bringing with her " spices, and very much
gold, and precious stones." Sheba occurs also elsewhere
in the Old Testament as the name of a distant and wealthy
nation, whose caravans, trading in the articles just named,
might often be seen journeying through the deserts on the
south-east of Palestine (Ps. Ixxii. 10, 15, Ezek. xxvii. 22,
Jer. vi. 20, Isa. Ix. 6, Job vi. 19). The home of Sheba was
known to be in the extreme south of Arabia, partly from
Gen. x. 28, partly from Strabo's description of the Sabaeans,
who were evidently the same people. Until recently,
however, little beyond this was known of Sheba, as indeed
our knowledge of ancient Arabia generally, prior to about
A.D. 600, until the present century was virtually a blank.
But within recent years the south of Arabia has been
visited by Europeans, Wellsted (1834-5), Arnaud (1843),
Halevy (1869-70), and especially Ed. G laser, who in four
journeys, made at different times between 1883 and 1894,
copied more than a thousand inscriptions, being those who
have increased most materially our knowledge of the
country. The inscriptions obtained by these scholars
have not yet been studied as fully as they deserve, nor
indeed have they at present been all published : but
they already enable us to form an idea of the ancient
civilization and history of Sheba, and some of the
neighbouring peoples. The dialects in which the in-
6
82 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
scriptions from these parts are written are most nearly
allied to Arabic, but present at the same time many
peculiarities of their own. The country inhabited by
the ancient Sheba lay about two hundred miles north of
^ the modern Aden ; its capital was Marib, the Mariaba of
- Strabo. The inscriptions, and other antiquities found in
the country, shew that its inhabitants had attained a high
degree of civilization : " they build fortresses, and live in
walled cities ; they raise massive temples, and construct
- works of irrigation on a large scale." The history of
Sheba cannot at present be written continuously ; but the
inscriptions, so far as they have been examined, seem
to shew that it was at first under the government of a
succession of mukarribs (plural, makdrib\ lit. " blessers," i.e.
; priest-kings, who were afterwards followed by kings,
properly so called. The names of many both of the
Makarib, and of the kings, are preserved in the inscriptions.
Two of the early Makdrib constructed at Marib a great
reservoir, with connecting sluices, the remains of which
are still visible, for the purpose of retaining the water
flowing down from the neighbouring mountains. The
chronology is difficult to determine with precision ; but a
fixed point is secured by the fact that Sargon, in 715 B.C.,
mentions receiving tribute of " gold, precious stones, ivory,
spices of all kinds, horses, and camels," from Itamara, king
of Sheba ; and Glaser, arguing back from this date, thinks
it probable that the Makdrib ruled from about 1050 to
820 B.C., and that they were then succeeded by the " kings."
The data being incomplete, it is quite possible that these
dates are too low : but though the inscriptions have taught
us much about Sheba that was not previously known, they
do not, unfortunately (so far as they have been hitherto
read), mention the Queen who was Solomon's contem-
porary (c. 950 B.C.), or corroborate in any way the Biblical
account of her visit to him.
FIRST] THE HITTITES 83
Twice in the Books of Kings mention is made of " kings
of the Hittites." In i Kings x. 29 allusion is made to the
export of chariots and horses from Egypt for " the kings
of the Hittites t and the kings of Syria" ; and in 2 Kings
vii. 6 the Syrians, who were besieging Samaria in the reign
of Jehoram, exclaimed in a panic, " Lo, the king of Israel
hath hired against us the kings oj tfie Hittites^ and the
kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us." The Hittites
are also mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, though
rarely, if ever, in terms from which anything definite could
be inferred respecting their character or home. In
Gen. xxiii., for instance, Abraham buys the field containing
the cave of Machpelah from the " children of Heth " (i.e.
the Hittites) in Hebron. Two of David's warriors were
Hittites, Ahimelech (i Sam. xxvi. 6) and Uriah (2 Sam.
xi. 3, etc.). The Hittites are also regularly mentioned in
the rhetorical lists of the nations of Canaan, dispossessed
by the Israelites (Exod. iii. 8, 17, xiii. 5, etc.); though
Judg. i. 26 speaks of the " land of the Hittites " in terms
implying that it was outside Canaan. But the informa-
tion furnished both by these and by all other passages in
which the Hittites are mentioned was meagre and vague.
Considerably more is known now. When the Egyptian
monuments came to be decyphered, the Hittites were found
to be frequently mentioned in them. Thothmes III., of the
eighteenth dynasty, who, as has been already remarked,
had extended his conquests through Palestine and Syria
as far as Carchemish, the great fortress on the Upper
Euphrates, received presents from the kings of the " great
land of the Khati." In the Tel el-Amarna tablets the
Hittites are frequently mentioned as intriguing against the
Egyptian power in the north of Palestine. Seti I. and
Ramses II., of the nineteenth dynasty, waged long war with
the Hittites, for the possession, as it seems, of the neutral
" land of Amar," or the Amorites (p. 74), which lay between
84 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
the Hittites and the territory claimed by Egypt. Ramses 1 1.,
on account of the prowess displayed by him in an engage-
ment with the Hittites at Kadesh on the Orontes, in his
fifth year, became the hero of a short epic, written by a con-
temporary poet, Pentaur. In Ramses II.'s twenty-first year
a treaty the most ancient example of the kind known
was concluded between Egypt and the Hittites, in which
each recognized the other as a power equal in rank to
itself, and agreed to help it in case of need a striking
testimony to the position which the Hittite empire enjoyed
at the time. 1 A century or so afterwards, under Ramses III.
(twentieth dynasty), the Hittites, with their neighbours the
Mitanni, of Naharina (the " Aram-Naharaim," or Syria of
the two rivers, i.e. Mesopotamia, of the Old Testament 2 ),
are found advancing against Egypt, and being defeated,
somewhere probably on the coast of Palestine, by the
Egyptian king. 3 More is not heard of the Hittites from
the Egyptian inscriptions ; but the Assyrian kings, Tiglath-
pileser I. (c. 1 100 B.C.), Asshurnasirabal (885-860 B.C.), and
Shalmaneser II. (860-825 B.C.), all speak of victorious
invasions of their territory. After the successes of
Shalmaneser II. the power of the Hittites seems to have
been considerably broken ; and in the end Carchemish,
their capital on the Euphrates, was captured by Sargon, the
contemporary of Isaiah (cf. Isa. x. 9), 717 B.C. So well
known were the Hittites to the Assyrians, that Shalmaneser
and the following kings often use the expression " land of
the Hittites " as a general term for Western Asia, including
Phoenicia, Palestine, and the adjoining countries.
The monuments of the Hittites themselves have hardly
been known for more than a quarter of a century. The
1 See the text of the treaty in Brugsch, Hist., pp. 281-6; and cf.
Maspero, Struggle of the Nations, pp. 390-8.
- Gen. xxiv. 10, Judg. iii. 8. Cf. above, p. 37.
3 Maspero, pp. 465 ff.
FIRST] THE HITTITES 85
traveller Burckhardt had indeed in 1812 noticed in the
corner of a house in Hamah, on the Orontes (about a
hundred and twenty miles north of Damascus the Hamath
of the Old Testament), a block of black basalt engraved
with strange hieroglyphic signs ; but he was unable to
decypher them ; and the discovery was forgotten. In
1870 and 1871, interest in the subject was reawakened
by the discovery at Hamah of other stones of the same
character ; and in 1872 Dr. W. Wright, then missionary in
Damascus, obtained casts of five of the inscriptions.
Afterwards, also, monuments of the same kind were found
at Aleppo, and at Jerabis, on the Euphrates, about a
hundred miles north-east of Aleppo, the site (as has since
been proved by excavation) of the ancient Carchemish.
It was Professor Sayce who, while studying these in-
scriptions, and the figures accompanying them, was struck
by the resemblance of the latter to certain sculptures,
which had been observed and copied by previous travellers,
carved upon the rocks in different parts of Asia Minor,
particularly in the Karabel, a little east of Smyrna, at
Ghiaur Kalessi, in what was the ancient Phrygia, at Boghaz
Keui and Eyuk, in the ancient Cappadocia, and at Ivriz,
in the ancient Lycaonia. Subsequent investigation con-
firmed the conclusions to which these resemblances pointed ;
and shewed that the region north of Phoenicia and the
" land of the Amorites " had once been the seat of a great
Hittite civilization, which continued to exist for many
centuries. It is thought by many that the original home
of this civilization was in Northern Cappadocia, and that it
radiated thence partly south-eastwards, where Carchemish,
the most important strategic and commercial point on the
Upper Euphrates, became its principal city, partly west-
wards, as it seems by a series of colonies, along the chief
commercial routes over a large part of Asia Minor, and
partly southwards, where its emissaries pressed upon the
86 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
" land of the Amorites," and at the beginning of the
nineteenth Egyptian dynasty acquired some kind oi
supremacy over its capital, Kadesh on the Orontes.
Whether, however, this distinctive civilization, with its
peculiar art and system of writing, was spread by the
conquests of one great people, or was borrowed and de-
veloped by a number of small peoples, perhaps united by
federation, is still uncertain. The somewhat wide and
confident conclusions as to the type, habits, and polity ol
the " Hittites," drawn on the first discovery of a few of their
monuments, tend to become less assured as the number
of those monuments increases. The Hittite inscriptions
present a problem of exceptional difficulty to the de-
cypherer : but a brilliant, and, in the opinion of some
scholars, a partially successful endeavour to extort from
them their secret has been made by the eminent
Assyriologist, P. Jensen. 1
Who the " kings of the Hittites " were, that are alluded
to in the two passages quoted above from the Books of
Kings, will now be plain. The situation of the " land of
the Hittites," mentioned in Judg. i. 26, is now also seen to
have been on the north of Palestine. The inclusion of the
Hittites in the lists of tribes dispossessed by the Israelites
is probably to be explained by the fact that as the
Hittites pressed southwards, and drove the Amorites
before them, offshoots, or colonies, established themselves
in the extreme north ot Canaan : in Josh. xi. 3, the
Septuagint, in all probability rightly, reads, " tJie Hittite
(for the Hivite) under Hermon " ; and there is little doubt
that in Judg. iii. 3 we should read similarly, " the Hittites
(for the Hivites] that dwelt in Mount Lebanon." Of the
presence of Hittites in the soutJi of Palestine, in Hebron
(Gen. xxiii.), however, archaeology offers no satisfactory
explanation ; and it is very possible that in the passages
1 Comp. further, on the Hittites, Maspcro, I.e.. pp. 351 ff.
FIRST] SHISHAK'S INVASION OF JUDAH 87
implying this, 1 the term is used, by an inexact extension
of its proper sense, to denote the pre-Israelitish population
of Canaan generally.
During the reign of Rehoboam, we read (i Kings xiv,
25, 26), Shishak, king of Egypt, invaded Judah, and
carried away a considerable amount of treasure from
Jerusalem. Shishak is manifestly the Egyptian Shashanq,
a Libyan, the founder of the twenty-second dynasty.
No detailed account of this expedition has come down
to us, perhaps because only fragments of the annals of
Shashanq have been preserved : but there exists an
interesting relief on the outer southern wall of the temple
of Amen at Karnak, representing the colossal figure of
Shashanq dealing out blows to his conquered foes, while
behind him are paraded in long rows the names of a
hundred and fifty-six subjugated towns and districts, each
enclosed in a cartouche surmounted by the head of a
captive. The first nine names are those oi various foreign
peoples, which conventionally head the lists of Egyptian
conquests. Of the names which follow, 2 some are destroyed
and of the rest the identifications are in many cases
uncertain, the places referred to being often, it seems,
insignificant ones, not named in the Old Testament A
tolerable number, however, are clear, as 11 Gaza, 13
Rabbith in Issachar (Josh. xix. 20), 14 Taanach, 15
Shunem (2 Kings iv. 8), 18 Hapharaim in Issachar (Josh.
xix. 19), 22 Mahanaim on the east of Jordan, 23 Gibeon,
24 Beth-horon, 26 Aijalon, 27 Makkedah (Josh. x. 10),
29 laoudhammelouk, " Yehud of the king," in Dan
(Josh. xix. 45, now el-Yalmdiyeli), 37 Keilah and 38
1 Which all occur in the document of the Pentateuch called by
critics the priestly narrative.
- See Maspero in the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, xxvii.
(1894), pp. 63 ff. ; W. Max Muller, Asien nnd Enropa, pp. i66ft.
88 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PARI
Socho, both in the lowland of Judah (Josh. xv. 44, 35,
i Sam. xvii. i), 65 Ezem (Josh. xv. 29), 108 Arad,
about sixteen miles south of Hebron (Numb. xxi. i),
124 Beth-anoth (Josh. xv. 59). The list, it will be noticed,
after Gaza, the border-fortress of Palestine, on the
Egyptian side, passes to places in the north and centre of
Canaan ; from 37 and 38 the places mentioned are chiefly,
if not entirely, in Judah and the south. Jerusalem, and
other important places, may have been mentioned in
parts of the list that are now destroyed. The Book
of Kings says nothing about Shishak's invading Northern
Israel ; and it is commonly supposed that his attack
upon Judah was due to the suggestion of Jeroboam
(who had taken refuge in Egypt, i Kings xi. 40, xii. 2) :
if this supposition be correct, the mention, in Shishak's
list, of places north of Judah must be explained, with
Maspero, 1 from the practice of the Egyptian kings to
count as conquests places which merely owned their
suzerainty, or paid them tribute.
In 2 Kings iii. 4, 5 we read that Mesha, king of Moab,
was a sheep-master, who paid the king of Israel an
annual tribute consisting of the wool of a hundred
thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams, but that
after the death of Ahab (c. 850 B.C.) he rebelled. In
1868, Dr. Klein, a German missionary in Jerusalem, was
fortunate enough to discover at Dhiban, on the east
side of the Dead Sea, the site of the ancient Dibon
(Isa. xv. 2), a slab of black basalt, bearing an inscription
which proved to contain Mesha's own account of the
circumstances of the revolt. Through some misunder-
standing, in the course of the negotiations for the
acquisition of the stone, the suspicions and cupidity of
the native Arabs were aroused : they imagined that they
1 Struggle of the Nations, p. 774.
FIRST] MESHA'S INSCRIPTION 89
were about to be deprived of some valuable talisman ;
they therefore put fire under it, poured cold water over
it, and being then able to break it in pieces, they dis-
tributed fragments of it as charms among the people
of their tribe. Happily, however, a squeeze of the
inscription had already been secured : many of the frag-
ments also were afterwards recovered ; so that, although
occasionally a letter or two is uncertain, and parts of
the last few lines are missing, the inscription is in the
main quite intelligible and clear. The language in which
it is written resembles closely the Hebrew of the Old
Testament. The following is a translation of the in-
scription :
1 I am Mesha', son of Chemoshmelek, king of Moab, the Daibonite.
2 My father reigned over Moab for 30 years, and I reigned 3 after my
father. And I made this high place for ChCmosh in KRyH, a a
high place of salvation, 4 because he had saved me from all the
kings (?), and because he had let me see (my desire) upon all
them that hated me.
Omri 5 was king over Israel, and he afflicted Moab for many days,
because Chemosh was angry with his land. 6 And his son suc-
ceeded him ; and he also said, I will afflict Moab. In my days
said he th[us] ; 7 but I saw (my desire) upon him, and upon his
house, and Israel perished with an everlasting destruction.
Omri took possession of the [lajnd 8 of MChedeba, and it (i.e. Israel)
dwelt therein, during his days, and half his son's days, forty
years ; but Chemosh [restojred 9 it in my days.
And I built Ba'al-Me'on, and I made in it the reservoir (?); and I built
10 Kiryathen.
And the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of 'Ataroth from ot old ; and
the king of Israel n had built for himself 'Ataroth. And I fought
against the city, and took it. And I slew all the [people of]
13 the city, a gazingstock unto Chemosh, and unto Moab. And I
brought back (or, took captive) thence the altar-hearth ot
Dawdoh (?), and I dragged " it before Chemosh in Keriyyoth.
And I settled therein the men of SHRN," and the men of 14 MIJRTH.*
And Chemosh said unto me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. And I
15 went by night, and fought against it from the break of dawn
until noon. And I took 16 it, and slew the whole of it, 7,000 men
and and women, and ..... 17 and maid-servants : for I
The vocalization of these names is uncertain
90 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
had devoted it to 'Ashtor-Chgmosh. And I took thence the
[vesjsels 18 of YAHWEH, and I dragged them before Chemosh.
And the king of Israel had built 19 Yahaz, and abode in it, while he
fought against me. But Chemosh drave him out from before
me ; and * I took of Moab 200 men, even all its chiefs ; and I
led them up against Yahaz, and took it J1 to add it unto Daibon.
I built KRtfH,* the wall of Ye'arim (or, of the Woods), and the wall of
w the Mound. And I built its gates, and I built its towers. And
23 1 built the king's palace, and I made the two reser[voirs (?)
for wa]ter in the midst of 24 the city. And there was no cistern
in the midst of the city, in KRtfH.* And I said to all the people,
Make K you every man a cistern in his house. And I cut out
the cutting for KR^H a with the help of prisoners - 6 of] Israel.
I built 'Aro'er, and I made the highway by the Arnon. 27 1 built
Beth-Bamoth, for it was pulled down. I built Bezer, for ruins
28 [had it become. And the chiejfs of Daibon were fifty, for
all Daibon was obedient (to me). And I reigned M [over] an
hundred [chiefs] in the cities which I added to the land. And
I built 3 Mehedg[b]a, and Beth-Diblathen, and Beth-Ba'al-Me'on ;
and I took thither the;/&z^ b -keepers(?), 31 sheep
of the land.
And as for Horonen, there dwelt therein and 32
Chemosh said unto me, Go down, fight against
tforonSn. And I went down 33 [and]
Chemosh [resto]red it in my days. And I went up thence
to 31 And I
The inscription is of great interest, both historically and
linguistically. In the Book of Kings, the revolt of Mesha
is said to have taken place after the death of Ahab ; but
from line 8 of the inscription it is evident that this date
is too late, and that it must in fact have been completed
by the middle of Ahab's reign. The territory on the
east of Jordan and the Dead Sea, north of the Arnon,
belonged ostensibly to Reuben and (contiguous to it on
the north) Gad ; but these tribes were not able to hold it
permanently against the Moabites. David reduced the
Moabites to the condition of tributaries (2 Sam. viii. 2) ;
but we infer from the inscription that this relation was
a The vocalization of these names is uncertain.
11 The name of a choice breed of sheep. The word is partly
obliterated: if restored correctly, it will be the one which is used ot
Mesha in 2 Kings iii. 4 (A.V. "sheep-master").
FIRST] MESHA'S INSCRIPTION 91
not maintained. Omri, however, determined to reassert
the power of Israel, and gained possession of at least the
district around Medeba, which was retained by Israel for
forty years, till the middle of Ahab's reign, when Mesha
revolted. The inscription names the principal cities which
had been occupied by the Israelites, but were now recovered
for Moab, and states further how Mesha was careful to
rebuild and fortify them, in the event of a siege. Most
of the places named are mentioned in the Old Testament,
in the passages which describe the territory of Reuben
(Josh. xiii. 1 5-23) or Gad (Josh. xiii. 24-8), or allude to
the country occupied by Moab (Isa. xv. 2, 4, 5, Jer. xlviii.
i, 3, 1 8, 19, 21-4, 34,40-
The inscription furnishes many interesting illustrations
of the ideas and language of the Old Testament, though
only a few can be noticed there. " High places " (line 3)
are often mentioned as places at which the worship both
of Jehovah and of other gods was carried on (e.g. \ Kings
iii. 2, 3,4, xi. 7, Isa. xvi. 12). Chemosh is several times
named as the national god of Moab ; and the Moabites
are called his " people " in Jer. xlviii. 46, and his " sons "
and " daughters " in Numb. xxi. 29. The phrase in line 4,
lit. " let me look upon them that hated me " (viz. in
triumph), is verbally the same as that which occurs in
Ps. cxviii. 7 (cf. lix. 10). The terms in which Chemosh is
spoken of are singularly parallel to those used with
reference to Jehovah in the Old Testament : Chemosh is,
for instance, " angry " with his people (cf. Deut. ix. 8,
2 Kings xvii. 18): he says to Mesha, "Go, take Nebo."
or " Go down, fight against Horonen," just as we read, for
instance, in i Sam. xxiii. 4, " Arise, go down to Keilah,"
or in 2 Sam. xxiv. i, "Go, number Israel and Judah " :
he "drives out" Mesha's foes before him, just as Jehovah
" drives out " (the same word) the foes of Israel (Deut.
xxxiii. 27, Josh. xxiv. 18). The expression " gazingstock "
92 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
(line 12) is used similarly by Nahum (iii. 6). The custom
of "devoting " (or "banning") captives to a deity (line 17)
is one to which there are repeated references in the Old
Testament : see, for instance, Deut. vii. 2, " When Jehovah
thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou
shalt smite them, then thou shalt devote them " (A.V.
" utterly destroy them "), i Sam. xv. 2, " Now go, and
smite Amalek, and devote (A.V. " utterly destroy ")
all that they have," v. 8, " And he devoted (A.V. " utterly
destroyed ") all the people with the edge of the sword."
Ashtor-Chemosh, in the same line, must be a compound
deity, of a type of which there are other examples in
Semitic mythology : Ashtor would be a male deity,
corresponding to the female Phoenician deity, Ashtoreth.
It is interesting to learn from lines 17 and 18 that there
was a sanctuary of Jehovah in Nebo, with " vessels," im-
plying an altar, and the other requisites for performing
sacrifice. The word rendered " obedient " in line 28 (lit.
obedience] is exactly the same as that which occurs in
Isa. xi. 14, lit " and the children of Ammon (shall be) their
obedience'' Linguistically, the idiom in which the in-
scription is written differs from Hebrew only dialectically ;
small idiomatic differences are observable ; but on the
other hand, it shares with it several distinctive features, so
that, on the whole, it resembles Hebrew more closely than
any other Semitic language at present known. In point
of style, the inscription reads almost like a page from
one of the earlier historical books of the Old Testament.
Its finished literary form combines with its contents in
shewing that the civilization of Moab, in the ninth century
B.C., was hardly inferior to that of its more celebrated
neighbours, Israel and Judah.
We may now proceed to the Assyrian monuments,
which, as was remarked above, make frequent mention of
FIRST] SHALMANESHR II. AND AHAB 93
the kings of Israel and Judah, and often supplement the
Biblical narratives in a most welcome manner.
The earliest Israelitish king whose doings, so far as is at
present known, are thus alluded to is Ahab. Shalmaneser 1 1.
(860 825 B.C.), in the course of a long inscription on a
monolith, now in the British Museum, describes his expedi-
tion in his sixth year against Irchulini, king of Hamath :
after setting out from Nineveh, and receiving tribute from
various places, he advanced to Khalman (Aleppo), and then
proceeded to invade the territory of Irchulini a :
90 Karkar, his royal city, I destroyed, I laid waste, I burnt with fire.
1,200 chariots, 1,200 horsemen, 20,000 soldiers of Dad'idri (Hadadezer)
91 of Damascus, 700 chariots, 700 horsemen, 10,000 soldiers of Irchulini
of Hamath, 2,000 chariots, 10,000 soldiers of Ahab of 93 the land of
Israel, 500 soldiers of the Guaeans, 1,000 soldiers from the land of
Musri (Egypt), 10 chariots, 10,000 soldiers from the land of Irkanat,
93 200 soldiers of Matinubaal of Arvad b 1,000 soldiers of 95 the
Ammonite Ba'sa, son of Rukhubi these 12 kings he (i.e. Irchulini)
took to his assistance ; for % battle and combat they advanced against
me. With the exalted succour which Asshur, the lord, rendered, with
the mighty power which Nergal, who marched before me, 97 bestowed,
I fought with them . . . . ; 14,000 M of their troops I slew, like Rammfln
(the storm-god) I rained down a flood upon them, I scattered their
corpses . . . . ; m the river Orontes I took in possession.
Karkar will have lain somewhere between Aleppo and
Hamath. Dad'idri of Damascus must be Ben-hadad c (II.),
king of Syria, mentioned in I Kings xx. We read in that
chapter that Ben-hadad, having in two successive years
invaded Israel, and having been defeated each time with
great loss, succeeded ultimately in obtaining terms from
The translations of the following inscriptions are based upon the
transliterations and translations in Schrader's Cuneiform Inscriptions
and the Old Testament, compared with those published in his Keilin-
schriftliche Bibliothek, vols. i.-iii., 1889-1892. The last-named work
possesses the advantage of enabling the reader to study the inscriptions
in extenso.
b In Phoenicia (Gen. x. 18).
c The Biblical writer, as Schrader and Sayce have pointed out, seems
to have confused Dad'idri (i.e. Hadadezer) with his father Ben-hadad
(i Kings xv. 1 8).
94 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
Ahab, and a treaty was concluded between them (v. 34)
In the inscription Ben-hadad and Ahab both appear among
the allies of Irchulini of Hamath, who, it may be presumed,
were called out for the purpose of making common cause
against the formidable encroachments of the Assyrians.
They were, however, defeated with great loss. The defeat
broke up the alliance : hostilities again arose between
Israel and Syria ; and Ahab induced Jehoshaphat to
embark with him in an endeavour to recover Ramoth in
Gilead from the Syrians, and was wounded mortally in
the attempt (i Kings xxii.). The inscription, apart from
its direct historical interest, is also important chrono-
logically ; for it shews that Ahab was still on the throne
at a date equivalent to 854 B.C. 1
Jehu, who overthrew the dynasty founded by Omri
(2 Kings ix., x.), is mentioned twice by Shalmaneser II.
The first passage occurs on the famous Black Obelisk,
found at Nimroud (the site of the ancient Calach) by
Sir Henry Layard, and now a conspicuous object in the
Nimroud Central Saloon of the British Museum. This
obelisk, in its upper part, is decorated with five tiers
of bas-reliefs, and in its lower part is covered with a
cuneiform inscription of 190 lines, recounting the chief
events of thirty-one years of Shalmaneser's reign. Each
tier of bas-reliefs represents the tribute brought to the
Assyrian king by nations whom he had either sub-
jugated or who sought his favour. The second tier
depicts a prince or deputy prostrating himself before
Shalmaneser, and followed by attendants bearing offerings.
The superscription reads :
Tribute of Jehu, son of Khumri (Omri) : silver, gold, a golden bowl,
a golden ladle, golden goblets, golden pitchers, lead, a staff for the hand
of the king, shafts of spears, I received.
1 See below, p. 118. Shalmaneser mentions other defeats of Ben-
hadad in his eleventh and fourteenth years (Schrader, pp. 202 f.).
FIRST] SHALMANESER II. MENTIONS JEHU 95
The tribute-bearers are bearded, and wear long-fringed
robes : their strongly marked Jewish physiognomy is very l
noticeable.
The title " Jehu, son of Omri" is remarkable, Jehu, in
point of fact, overthrew the dynasty (Omri, Ahab, Ahaziab,
Jehoram), which Omri had founded : but Omri seems to ^
have been a more important ruler than the brief notice of
his reign in the Book of Kings (i Kings xvi. 23, 24) would
lead us to suspect : his choice of Samaria as his capital j
(ibid.} shews that he had the eye of a military leader : and
that he (or his dynasty) enjoyed, from whatever cause,
a reputation abroad, appears clearly from the fact that
" the land of the house of Omri," or " the land Omri," is
the standing Assyrian designation of the Northern Kingdom
(see pp. 96, 98, 101). The mistake of the Assyrian scribe
in calling Jehu Omri's son is thus readily explained.
Jehu is mentioned again in another inscription of Shal-
maneser's, in which he writes :
40 In the eighteenth year of my reign ( = 842 B.C.) I crossed the
Euphrates the sixteenth time. 41 Hazael of Damascus a trusted in
the multitude of his troops, assembled his hosts in numbers, 4S and
made Mount Sanir," the summit of the mountains, 46 which are opposite
the mountain of Lebanon, his fortress. 4? With him I contended, 48 I
effected his overthrow ; 16,000 of his warriors I slew with weapons, 1,121
of his chariots, 470 of his horsemen, together with his stores, 52 1 took
from him ; to save 53 his life, he betook himself off. I pursued after him.
54 In Damascus, his royal city, I besieged him ; 55 his plantations I cut
down. To the mountains 56 of Hauran I marched, cities 57 without
number I destroyed, I laid waste, I burnt with fire ; their prisoners
69 without number I carried away. ... At that time ra I received the
tribute of the Tyrians, of the Sidonians, and ofje/iu, 64 the son of Omri.
The mention of Hazael as ruling in Damascus twelve
years after Dad'idri (p. 93) agrees with the Biblical state-
ment that Ben-hadad was smothered to death by his
general Hazael, who then succeeded him on the throne
(2 Kings viii. 15). The tribute rendered by Jehu to the
The Sem'r, which according to Deut. iii. 9 was the Amorite name of
Hermon.
g6 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
Assyrians is not alluded to in the Old Testament. It may
be conjectured that, as in the case of the Phoenician cities
mentioned, it was offered partly with the view of con-
ciliating the Assyrians, whose advances in the West were
now becoming yearly more alarming, and partly in the
hope of securing their help against the Syrians, who,
though disabled for the time, might nevertheless be expected
to take the first opportunity of injuring the Israelites, and
encroaching upon their territory (cf. 2 Kings x. 32 f.).
About half a century later, we again read of Israel being
tributary to the Assyrians. Ramman-nirari III. (812-
783 B.C.), after enumerating other countries subjugated by
him, writes :
11 From the Euphrates to the land Hatti (the Hittites),' the West
country in its entire compass, 1J (namely) Tyre, Zidon, the land Omri,
Edom, Philistia, 13 as far as the great sea b of the sun-setting, I subjected
to my yoke ; 14 payment of tribute I imposed upon them. Against 15 Syria
of Damascus I marched ; Mari, the king of Syria, 16 in Damascus, his
royal city, I besieged. 17 The terror of the majesty of Asshur, his lord,
cast him to the ground, my feet he embraced, 18 allegiance he offered,
2,300 talents of silver, 20 talents of gold, 19 3,000 talents of copper, 5,000
talents of iron, variegated garments, clothing, ^a couch of ivory, c a bed
(or litter) inlaid with ivory, his possessions, his belongings 31 without
number, at Damascus, his royal city, in the midst of his palace, I
received.
The reign of Ramman-nirari synchronized with the reign
of Jehoash (c. 802-786) and the early part of the reign of
Jeroboam II. in Israel (c. 786-746) ; and the facts mentioned
in this inscription enable us to understand the successes
1 gained by these two kings against Damascus (2 Kings
xiii. 14-9, 25, xiv. 28): the Syrians were at the time
weakened by the victories of Ramman-nirari.
We pass to the second half of the same century, a period
when the relations between Assyria and Israel become
a The expression is used in the wider sense explained above, p. 84.
'' The Mediterranean Sea : cf. Josh. i. 4, ix. i, etc.
c Cf. Amos vi. 4.
FIRST] IDENTIFICATION OF PUL 97
closer, and are fraught with grave consequences for both
the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms. The allusions in
the Book of Hosea (c. 746-736) make it evident that at this
time the Northern Kingdom was a prey to opposing factions
which sought to strengthen themselves by invoking the aid
of Assyria and Egypt respectively : the prophet foresaw the
consequences which would ultimately ensue ; but his warn-
ings were in vain. 1 Shallum had assassinated Zechariah,
son of Jeroboam II., after a brief reign of six months ;
and a month later Shallum himself was assassinated
by Menahem. Menahem, to secure his throne, gave Pul,
king of Assyria, a thousand talents of silver, which he
exacted of the wealthy men of his kingdom. For long, no
Assyrian king bearing the name of Pul was known ; but
Schrader had argued with great cogency that the king
meant must really be Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings xv. 29, etc.),
who reigned 745-727 B.C. ; and two documents, published
by Mr. Pinches in 1884, viz. a second dynastic list similar
to the one mentioned above (p. 29), and an inscription
usually known as the " Babylonian Chronicle," have made
Schrader's conclusion a certainty. The dynastic list, namely,
mentions as reigning in Babylon at this time, Ukinzir (three
years), and Pulu (two years) ; while the Chronicle says :
19 In the third year ot Ukinzir Tiglath-pileser marched K against
Akkad, J1 laid waste Bit-Amukani, and took Ukinzir captive. " Ukinzir
reigned three years in Babylon.
33 Tiglath-pileser ascended the throne in Babylon.
3 * In the second year of Tiglath-pileser, he died in the month of
Tebet.
The identity of Pulu with Tiglath-pileser follows at once
from these parallel statements. It has been conjectured *
that Pulu was not the rightful heir to the crown, but a
usurper, whose personal name was Pulu, but who as king
of Assyria assumed the name of one of his predecessors,
the great conqueror Tiglath-pileser I. (c. noo B.C.). It
1 Hosea v. 13, vii. n, viii. 9 f., x. 4-6, xii. I.
98 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
- is in harmony with the statement of the Book of Kings
respecting the tribute paid by Menahem to Pul, that in
an inscription relating to 738 B.C. Tiglath-pileser mentions
; " Menahem of Samaria " among other tributary princes of
- Western Asia.
Uzziah, or, as he is called in 2 Kings, Azariah, was on
the throne of Judah at this time ; and Tiglath-pileser
mentions him, probably about 740 B.C. :
Nineteen districts 31 of the city of Hamath, together with the towns
round about them, which are by the sea of the sun-setting, which in
their faithlessness had made revolt to Azriydu (Azariah), 3s to the
territory of Assyria I annexed : my officers as prefects I appointed
over them.
Hamath was an important town, about 150 miles north
of Palestine, often mentioned both in the Old Testament
and in the Assyrian inscriptions. Uzziah, it seems, had
formed an alliance with its king, in the hope, it may be
conjectured, of offering effectual resistance to the advances
of the Assyrians. Tiglath-pileser describes, with sufficient
plainness, the fate of Hamath : Uzziah was fortunate in
escaping the punishment meted out to his ally.
The age was one in which almost every year the
Assyrian kings were organizing expeditions in the direction
of Syria or Palestine. In 734 Tiglath-pileser advanced
as far as Gaza, on the south-western border of Canaan.
He writes (the inscription is in parts mutilated) :
". ... the city of Gal-[ed ?] .... [A]bel- [Beth-Maacah ?] which was
above the land of the House of Omri the broad, in its whole
extent to the territory of Assyria I annexed ; my [officers] as
prefects I appointed over it. Hanno of Gaza, who fled before my
, arms, to the land of Egypt escaped. Gaza [I captured] ; his possessions,
his gods, I carried away, and my royal effigy I erected." " The land
of the House of Omri, the whole of its inhabitants, together
with their possessions, to Assyria I deported. Pekah, their king, I
i slew. Hoshea [to rule] over them I appointed. Ten [talents of gold,
1,000 talents of silver, together with ....].! received from them."
Though there must be some exaggeration in the
statement that " the whole " of the inhabitants of the " land
FIRST] TIGLATH-PILESER'S INVASION OF ISRAEL 99
of the House of Omri " were deported to Assyria, the rest .
of this notice is in evident agreement with 2 Kings xv. '
29, 30 : " In the days of Pekah, king of Israel, came
Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-
beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and
Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali " all places or
districts in the north or north-east of Israel "and carried
their [inhabitants] into exile to Assyria. And Hoshea, the
son of Elah, made a conspiracy against Pekah, the son of
Remaliah, and slew him, and reigned in his stead." The
inscription mentions, however, a point not stated in the
Old Testament viz. that the conspiracy in Samaria, which
cost Pekah his throne and life, was carried through with
the aid of the Assyrians, and that Hoshea's elevation
to the throne was due to his recognition of Assyrian
supremacy. Pekah, it will be remembered, had been in
alliance with Rezin, king of Damascus, and had with him
invaded Judah, with the object, it is commonly supposed,
of forcing Ahaz to take part with them in a coalition
against Assyria, on an occasion which has been rendered
famous by a celebrated prophecy of Isaiah's (2 Kings xv. 37,
xvi. 5 ; Isa. vii. 1-16). Ahaz, however, was Assyrian in his
sympathies, and invoked the assistance of Tiglath-pileser
of course at the cost of his independence to rid him
of his invaders (2 Kings xvi. 7, 8). Tiglath-pileser
accepted the terms offered by Ahaz : he invaded the
territory of Damascus and Israel in the rear, thereby
necessitating the withdrawal of the allied forces from
Judah : he also, as the inscription just quoted shews,
carried into exile the inhabitants of a large part of
Northern Israel, and slew Pekah. In the following two *
years, 733 and 732, he also led expeditions against
Damascus. The inscription describing these expeditions
is, unhappily, mutilated ; but it speaks plainly of severe
losses sustained by the country ; and there is no reason
100 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
to doubt that the final result is correctly described in
2 Kings xvi. 9 : " And the king of Assyria hearkened
unto him : and the king of Assyria went up against
Damascus, and took it, and carried it (i.e. its people)
into exile to Kir, and slew Rezin." l Both Judah and many
neighbouring peoples were now tributaries of Assyria : an
inscription of Tiglath-pileser's last year but one (728 B.C.)
speaks of him as receiving tribute, not only from various
countries on the north of Palestine (as Gebal and Hamath),
but also from " Sanibu ol Ammon, Salaman of Moab,
Mitinti of Ashkelon, Jauhazi (i.e. Joa/ias, the fuller form
of Ahaz) of Judah, Kaushmelek of Edom, and Hanno of
Gaza."
Tiglath-pileser was succeeded in 727 by Shalmaneser IV.
who reigned till 722. Hardly any Assyrian records of
this short reign have come down to us ; and the Eponym-
list, which usually notes briefly the expeditions of each
year, is here provokingly mutilated, the word " to " under
Shalmaneser's third, fourth, and fifth years being preserved,
but the name of the country following being lost. From
2 Kings xvii. 3-5 we learn that Hoshea did not long
remain loyal to the power which had given him his
throne : relying upon the help of So, king of Egypt, he
revolted : Shalmaneser came up against him, and besieged
Samaria for three years (724-722 B.C.). So or rather, as
the Hebrew consonants might also be vocalized, Seve
is, no doubt, Shabaka, the Sabako of Herodotus, an
Ethiopian, the founder of the twenty-fifth (Ethiopian)
dynasty. It is doubtful, however, whether he was at this
time on the throne : in 720 a Sib'u (who seems to be the
same person) is mentioned as being in alliance with Hanno
of Gaza, and as being defeated by Sargon at Raphiah on
1 The approaching fall of Damascus is more than once foretold by
Isaiah : see Isa. vii. 16, viii. 4, xvii. 1-3. Isa. ix. i alludes to the
districts of Northern Israel which had been stripped of their inhabitants
by Tiglath-pileser.
FIRST] FALL OF SAMARIA, 722 B.C. IQI
the border of Egypt ; but he is called " turtan " (general)
of Egypt, and is distinguished from the Pharaoh. 1 It is
probable, therefore, that Seve, though he held in 725-724
a position of some influence in Egypt, is called " king "
incorrectly, by anticipation.
There follows a king, who, though mentioned but once
in the Old Testament (Isa. xx. i), had a long and eventful
reign, and whom his numerous inscriptions shew to have
been a brilliant and successful ruler. Sargon reigned for
seventeen years (722-705). The Book of Kings speaks as
though the " king of Assyria " who took Samaria was
the same " king of Assyria " who had besieged it
(2 Kings xvii. 6 ; cf. vv. 3, 4, 5) ; but that was not the
case : the capture of the important stronghold which Omri
had fortified was one of the first triumphs of Sargon's i
reign. He describes it himself :
The city of Samaria I besieged, I took ; 27,290 ol its inhabitants I "
carried into captivity ; fifty of their chariots I seized : the rest of them
I allowed to retain their possessions ; my officers I appointed over
them ; the tribute of the former king I laid upon them.
And in a parallel text he adds :
I settled there the men of countries conquered [by my hand].
These statements agree with 2 Kings xvii. 6, 24, accord-
ing to which Israel was carried away captive to Assyria,
and people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and
Sepharvaim were brought and settled in the cities of Samaria
in place of the deported Israelites. The deportation of
people to the " land of the House of Omri," or to Samaria,
is mentioned also in two other passages of Sargon's
inscriptions, though the places from which they are said
1 This is the general view of the passage quoted ; but Winckler has
argued Decently that " Muzuri " in the Assyrian text does not here
mean Egypt, and that the reference is to Pir'u, the king of a country
Muzuri in North-west Arabia.
102 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
to have been brought 1 are not those named in the Book
of Kings. In v. 6 Habor is the Khabour, a tributary
flowing into the Euphrates, in the upper part of its course,
from the north, and probably the river which formed
the eastern boundary of " Mesopotamia " (above, p. 37) :
the Assyrian kings sometimes speak of crossing it on
their expeditions from Nineveh to the West. Gozan is
mentioned as the name of a city and land in the same
neighbourhood. In v. 24 Cuthah is the ancient Kutu,
now, as bricks and tablets discovered on the spot shew,
Tel Ibrahim, about twenty miles north-east of Babylon :
in connexion with the notice in v. 30 that "the men of
Cuthah made Nergal " to worship, it is interesting to find
that Nergal, the lord of the under-world, was actually the
patron-god of Kutu. 2 Sepharvaim (v. 24) the termination
is the Hebrew dual are the two Sippars, Sippar of Shamash
(the sun-god), and Sippar of Anunitum, situated on the
opposite banks of a canal, flowing into the Euphrates,
about twenty-five miles north of Babylon, the former now
called Abu-Habba. The celebrated temple of the Sun at
the first-named Sippar was excavated by Hormuzd
Rassam. Nabo-na'id, the last king of Babylon (555-
538 B.C.), describes how he restored " I-barra, the temple of
Shamash of Sippar, and I-ulbar, the temple of Anunitum
of Sippar."
Sargon's inscriptions enable us to form a vivid picture of
the principal events of his reign, especially of his military
achievements. In the neighbourhood of Judah his most
troublesome enemies were the Philistines. Already, as we
have seen, in 720, he had been obliged to quell a revolt in
Gaza. Eight or nine years afterwards Ashdod rebelled-
1 " Men of Tamud, Ibadid, Marsiman, Khayapa [above, p. 46],
Arabian tribes inhabiting the desert," who, Sargon says, had never
brought tribute to the kings, his fathers, but whom he had subdued.
* Cf. p. 36. On the other divinities mentioned in 2 Kings xvii. 30, 31
no certain light has at present been thrown by the inscriptions.
FIRST] EXPEDITIONS OF SARGON 103
Azuri, its king, refused his accustomed tribute, and " sent
to the princes of his neighbourhood invitations to revolt
from Assyria." Another inscription tells us who his allies
were :
The people of Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab, dwelling beside
the sea, bringing tribute and presents to Asshur my lord, were speaking
treason. The people and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, to
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, a prince who could not save them, their presents
carried, and besought his alliance. 1
Egypt was at this time the evil genius of the peoples of
Palestine ; it encouraged them to revolt with promises of
help, and then failed them when the hour of need arrived :
Israel, the Philistines, and (as we shall see) Judah, all in
turn paid the penalty of relying upon the same " broken
reed." Sargon first removed Azuri, and appointed his
brother Achimit as governor, hoping that he might succeed
in securing Assyrian interests in Ashdod. But it was of
no avail : the revolt broke out again, and Achimit was
deposed. Sargon had consequently to resort to stronger
measures ; and the result was the siege of Ashdod alluded
to in Isa. xx. I. As Isaiah foresaw (vv. 4-6), the hopes
of effectual assistance from Egypt were doomed to dis-
appointment, the Philistine city capitulated, and the in-
habitants were carried into captivity. Whether Judah
suffered in any way for its complicity with Ashdod on
this occasion we do not know : there is a passage at the
beginning of one of his inscriptions 2 in which, amongst a
number of other titles, Sargon styles himself "subjecter
of the land of Judah, whose situation is remote " : but this
need not mean more than that he exacted tribute of it ; 3 and
Judah already paid tribute to Assyria, as the inscription
just quoted shews, at the time of Ashdod's rebellion. No
1 G. Smith, Ass. Discoveries, p. 291 ; Winckler, Sargon-texte, p. 189.
3 K. 2?., ii. 37 ; Winckler, Sargon-texte, p. 169.
3 The expression "subjected to my yoke" is used in this sense in the
inscription of Ramman-nirSri, cited above, p. 96.
104 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
invasion of Judah by Sargon is mentioned either in the
Bible, or in any of the texts which describe continuously
the events of Sargon's reign. 1
Sargon was succeeded by Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.).
The Biblical narrative of his invasion of Judah, and of the
manner in which, against hope, Jerusalem escaped destruc-
tion, is well known (2 Kings xviii. 13 xix. = Isa. xxxvi.,
xxxvii.). The British Museum possesses in duplicate, on
the Taylor Cylinder, an hexagonal clay prism found by
Colonel Taylor at Nineveh in 1830, and in the inscription
upon one of the colossal bulls brought by Mr. Layard from
Kouyunjik, Sennacherib's own account of the stages of
his campaign. The two important historical facts which
are brought out clearly by the inscription, though they
would not be suspected from the Biblical narrative, are
that Hezekiah's revolt from Assyria was part of a precon-
certed plan of rebellion, in which many of the cities of
Phoenicia and Philistia took part, and that Sennacherib's
invasion of Judah was but an episode in a campaign
undertaken by him for the purpose of suppressing this
general scheme of revolt. Nearly ten years had elapsed
since (711 B.C.) the arms of Assyria had been seen in
Western Asia ; the young king, Sennacherib, was occupied
with undertakings in Babylon and the East : the moment
seemed thus to his disaffected subjects in Phoenicia
and Palestine a favourable one for relieving themselves
of the irksome duty of paying annual tribute, and for
declaring their independence. In the north, the centre
of revolt was Zidon ; in the south, the Philistine cities of
Ashkelon and Ekron. Egypt was ready with promises
of aid ; and the Egyptian party in Judah, which, as we
learn from the pages of Isaiah, had been gradually gaining
1 In his hypothesis that Jerusalem was besieged and taken by
Sargon, Professor Sayce has not been followed by other Assyriologists.
FIRST] SENNACHERIB'S INVASION OF JUDAH 105
strength there during recent years, at length succeeded in
carrying the king with them, and in inducing him to raise
the standard of revolt. But Sennacherib lost no time in
taking measures to punish his rebellious subjects. He led
his army first against the Phoenician cities, which were
quickly reduced :
" * In my third campaign [701 B.C.] to the land Haiti (the Hittite
land") I went. 35 Lulii [Elulaeus], king of Zidon, the dread of the
majesty x of my sovereignty overwhelmed him ; and to a far-off spot
\in the parallel text : from the midst of the West Country, to the land
of Cyprus] 37 in the midst of the sea he fled ; his land I reduced to
obedience. K Great Zidon [Josh. xix. 28], Little Zidon, M Beth-Zitti,
Zarephath [i Kings xvii. 9], Machalib, 40 Ushu, Achzib [Judg. i. 31],
Akko \ibid.~], 41 his strong cities, the fortresses, the spots for pasture * 3 and
watering, the stations where his troops were quartered 43 (the terror
of the arms of Asshur, my lord, had overwhelmed them) submitted
themselves 44 to me. Tubalu [Ithobaal : cf. i Kings xvi. 31] I seated
upon the royal throne 45 over them ; and the payment of the tribute ot
my sovereignty, 46 every year without intermission, I laid upon him.
After this, Sennacherib received the homage of several
neighbouring kings, of whom most, apparently, ;had not
been implicated in the revolt :
47 Menahem of Samsimuruna, 48 Tubalu of Zidon, 49 Abdiliti 01 Arvad
[Ezek. xxvii. 8], M Urumilki of Gebal [/&], M Mitinti of Ashdod, M Puduil
of Ammon, 53 Chemoshnadab of Moab, 54 Malikram of Edom, 55 all the
kings of Martu (the West Country), ^rich presents and heavy tribute
57 brought before me, and kissed my feet.
Ten years before, in 711, Edom and Moab are described
by Sargon as " speaking treason " in concert with Judah,
and Ashdod was in Philistia the chief centre of revolt ;
now, their rulers come forward to court the favour of his
successor. Sennacherib meanwhile had left Phoenicia, and
arrived with his army in the country of the Philistines. In
Ashkelon, he tells us, he deprived Zedek of his crown,
which he bestowed upon Sarludari, the son of a former
king, no doubt on the ground that he was friendly to
Assyria : at the same time, he captured and plundered
I.e. (see p. 84) Syria and Palestine in general.
106 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
four subject-cities belonging to Zedek, Beth-dagon (Josh.
xv. 41), Joppa, Bene-barak (Josh. xix. 45), and Azuru.
Next he proceeds to deal with Ekron. The Ekronites,
in order to carry out their scheme of revolt, had deposed
their king Padi, who remained loyal to Assyria, and sent
him bound in chains to Jerusalem. Upon hearing of the
approach of the Assyrians, they summoned the Egyptians
to their aid, who arrived in large numbers, but were
completely routed by Sennacherib at Altaku (probably
the Eltekeh of Josh. xix. 44) :
69 The commanders, nobles, and people of Ekron, 70 who had thrown
Padi their king, who had kept faith and oath n with Assyria, into fetters
of iron, and delivered him with hostile intent to Hezekiah 7J of Judah,
who imprisoned him in darkness, 73 their heart trembled. The kings
of Egypt, 74 the archers, the chariots, the horses of the kings of
Miluhhi, 7J forces innumerable, they summoned together, and they
came 76 to their aid. In front of Altaku 77 they drew up before me
their battle array ; they called forward 78 their troops. In reliance upon
Asshur, my lord, 79 1 fought with them, and accomplished their defeat
82 The cities of Altaku 83 and Tamna [Timnath, Josh.
xv. 10] I besieged, I took, I carried off their spoil.
Sennacherib now soon reduces Ekron : he obtains, more-
over, the surrender of Padi from Jerusalem, and restores
him to his throne :
'" 1 Then I drew near to the city of Ekron. The commanders, l the
nobles, who had wrought rebellion, I slew : 3 on stakes round about
the city I impaled their corpses. 4 Those inhabitants of the city who
had practised misdoing and wrong 5 1 counted as spoil ; to the rest of
them, 6 who had not been guilty of rebellion or of any other shameful
thing, and had not practised the same crimes, 7 1 proclaimed amnesty.
Padi, 8 their king, from the midst of Jerusalem 9 I brought out; on the
throne of his sovereignty over them, 10 1 seated him ; the tribute of my
sovereignty n I laid upon him.
This is followed by the account of the measures taken
by him against Judah and Jerusalem :
And Hezekiah 12 of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke,
13 forty-six of his strong cities, fortresses and smaller towns u ol
their border without number, 15 with assault of battering-rams,
and approacli of siege-engines, I6 with the attack of infantry, of
mines , 17 1 besieged, I took. 200,150 people, small and great,
FIRST] SENNACHERIB'S INVASION OF JUDAH 1 07
male and female, 18 horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen, 19 and sheep
without number, from the midst of them I brought out, and zo I counted
them as spoil. Himself, as a bird in a cage, in Jerusalem, 3l his royal
city, I shut up. Siege-works against him I constructed, 22 and those
coming out of the gate of his city M I turned back. His cities which I
had plundered, from his domain *' I cut off; and to Mitinti, king of
Ashdod, 25 to Padi, king of Ekron, and to Zilbel, 26 king of Gaza, I gave
them ; 1 diminished his territory. 27 To the former payment of their
yearly tribute, 28 the tribute of subjection to my sovereignty I added ;
29 1 laid it upon them. Himself, Hezekiah, 30 the terror of the splendour -
of my sovereignty overwhelmed : 31 the Arabians and his trusted soldiers,
32 whom, for the defence of Jerusalem, his royal city, 33 he had intro- .
duced, laid down their arms (?). 34 Together with 30 talents of gold, and
800 talents of silver, I caused precious stones, 35 brilliant .... -stones,
great uknu stones, 36 couches of ivory, thrones of state, of elephant-
skins and 37 ivory, ushu wood, tirkarinnu wood, whatever there was,
an abundant treasure, ** also his daughters, the women of his palace,
his male and 39 female ....... (?), unto Nineveh, my royal city,
40 to be brought after me. For the payment of tribute, 41 and the
rendering of homage, he sent his envoy.
Here the narrative of the inscription closes, the lines
which follow relating to the campaign of the following
year in Babylonia. The description, though there may
be some exaggeration in detail, gives a sufficiently vivid
picture of the desperate condition to which Judah and
Jerusalem were reduced. Men must have needed all the
encouragement which Isaiah, in anticipation, 1 or at the
time, 2 could give. Sennacherib's narrative may be com-
bined with that contained in the Book of Kings in more
ways than one ; but it is most probable that it corresponds
with 2 Kings xviii. 13^-16 (which describes how Sennacherib
took " all the fortified cities " of Judah, how Hezekiah sent
to him at Lachish proposing terms of submission, and
how he then imposed upon him a tribute of three hundred
talents of silver and thirty talents of gold) ; and that the
events recorded in 2 Kings xviii. 17 xix. 35 (the two
missions of the Rabshakeh demanding of Hezekiah the
surrender of Jerusalem, and the destruction which over-
1 Isa. x, 16-34, xiv. 24-7, xvii. 12-14, x* 1 * 5 -8, xxx. 30-3, xxxi. 8, 9.
* Isa. xxxiii., xxxvii. 6, 7, 22-32 (= 2 Kings xix. 6, 7, 21-31).
108 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
took Sennacherib's army) belong to a subsequent stage
of the campaign, on which the Assyrian account is silent.
- Of Sennacherib's presence at Lachish, we have independent
testimony in a bas-relief, now in the British Museum, 1
which represents the Assyrian king seated upon a throne,
attended by his warriors in their chariots, and receiving
the submission of a train of prostrate Jewish captives, with
the inscription, " Sennacherib, king of multitudes, king of
Assyria, seats himself upon a throne of state, and receives
- the spoil of the city of Lachish." 2
In 2 Kings xx. 12 (= Isa. xxxix. i) we read that
Merodach-baladan, 3 king of Babylon, sent a congratu-
latory embassy to Hezekiah after his sickness. The
inscriptions of Sargon and Sennacherib make frequent
1 mention of this Merodach-baladan. He was a " Chaldaean " :
his home was a district called Bit-Yakin, at the head
of the Persian Gulf : he is called accordingly " king
of the sea," who " dwelt on the shore of the Bitter
River" (the Assyrian name of what we call the Persian
Gulf) ; and he was strenuous in his endeavours to make
Babylonia independent of Assyria. He is first mentioned
by Tiglath-pileser, as paying him homage in 731 B.C.
Taking advantage, probably, of Shalmaneser's death
(722 B.C.), he succeeded in establishing himself as king of
Babylon, a position which, as we learn both from Sargon
himself, and from one of the dynastic lists published
by Mr. Pinches, he held for twelve years (721-710 B.C.).
In his own inscription, now in the Berlin Museum,
1 dating from this period, he is styled " king of Babylon,"
1 See the illustration in Cheyne's Isaiah (in the " Polychrome
Bible"), p. 48.
* For more detailed illustration of the light thrown by the Assyrian
inscriptions upon Jewish history at this time, and especially upon the
prophecies of Isaiah, the writer must refer to his volume on Isaiah in
the " Men of the Bible " Series, esp. Part I., chaps, ii., iv., v., vi., vii.
3 Properly Marduk-abal-iddin, i.e. " Marduk has given a son." Cf.
Esarhaddon, i.e. Asshur-ah-iddin, " Asshur has given a brother."
FIRST] MERODACH-BALADAN 109
exactly as in 2 Kings xx. I2. 1 During all these years,
Sargon left him unmolested : but in the end he found
himself obliged to organize two campaigns against him :
in 710 he compelled him to evacuate Babylon, and
entered it himself in triumph, in 709 he pursued him
to Dur-Yakin, the stronghold of Bit-Yakin, whither he
had retreated, and received there his submission. But
he was not really conciliated ; and Sennacherib had twice,
in 703 and in 696, to expel him again from Babylon.
It is probable that the embassy to Hezekiah, in spite -
of its being narrated after the invasion of Sennacherib,
really took place about 712 : its actual motive is generally
considered to have been the political one of securing
Hezekiah's friendship and alliance.
Sennacherib is said, in Isa. xxxviii. 12 (cf. 2 Kings
xix. 37), to have been assassinated by Adrammelech and
Sharezer his sons. For long, no parallel notice from
Assyrian sources was known ; but in the " Babylonian
Chronicle" (above, p. 97), published by Mr. Pinches in
1884, we read as follows :
On the 2oth day of Tebet [= December] Sennacherib, king of
Assyria, was slain by his son in a revolt. For .... years Sennacherib '
had ruled the kingdom of Assyria. From the 2Oth day of Tebet to
the 2nd day of Adar [= February] the revolt in Assyria continued.
On the 1 8th day of Sivan [c= May] his son, Esarhaddon, sat on the .
throne of Assyria, etc.
Only one son is mentioned here ; but obviously another
son might have assisted : so that there is no difficulty in
harmonizing the two statements. There are indications
that Esarhaddon, though he was not implicated in his
father's murder, came to the throne amid domestic dis-
sensions : in his inscriptions he speaks of himself as
having been " selected " by Marduk (the patron god of
Babylon) " out of the group of his elder brothers " to
restore certain temples, and styles himself " the avenger /
1 K. iii. i, 185 ff.; cf. ii. 69, 277, 287.
1 10 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
of his father that begat him." 1 The names of the two
parricides have not at present been found on the monu-
ments. According to 2 Kings xx. 12, they took refuge
in the land of Ararat (= Armenia). Esarhaddon, in an
inscription describing the defeat of certain (unnamed) foes
at the beginning of his reign, says that after Ishtar,
the goddess of battle, had broken their ranks, the cry
arose from their midst, " This is our king." The in-
ference is not an unreasonable one that these foes were
acting in concert with his parricide brothers.
Esarhaddon reigned from 68 1 to 668. One of the
most important events of his reign was his conquest of
Egypt (which both Sargon and Sennacherib had failed
to accomplish), and his reduction of it to the state of
an Assyrian province (670 B.C.). Esarhaddon's policy
was to allow the native Egyptian princes to rule as
vassals of Assyria. Here is the Assyrian ruler's own
account of his conquest, from a triumphal stele discovered
in 1888 by the expedition organized by the German
" Orient-Comite " at Zinjirli, about seventy miles north-
north-west of Aleppo :
Tarku ^king of Egypt and Kush (Ethiopia) from Ishupri 40 to
Memphis, his royal city, a march of fifteen days, I smote daily 41 in
countless numbers his warriors. Himself I attacked five times with
the point of the spear a in deadly combat. Memphis, his royal city, I
/ besieged for half a day ; I took it, I laid it waste, 44 1 burnt it with fire.
His children and possessions I carried away to Assyria. The roots ol
Kush 47 1 tore up out of Egypt. 48 Over the whole of Egypt I placed
afresh kings, governors, prefects, officers, overseers, 49 regents. The
tribute of my sovereignty, (to be paid) yearly without fail, r>0 1 imposed
upon them. 1
This inscription is engraved upon a huge monolith, on
which is also sculptured a colossal figure of Esarhaddon :
1 In the inscription from Zinjirli, quoted below, line 25.
1 Slightly abbreviated from the translation in the Mittlieilnngen aits
den Orientalischen Sammlungen (Berlin, 1893), p. 41.
FIRST] ESARHADDON AND T1RHAKAH ill
before him kneel the diminutive figures of two captive
princes, each with a ring passed through his lip (cf.
Isa. xxxvii. 29), from which passes a cord, the other
end of which is coiled firmly round Esarhaddon's fingers. 1
One of these princes, it is clear from the dress and
features, is intended to represent the Tarku of the in-
scription. This Tarku can be none but the Tirhakah
of 2 Kings xix. 9, whose approach aroused the alarm
of Sennacherib : he was the third ruler of the Ethiopian
dynasty, which (above, p. 100) was founded by Shabaka
(Sabako). It seems to follow, from Egyptian data, that
he could not really have been on the throne as early
as 701 B.C. : there is probably, therefore, an inaccuracy,
similar to that which was noticed (p. 100) in the case
of So, in his being described in 2 Kings xix. 9 as " king
of Kush" (Ethiopia). Esarhaddon, in view of this con-
quest, styles himself elsewhere " king of the kings of
Egypt, Paturis, 2 and Kush."
Another interesting fact from the same reign deserves
mention. Esarhaddon tells us that, being about to build -
a new palace, he summoned before him " twenty-two kings
of the land Hatti (the Hittite land), who dwelt by the sea
and in the midst of the sea," and commanded them to
furnish him with materials for the purpose. In a parallel
inscription he gives us the names of these kings ; viz. :
I Baal king of Tyre, 2 Manasseh king of Judah, 3 Kaushgabri king t
of Edom, 4 Musuri king of Moab, 5 Zilbel king of Gaza, 6 Mitinti king
of Ashkelon, 7 Ikasamsu (?) king of Ekron, 8 Milkiasaph king of Gebal
(Byblus), 9 Matanbaal king of Arvad, 10 Abibaal king of Samsimuruna,
II Puduil king of the Ammonites, 12 Ahimelech king of Ashdod
twelve kings of the sea-coast; 13 Ikishtura king of Idalion, 14 Pilagura
king of Kitrus, 15 Ki[su] king of Sillua, 16 Ituandar king of Paphos,
17 Irisu king of Sillu (?), 18 Damasu king of Curium, 19 Rumisu king
1 See Ball, Light from the East, p. 198.
3 The Pathros of the Old Testament (Isa. xi. 1 1, Ezek. xxx. 14 al. :
cf. the Pathrusim, or Pathros ites, of Gen. x. 14); Egypt. pe-to-ris, "the
land of the South," i.e. Upper Egypt. See K. B., ii. 151.
112 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
of Tamassus, 20 Damusi kiiig of Kartihadasht, 21 Unasagusu king of
Lidir, 22 Pususu king of Nuri (?) ten kings of Yatnana (Cyprus) in
the midst of the sea.
The places mentioned are all, it will be noticed, in or near
Palestine, or in Cyprus. That Manasseh was tributary
to Assyria, we should not have gathered from the Book of
Kings ; but Asshurbanipal, Esarhaddon's successor, includes
1 him in a very similar list ; and it is possible that the
subject condition of Judah under the last-named king is
alluded to in a passage of the prophet Nahum (i. 13, 15),
who wrote, probably, shortly after Asshurbanipal's death.
Esarhaddon was followed by Asshurbanipal (668-626),
one of the most illustrious of the Assyrian kings, dis-
tinguished alike for his military achievements and for his
love of letters. To the library which he founded, and for
which he caused copies to be made of many older texts,
modern scholarship is indebted for some of the most
valuable monuments of old Babylonian literature which
it possesses. Asshurbanipal is not mentioned in the Old
Testament under this name ; but it is very probable that
he is the king referred to in Ezra iv. 10, where it is said
that the " great and noble Osnappar " brought Babylonians.
Susanians, Elamites, and men of other nationalities, and
settled them in Samaria : Asshurbanipal is known from
his inscriptions to have invaded Elam more than once, and
taken its capital, Susa, 1 and also to have transported some
of the inhabitants of Elam to different parts of the Assyrian
empire. 2 An achievement of Asshurbanipal's, however,
gives the point to a famous passage of Nahum's prophecies,
1 K. B., ii. 181-3, 195-9, 20I -I5. all spirited descriptions, but
too long to quote. He " coloured the waters of the Ulai (Dan. viii.
2, 16: the Eulaeus), like wool," with the blood of the inhabitants of
Susa (p. 183).
a K. B., ii. 209, 2ii. The names of the localities to which they were
transferred are not, hou-ever, stated
FIRST] ASSHURBANIPAL'S CAPTURE OF THEBES 113
in which the prophet ironically asks Nineveh whether she
will fare better than " No of Amon, that was seated among
the Nile-canals, that had the waters round about her, whose
rampart was the sea, and her wall the waters," which
had armed defenders innumerable, and which nevertheless
encountered a cruel fate, and was led away into a dis-
honourable captivity. No, " the city," is a name of Thebes,
the brilliant capital of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and
twentieth dynasties, and Amon (or Amen) was its supreme
god, in honour of whom the majestic temples which still
remain were erected. The allusion is to the conquest of
Thebes by Asshurbanipal, which took place probably in
663 B.C. Asshurbanipal's narrative is graphic :
Tarku, king of Egypt and Kush, whom Esarhaddon my father had de-
feated, forgot the might of Asshur, and Ishtar, and the great gods, my lords ;
and trusting in his own strength, advanced against the kings, the praefects
whom my father had appointed, and took up his abode in Memphis, a
city which my father had conquered. A messenger came to Nineveh, to
report what had occurred. My heart was enraged, and my liver stirred
up. I prayed to Asshur and Ishtar, set my troops in motion, and ad-
vanced towards Egypt. As my army was on its way, twenty-two kings '
of the sea-coast, and of the midst of the sea, came to meet me, and
kissed my feet. Afterwards, with their forces and their ships, they ac-
companied me on my way. Tarku heard in Memphis of my approach,
and sent forth his troops to meet me. In the strength of Asshur, Bel, and
Nebo, the great gods, I dispersed them far and wide. Tarku heard in
Memphis of the defeat of his forces ; the terrible majesty of Asshur and
Ishtar overwhelmed him : he fled by ship to Ni'i (No ; Thebes). This
city I took, and marched my troops into it. The kings, governors, and
praefects, whom my father had appointed (a list of twenty given), but
who had been obliged to abandon their posts on account of Tarku, I rein-
stated in their places. Egypt and Kush, which my father had conquered,
1 again took possession of, and returned to Nineveh with much spoil. 2
The kings, however, before long revolted, and made
common cause with Tarku. But Tar^u soon died, and
was succeeded by Urd-amani (Rud-Am6n). Asshurbanipal
again marched to Egypt to suppress the revolt. Urd-amani,
1 See their names in K. B. t ii. 239, 241. With two exceptions they
a*e identical with the twenty-two named by Esarhaddon (above, p. in).
* Abridged from K. Z?., ii. 159, 161, 163 ; 239 (a parallel text).
8
H4 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
being obliged to evacuate Memphis, retreated to No,
whither the Assyrian king pursued him :
36 He saw the approach of my mighty battle, abandoned Ni'i (No),
37 and fled to Kipkip. This city (No) in its entire compass, w in reliance
upon Asshur and Ishtar, my hands conquered. 39 Silver, gold, precious
stones, the treasure of his palace, the whole that was there, 40 richly
woven garments, fine horses, men and women, 41 two lofty obelisks,
weighing 2,500 talents, which stood before the gate of the temple, 43 1
removed from their place, and brought them to Assyria. 44 Abundant
spoil, without number, I carried away out of No. 45 Over Egypt and
Kush 4G I let my weapons gleam, and I established my might. 47 With
full hand I returned in safety 48 to Nineveh, the city of my sovereignty !
This, rather than what seems to have been Asshur-
banipal's more peaceful entry on his first campaign, is the
capture and sack of No, to which Nahum alludes.
In 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11-13, ^ * s sa id ^ at Jehovah
" brought upon Judah the captains of the host of the king
of Assyria, which took Manasseh with hooks, and bound
him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon " : in con-
sequence, it is added, of his humiliation and penitence, he
was released, and restored to his kingdom. It is remarkable
that such a momentous event in the history of Manasseh,
if it actually took place, should be unnoticed in the
earlier and nearly contemporaneous narrative of the Kings :
not only, however, is Manasseh's captivity not mentioned
there, but his character is depicted, both by the compiler
of the Book of Kings and by the prophet Jeremiah, as
destitute of a single redeeming feature. 1 The Chronicles
(speaking generally) consists partly of narratives excerpted,
often with hardly any alteration, from the earlier books of
the Old Testament, especially the books of Samuel and
Kings, and partly of narratives written by the compiler
himself, to which there is no parallel in the earlier books :
and an independent study of the narratives of the latter
class shews that they are strongly coloured by the religious
feelings of the age (the third century B.C.) in which the
1 2 Kings xxi. 1-18; cf. xxiii. 26, xxiv. 3-4, Jer. xv. 4.
FIRST] CAPTIVITY OF MANASSEH 115
author lived, and that they are, to use a Jewish expression,
examples of " Haggadah," or edifying religious narrative,
rather than history proper, in our sense of the term. 1 The
passage relating to Manasseh belongs to the last-named class:
and his captivity and repentance have accordingly been held
by many scholars to be unhistorical. The inscriptions do
not decide the question. They shew that what is said to
have happened to Manasseh is, in the abstract, possible :
they do not shew that it actually occurred. We know
from them, namely, (i) that, as was stated above, Manasseh
paid tribute to both Esarhaddon and Asshurbanipal. We
know (2) that in the reign of Asshurbanipal, about 648-647
B.C., his " false brother " Shamash-shum-ukin (whom, " in
order that the strong might not harm the weak," he had
made "king" of Babylon) organized an insurrection in
Babylon, and the neighbouring cities of Sippar, Borsippa,
and Kutha, and moreover persuaded the inhabitants of
various countries, including " the kings of the West land "
(i.e. Phoenicia, Palestine, Cyprus, etc.), to revolt from
Assyria : the kings implicated are not mentioned by name,
but it is reasonably probable that Manasseh was one of
them. We do not, however, know what punishment, if
any, Asshurbanipal inflicted upon the rebellious kings :
all that he says in his inscription is that, the revolt in
Babylon and its neighbourhood having been put down, the
peoples which had been in league with Shamash-shum-
ukin were again made subject to Assyria, governors being
placed over them, and yearly tribute imposed. 2
1 See the writer's Introduction to the Literature oj the Old Testament \
ed. 6, pp. 526, 529, 532-4; also Sayce, Monuments, pp. 464 f., 467.
* K, B., ii. 183 ff. (cf. 259-61), 195 ; KAT?, pp. 369 f. Nothing, it is to
be observed, is said in these passages respecting the treatment meted
out to the kings. It is, of course, a possibility that they were brought to
Asshurbanipal in Babylon ; but the passage cited by Sayce, Monuments,
pp. 459 f. (= K. B., ii. 193, 195), is no proof of it ; and the non-mention
of the fact in a somewhat circumstantial narrative is rather ground for
supposing that it did not take place.
H6 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
There is, however, a curious parallel to what the
Chronicler states to have happened to Manasseh. The
subject kings of Egypt who, as mentioned above (p. 113),
had revolted and joined Tarfcu, were bound " hand and foot
in iron bonds and iron chains," and brought to Nineveh :
one, Necho, king of Memphis and Sais, was, for some
reason not stated, treated by Asshurbanipal with special
clemency, and allowed to live : he was clothed in costly
apparel, sent back to Egypt amid signal marks of the
royal favour, and reinstated in his former position. 1 What
happened to an Egyptian prince, might, of course, have
happened to a prince of Judah. There is, however, no
monumental evidence that it did happen ; and the Chronicler
remains still our sole positive authority for the captivity of
Manasseh. The monuments shew that the statement is
not, in the abstract, incredible : they do not neutralize
the suspicions which arise from the non-mention of the
fact in the Kings, and from its being associated in the
Chronicles with the account of Manasseh's repentance,
which, conflicting as it does directly with the testimony of
both Jeremiah and the compiler of Kings, must certainly
be exaggerated, even if it have any basis in fact at all.
No monumental notices of the events which led to the
close of the kingdom of Judah have as yet been found.
We possess many inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar ; but
they relate almost entirely to his buildings (which were
very extensive), and to the honours paid by him to his gods.
There exist, however, inscriptions shewing (what had pre-
viously been doubted) that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt,
thereby fulfilling, at least in their general sense, for we
do not know whether the fulfilment extended to details,
the predictions of Jeremiah (xliii. 9-13, xliv. 30), uttered
shortly after 586, and of Ezekiel (xxix. 19 f. ; cf. w. 8-12),
1 K. ., ii. 165, 167.
FIRST] NEBUCHADNEZZAR IN EGYPT 117
uttered in 570. In the Louvre there is a statue from
Elephantine, representing Nes-Hor, governor of Southern
Egypt under Pharaoh Hophra (Apries : 589-564 B.C.), the
inscription on which seems to state that an army of Asiatics
and Northern peoples, which had apparently invaded
Egypt, intended to advance up the valley of the Nile into
Ethiopia ; but that this disaster to the district under his
command had been averted by the favour of the gods. And
a fragmentary (cuneiform) inscription of Nebuchadnezzar
himself, now in the British Museum, states that he invaded
Egypt in his thirty-seventh year (= 568 B.C.), defeated the
king of Egypt, [Ama]-a(?)-su, t.e. as can hardly be doubted,
Amasis (570-526 B.C.), and slaughtered, or carried away,
soldiers and horses. It may be doubtful whether, as Wiede-
mann first thought, these inscriptions refer to two distinct
occasions, or whether, as he afterwards thought, they refer
to one and the same : it is at least clear that Nebuchadnezzar
invaded Egypt. 1 Tell Defneh, on the north-eastern border
of Egypt, is the ancient Tahpanhes : and it is highly
probable that the large oblong platform of brickwork, close
to the palace-fort built at this spot by Psammetichus I.,
c. 664 B.C., and now called Kasr Bint el- Yehudi, " the castle
of the Jew's daughter," which was excavated by Professor
Petrie in 1886, is identical with "the quadrangle which is
at the entry of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes," in which
Jeremiah was commanded to bury the stones, as a token
that Nebuchadnezzar would spread his pavilion over them,
when he led his army into Egypt. 2 It is further stated that
there have been found in the same neighbourhood, though
the exact spot is uncertain, three clay cylinders, bearing
short inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar, as though they had
been dropped there at the time of his invasion. 3
1 Cf. Wiedemann, Aeg. Zeitschr., 1878, pp. 2-6, 87-9, and Gesch.
Aegyptens von Psammetich I. bis auf Alexander (1880), pp. 167-70.
- See Petrie's Tarn's, Part II. (1888), pp. 47 ff., 50 f., 52 ff., 57 f., with
Plate XLIV. 3 Sayce, Academy, xxv. (1884), p. 51 ; Petrie, l.c., p. 51.
llS HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
We must not leave the Books of Kings without pointing
out the corrections in the chronology which have been
necessitated by the Assyrian inscriptions. The methods
of chronological computation adopted by the Assyrians
were particularly exact : every year a special officer
(" limu ") was appointed, who held office for that year, and
gave his name to the year (something in the manner of
the " Eponymous Archon " at Athens) ; and " Canons," or
lists, of these Eponymous officers have been discovered
extending from 902 to 667 B.C. The accuracy of these
canons can in many cases be checked by the informa-
tion which we possess independently of the reigns of
many of the kings, as of Tiglath-pileser, Sargon, and Senna-
cherib. 1 Thus, from 902 B.C., the Assyrian chronology is
certain and precise. Reducing now the Assyrian dates to
years B.C., and comparing them with the Biblical chrono-
logy, some serious discrepancies at once reveal them-
selves, the nature and extent of which will be most clearly
perceived by a brief tabular synopsis :
Dates Dates
according to according to
Ussher s Assyrian
chronology. inscriptions.
Reign of Ahab 918-897
Ahab named at battle of Karkar 854
Reign of Jehu 884-856
Tribute of Jehu . 842
Reign of Menahem .... 772-761
Menahem mentioned by Tiglath-pileser . . . 738
Reign of Pekah 759-73O
Pekah dethroned by Tiglath-pileser 734 ?
Reign of Ahaz 742-726
Ahaz mentioned by Tiglath-pileser 734
Hezekiah's accession .... 726
Fall of Samaria in Hezekiah's sixth
year (2 Kings xviii. 10). . . 721 . , . 722
Invasion of Sennacherib in Hezekiah's
fourteenth year (ibid. ?'. 13) . -713 . . 701
1 Sec G. Smith, The Assyrian Eponym Canon, pp. 26 ff., 72ft.
'According to other authorities 733 or 732.
FIRST] CHRONOLOGY OF THE KINGS 119
Manifestly, all the Biblical dates earlier than 734 B.C. are
too high, and must be considerably reduced : the two
events also in Hezekiah's reign, the fall of Samaria and
the invasion of Sennacherib, which the Biblical writer treats
as separated by an interval of eight years, were separated
in reality by an interval of twenty-one years. It does not
fall within the scope of the present essay to consider the
different systems by which it has been proposed to rectify
the Biblical chronology, so as to bring it into agreement
with the Assyrian data : it must suffice to point out the
differences. The fact itself agrees with what has long been
perceived by critics, viz. that the chronological system of
the Books of Kings does not form part of the original
documents preserved in them, but is the work of the
compiler, and shews signs of having been arrived at
through computation from the regnal years of the successive
kings, the errors which it displays being due to the fact
that either the data at the compiler's disposal, or his
calculations, were in some cases incorrect. 1
After the fall of Nineveh 2 in 607, Babylon became a
second time the seat of empire in the East, and under
Nebuchadnezzar rose to a height of splendour and magni-
ficence which had never before been surpassed. The
following synopsis of dates at this period may be
useful :
Nebuchadnezzar 604-561
Destruction of Jerusalem 588
1 See further the writer's Isaiah, pp. 12-14, with the references. The
chronology of the Kings is in itself inconsistent ; for the period from the
division of the Kingdom to the fall of Samaria, if reckoned by the
regnal years of the kings of the Northern Kingdom, amounts to 241
years, whereas, if reckoned by the regnal years of the kings of the
Southern Kingdom, it amounts to 260 years.
2 The fall of Nineveh is not mentioned directly in the Old Testament,
though it is foretold in Nahum, and Zeph. ii. 13-15. For a notice ol
the allusion to it in a recently discovered inscription of Nabo-na'id
(5S5-53 8 B - c -). see below, p. 197.
120 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
Amil-Marduk 1 ... .... 561-559
Neriglissar (Nergal-shar-uzur) 559-555
Labasui-Marduk 555 (nine months)
Nabo-na'id 555-53^
Capture of Babylon by Cyrus 53^
Return of Jews under Zerubbabel 53^
We possess inscriptions dating from the reigns of all
these kings, and long ones, descriptive especially of
buildings and the restoration of temples, from those of
Nebuchadnezzar, Neriglissar, and Nabo-na'id. The
prophets of the Exile allude to Babylon in terms which
can frequently be illustrated from these inscriptions. One
prophet, for instance, speaks of Babylon as " the glory of
kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldaeans' pride" (Isa. xiii.
19) ; another calls her " a golden cup in Jehovah's hand,"
and "abundant in treasures," and alludes to her as
" dwelling upon many waters," and having " broad walls "
and "high gates" (Jen li. 7, 13, 58) ; her land is said to be
a " land of graven images, and they are mad after idols "
(1. 38) : in the ode of triumph which Israel is represented
as singing on the day when the king of Babylon falls,
the " fir-trees" and " cedars of Lebanon " are said poetically
to rejoice, and to say, " Since thou art laid down, no
feller is to come up against us" (Isa. xiv. 8). The " India
House Inscription " of Nebuchadnezzar 2 contains an
eloquent description of the temples, walls, outworks, and
palaces with which the great king beautified or strengthened
his capital. It is too long to quote in extenso ; but a few
extracts may be cited :
" 3 Silver, gold, precious stones, copper, musu&antia-\vood, cedar-
wood, all kinds of valuables, a large abundance, the produce of
mountains, 35 the fulness of seas, rich presents, splendid gifts, to my
city of Babylon, into his (Marduk's) presence I brought . . . . 43 E-kua,
the sanctuary of the lord of the gods, Marduk I made the walls thereof
1 " Man of Marduk,' the " vil-merodach " of 2 Kings xxv. 27, who
shewed favour to the exiled king Jehoiachin.
- AT.*, iii. 104-23 ; A'. /?., iii. 2, pp. II ff.
FIRST] BUILDINGS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR 121
glisten like suns ; with red gold . . . with uknu and gish-shtr-gal stones
I overlaid 50 the hall (?) of the temple . . ; 51 the gate of E-zida and
E-sagil I made brilliant as the sun.
in. xi j ne choicest cedars, which from Lebanon* the noble forest,
I had brought, for the roofing of E-kua, the sanctuary of his dominion,
I looked out : the inner side of the huge cedar-beams for the roofing
of E-kua with shining gold I overlaid 43 The cedar of the roofing
of the sanctuaries of Nebo with gold I overlaid. The cedar of the
roofing of the gate of .... I overlaid with shining silver.
After describing the two walls of the city, with the moat
between them, and the huge rampart, " mountain-high,"
which he constructed outside them, on the east, as a
further defence, Nebuchadnezzar proceeds :
vi. 39 That foes with evil purpose the bounds of Babylon might not
approach, great waters, like the volume of the sea, I carried round the
land ; and the crossing of these was like the crossing of the great sea,
of the briny flood.
In the palace of Nabopolassar, which he restored
TUi. 10 silver, gold, precious stones, everything that is prized, and is
magnificent, substance, wealth, the insignia of majesty, I stored up
within it : splendid kurdu, royal treasure, I gathered together therein.
The " ziggurats " of E-sagil and E-zida are repeatedly
alluded to in Nebuchadnezzar's other inscriptions; and
"carer for E-sagil and E-zida" is one of his standing
titles. The numerous other temples, in different places,
which in the same inscriptions he describes himself as
building or restoring, are sufficient testimony to the
multitude of " graven images," of which the land of Babylon
was full.
The second Isaiah, foretelling the fall of Babylon, writes
(xlvi. i), " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth." The in-
scriptions shew at once why these two gods are named in
The temples, respectively, of Nebo in Borsippa and of Marduk in
Babylon. The ziggurat mentioned above (p. 31) as restored ty
Nebuchadnezzar belonged to the temple of E-zida.
u The Assyrian kings also speak frequently of obtaining timber from
Lebanon, a fact which gives point to the figure used in Isa. xxxvii. 24. x
" K. B., iii. 2, pp. 32-71.
122 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
particular. Bel (" lord ") was a title of Marduk (Merodach),
the supreme god of Babylon, given the first place by
Nebuchadnezzar and his successors in their inscriptions,
and honoured with many august titles : 1 Nebo, in the same
inscriptions, ranks next to Marduk. The India House
Inscription begins with the words :
Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, the exalted prince, the favourite of
Marduk) .... the beloved of Nebo.
And a few lines later in the same inscription Nebuchadnezzar
says :
Since Marduk, the great lord, exalted my royal head, and committed
to me dominion over the hosts of men, and Nebo, who commands the
hosts of heaven and earth, gave into my hand, for the rule of men, a
sceptre of righteousness, I honour those deities, etc.
Nebo was also the principal god of Borsippa, the city
almost adjoining Babylon on the south-west (above, p. 31).
Bel and Nebo are thus rightly named by the prophet
as the two chief deities of Babylon.
In 1879 or 1880 Mr. Pinches discovered, among the
inscribed tablets in the British Museum, three which
proved to be of particular interest, on account of the light
thrown by them upon the closing years of the Chaldaean
empire, and the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. These
inscriptions are commonly known as (i) the Annalistic
Tablet of Cyrus (or the Chronicle of Nabo-na'id and
Cyrus), (2) the Cylinder-Inscription of Cyrus, (3) the
Sippar Inscription of Nabo-na'id (found by Mr. Hormuzd
Rassam at Abu- H abba, the ancient Sippar). Before, how-
ever, proceeding to consider these, it will be convenient
to notice the inscriptions which mention Belshazzar, who,
according to the Book of Daniel, was son of Nebuchadnezzar,
and the last king of Babylon before its conquest by Cyrus.
One of these inscriptions, found at Mugheir (the ancient
1 As bilu rabti, " the great lord " ; bil ildni, " lord of the gods " ; bil
bili, "lord of lords"; risk ill, "chief of the gods": and also Bil,
" Lord," absolutely (K. B., iii. 2, pp. 17, 47, 91).
FIRST] BELSHAZZAR 123
Ur) has been long known : Nabo-na'id, after describing in
it how he had restored the ancient " ziggurat " of Sin (the
moon-god) at Ur (p. 38), proceeds :
14 And as to Bil-shar-uzur, i& the chief son, K the offspring of my
body, " the fear of thy great divinity M do thou [Sin] set in his heart ;
29 may he not give way ^ to sin; 3l with life's abundance may he be
satisfied. b
This inscription at once shews that Belshazzar was not
son of Nebuchadnezzar, but of Nabo-na'id.
Belshazzar is also mentioned in contract-tablets belonging
to the same reign. d One, dated Nisan 21, in Nabo-na'id's .
fifth year (550 B.C.), speaks of a house " let for three years
to Nabo-kin-akhi, the secretary of Bil-shar-uzur, the
king's son, for \\ maneh of silver." In another, dated in
Nabo-na'id's eleventh year (544 B.C.), we read :
The sum of 20 manehs of silver for wool, the property ol Bil-
shar-uzur, the king's son., which has been handed over to Iddin-
Marduk, the son of Basa, the son of Nur-Sin, through the agency of
Nebo-zabit, the steward of the house of Bil-shar-uzur, the king's son,
and the secretaries of the king's son.
In these inscriptions, it will be noticed, Belshazzar bears
the standing title of "the king's son."
We may now pass on to the more important historical
inscriptions mentioned above. The "Annalistic Tablet"
describes, year by year, the events of Nabo-na'id's reign.
The top of the tablet is broken off or mutilated : we merely
gather from the parts which remain that the Babylonian
forces had been one year in the land of Hamath, and in
the following year had marched to the land " Martu "
(Phoenicia, Palestine, etc.). In the sixth year of Nabo-na'id
a " O Bel, preserve the king " (Belshazzar is a corrupt form).
b JfAT. 3 , p. 434 ; or K. B. } iii. 2, p. 97. Similarly in another inscription
(K. B., iii. 2, pp. 83, 89), after the description of the restoration of two
other temples, the words occur twice : " Bil-shar-uzur, the chief son,
.... prolong his days, may he not give way to sin."
c Nor was even Nabo-na'id a son of Nebuchadnezzar : he was a
usurper, son of one Nabu-balatsu-ikbi (K. B., iii. 2, pp. 97, 119, 120).
d Sayce, in /?/>.', iii. 125-7; K - &> iv - 22 3-
124 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
(549 B.C.), Kurash (i.e. Cyrus), " king of Anshan " (a district
in the south or south-west of Elam), is mentioned as war-
ring against Ishtuvegu (Astyages) ; the troops of Ishtuvegu,
however, revolted, and delivered their king into the
hands of Cyrus, who then attacked and took his capital,
Agamtanu (Ecbatana). In the seventh year (548 B.C.), we
read, the king was in Teva a ; he did not come to Babylon,
and so the great annual procession of Bel and Nebo on
New Year's Day could not take place : " the kings son,
the nobles, and his soldiers were in the country of Akkad "
(North Babylonia). The " king's son," in the light of the
inscriptions just quoted, can hardly be any other than
Belshazzar : it is a reasonable inference from this passage
that he acted as his father's general. The eighth year is
without incident In the ninth year (546 B.C.), the state-
ments respecting the king and the " king's son " are re-
peated : it is also added that in Nisan (March) Cyrus,
"king of Persia," collected his troops, and crossed the
Tigris below Arbela; and in lyyar (April) attacked and
conquered a country, the name of which is lost. In the
tenth and eleventh years the statements respecting the
king and the " king's son " are again repeated. We now
come to the reverse side of the tablet. The parts relating
to the twelfth to the sixteenth years are lost : under the
seventeenth year (538 B.C.) we have the account of Cyrus'
conquest of Babylon :
13 In b the month of Tammuz (June), when Cyrus, in the city of
Upe (Opis), c on the banks of 13 the river Zalzallat, had delivered battle
against the troops of Akkad, he subdued the inhabitants of Akkad.
14 Wherever they gathered themselves together, he smote them. On the
ft Either a suburb of Babylon, or some favourite residence of the king
in the country.
b The translations of this and the next-cited inscription are based
upon those of Hagen in Delitzsch and Haupt's Beilrdge zur Assyriologie,
ii. (1891), pp. 205 ff. Those published in RP?, vol. v., 158 ff., are in
many respects antiquated.
c On the Tigris, about no miles north of Babylon.
FIRST] CYRUS' CONQUEST OF BABYLON 125
1 4th day of the mouth, Sipparwas taken without fighting. 14 Nabo-
na'id fled. On the i6th, Gubaru, governor of the country of Guti, b
and the soldiers of Cyrus, without fighting Centered Babylon. In
consequence of delaying, Nabo-na'id was taken prisoner in Babylon. '
To the end of the month, the shield-(bearers) 17 of the country of Guti
guarded the gates of E-sagil: c no one's spear approached E-sagil,
or came within the sanctuaries, 18 nor was any standard brought
therein. On the 3rd day of March esh van (October), Cyrus entered
Babylon. 19 Dissensions (?) were allayed (?) before him. Peace for the
city he established : peace to all Babylon w did Cyrus proclaim.
Gubaru, his governor, appointed governors in Babylon. ai From the
month of Kislev (November) to the month of Adar (February viz. in
the following year, 537), the gods of the country of Akkad, whom
Nabo-na'id had brought down to Babylon, 22 returned to their own
cities. On the nth day of Marcheshvan, during the night, Gubaru
made an assault (?), and slew 23 the king's son(?). d From the 27 th of '
Adar (February) to the 3rd of Nisan (March) there was lamentation
in Akkad : all the people smote their heads, etc.
The stages in the conquests of Cyrus are here traced
by a contemporary hand. First, in 549, he appears as
king of Anshan (or Anzan) evidently his native home
in Elani : in that capacity, the troops of Astyages desert
to him, and he gains possession of Ecbatana. In 546 he is
called " king of Persia " : it is reasonable therefore to infer
that in the interval since 549 he had effected the conquest
of this country. In 538 his attack upon Babylon begins.
First he secures Opis and the surrounding district of
Northern Babylonia ; then he advances to Sippar, which
he takes " without fighting " : two days afterwards, Gubaru,
his general, enters Babylon, which also offers no resistance :
Nabo-na'id is taken prisoner, but otherwise everything
proceeds peaceably. Between three and four months
afterwards, 6 Cyrus himself enters Babylon, and formally
Near the Euphrates, about 70 miles north-west of Babylon.
b A land (and people) on the north of Babylonia (cf. p. 44).
c Above, p. 121.
d The tablet is injured at this point ; but " the king's son " is the
reading which those who have most carefully examined the tablet
consider the most probable.
8 Or, according to a probable correction, proposed recently by Ed.
Meyer (Tishri [September] for Tatnmuz in line 12), 17 days afterwards.
126 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
proclaims peace to the country. A few days after Cyrus'
entry (if the reading be correct), the " king's son," who it
seems must in some way have shewn himself unwilling
to submit to the new rule, was slain in a night affray
by Gubaru.
In more respects than one, as Professor Sayce has
pointed out, 1 the old ideas about Cyrus and the events
of his time have been revolutionized by these inscriptions.
In particular, Cyrus was not of Persian origin ; he and
his ancestors were kings of Anshan, a district of Elam ;
he only became " king of Persia " afterwards. There was
no siege of Babylon by Cyrus ; Gubaru and Cyrus both
entered it without striking a blow : the well-known account
given by Herodotus (i. 191) of the stratagem by which it
was taken, the waters of the Euphrates having been diverted
by Cyrus, and his troops then entering the unguarded
gates of the city by the dry channel, while its inhabitants
were engaged in festivities, is nothing but a romance ; and
the expressions in Isa. xiii. 15-8, xxi. 2, 5-7, xliv. 27,
xlv. i, 2, Jer. 1. 14, 15, 38, li. 30, 31, 32, 36, etc., which have
been supposed to fall in with this account, are merely the
poetic imagery in which the prophets in question have
clothed the general thought of the impending doom of
Babylon. The same inscriptions shew further that the
Book of Daniel is not the work of a contemporary hand,
but springs from a later age, in which the past was viewed
in a dim and confused perspective : Belshazzar was a real
person, but he was neither " son of Nebuchadnezzar," nor
" king of Babylon " : it is possible that his military
capacities caused him to eclipse his father in the memories
of later generations, and that thus he came gradually to be
pictured as the last king of Babylon ; for the same reason
his father Nabo-na'id was forgotten, and he was imagined
to be the son of the well-known king Nebuchadnezzar.
1 Monuments, chap, xi
FIRST J THE BOOK OF DANIEL 127
Nor again was there any " king " who " received the king-
dom" after Belshazzar's death, called Darius the Mede
(Dan. v. 31, vi. i, 28, ix. i): the inscriptions leave no
room for any king between Nabo-na'id and Cyrus 1 ; and
" Darius the Mede " is a figure which arose probably out of a
confusion between Darius Hystaspis (the second successor of
Cyrus, on the throne of Persia), and Gubaru, whom Cyrus,
after his conquest of Babylon, made governor of the city. 2
It appears further from the inscriptions, and the fact
serves also as at least a partial explanation of the ease
with which Cyrus became master of Babylon, that Nabo-
na'id had made himself unpopular with his subjects : not
only was he an unwarlike king, who left his son to take
command of the troops, while he himself year after year
remained in " Teva," but further, though keen on the
restoration of ancient temples, he offended in other ways
the religious prejudices of the nation : he did not bear his
proper part in important religious festivals ; and he made
the mistake of removing the images of many local deities
from their ancient shrines and transferring them to Babylon,
thereby not only treating these deities with disrespect, but
also detracting from the pre-eminence enjoyed by Marduk,
and diminishing probably the perquisites of his priests.
1 This fact is attested independently by the contract-tablets dating
from this period, which are numerous, and which pass all but con-
tinuously from the loth ol Marcheshvan, in the I7th year of Nabo-na'id,
to the 24th of the same month in the accession-year of Cyrus (Sayce,
Monuments, pp. 522 f., 528; Strassmaier, Bab. Texte, i. 1887, p. 25,
vii. 1890, p. i).
2 There are other archaeological indications which confirm this
conclusion respecting the date of the Book of Daniel : lor instance, the
use in it of the term " Chaldaeans " (i. 4, ii. 3, etc.) to denote, not the
ruling caste (above, p. 36 note] in Babylon, but a prominent class of
wise men. This is a sense which is unknown to the language of Assyria
or Babylon, and arose only after the close of the Babylonian empire
(Schrader, KAT?, p. 429 ; Sayce, Monuments, pp. 534 f.) : it dates, in
fact, from the time when " Chaldaean " had come to be synonymous with
" Babylonian " in general, and when practically the only " Chaldaeans "
known were members of the priestly or learned class.
128 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
The priests and people being thus disaffected towards
Nabo-na'id, after the defeat of the " king's son," with his
troops, in Northern Babylonia, no serious resistance was
offered to Cyrus' advance. And Cyrus also knew how
to utilize the situation diplomatically. In the proclamation
(the so-called "Cylinder- Inscription") issued by him to the
Babylonians, soon after his entry into the city, he repre-
sents himself as the favoured servant of Marduk, specially
chosen by him to undo the deeds of Nabo-na'id, and to
restore to Babylon its ancient prestige :
7 The daily offerings he (Nabo-na'id) suspended 9 On ac-
count of (the Babylonians') complaints, the lord of the gods (Marduk)
was very wroth, and [forsook] their border ; the gods dwelling among
them left their abodes 10 in anger, because he had brought them to
Babylon. Marduk n took compassion. In all
lands he looked around, ls and sought a righteous prince, after his
heart, to take him by his hand. Cyrus, king of Anshan, he called by
name, proclaimed him for the sovereignty of the whole world. 13 utu
(Gutium), the whole of the Umman-manda, he subdued under his feet ;
the black-headed ones, whom he (Marduk) granted to his hands to
conquer, 14 he cared for with judgment and right. Marduk, the great
lord, beheld with joy the protection (?) of his peoples, his (Cyrus')
beneficent deeds, and his righteous heart ; 15 to his city Babylon he
commanded his march, and made him take the way to Babylon ; like a
friend and a comrade he went at his side 17 Without fighting or
battle, he made him enter Babylon. His city Babylon he spared distress.
Nabo-na'id, the king, who did not fear him, he delivered into his hand.
18 All the men of Babylon, the whole of Sumer and Akkad, the nobles
and governors, bowed themselves before him, and kissed his feet
20 I am Cyrus, the king of multitudes, the great king, the mighty king,
king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters
(of the earth) **.... whose rule Bel and Nebo love, whose
dominion they desired for the gladness of their heart n My
vast army spread itself out peaceably in Babylon : the whole of [Sumer
and] Akkad I freed from trouble (?) : 25 the needs of Babylon and ot all
its cities I cared for justly . . . . 26 Their sighing I stilled, their vexations
I ended. On account of my deeds, Marduk, the great lord,
rejoiced, and blessed me M The gods of Sumer and Akkad,
whom Nabo-na'id, to the displeasure of the lord of the gods, had
brought to Babylon, by the command of Marduk, the great lord, 34 I
caused to take up their abode safely in their shrines b in gladness of heart.
Alluding to his conquest of Astyages ; cf. below, p. 200.
1 Cf. lines 21-22 of the Annalistic Tablet, quoted on p. 125.
FIRST] PROCLAMATION OF CYRUS 129
And he ends with a prayer that all the gods whom
he has thus "brought [back] into their cities" may daily
intercede on his behalf before Bel and Nebo, and before
Marduk, his "lord." The inscription thus shews that,
although the general thought of the fall of Babylon before
Cyrus, expressed by the Hebrew prophets of the Exile
(Isa. xiii. xiv. 23, xl.-xlviii., Jer. l.-li.), was fulfilled, yet the
details by which they pictured it as accomplished did not,
in many cases, correspond to the event : Babylon was not
made a desolation by the Medes (Isa. xiii. 17-22 ; cf. xlvii.) ;
and Bel, Nebo, and Merodach, instead of " going into
exile" (xlvi. i, 2), and being "put to shame " (Jer. 1. 2),
remained in their places, and were made by Cyrus the
objects of special honour. It is also evident that the
Hebrew prophet, in describing Cyrus as a worshipper of
Jehovah (Isa. xli. 25), idealizes the character of his nation's
deliverer ; for in his inscriptions Cyrus speaks plainly as
a polytheist, venerating the very gods, Bel and Nebo,
who the same prophet (xlvi. i, 2) declares should be sent
into exile. The expressions in lines 12 and 22 are curiously
parallel to those which the prophet represents Jehovah as
using with reference to Cyrus (Isa. xlv. i, "whose right
hand I have holden," v. 4, " I have called thee by thy
name," xlviii. 14, "whom Jehovah loveth").
The excavations carried on in 1884-6 by M. Dieulafoy
on the site of the ancient Susa have thrown considerable
light on the topography of " Susa, the palace " or rather,
as we should say, the acropolis mentioned in Dan. viii. 2,
and the books of Nehemiah and Esther, and have disclosed
the magnificent character of the buildings which it con-
tained ; * but we have no space to describe these results in
greater detail. Visitors to the Louvre may remember how
several rooms in one of the galleries are devoted to the anti-
quities of some of the palaces of the ancient Persian kings.
1 See his LAcropole de Suse, and L'Art antique de la Perse.
9
130 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
It is during the period which has now been reviewed,
beginning, viz., with the reign of Rehoboam, and ending
with the re-establishment of the Jews in Palestine under
the Persian kings, that the inscriptions furnish the most
direct and instructive illustrations of events mentioned or
alluded to in the Old Testament. Again and again, a
notice, or even a passing allusion, is elucidated by the
inscriptions ; and the event referred to is thrown by them
into its proper perspective. In the larger light which the
contemporary records cast upon them, both the history and
prophecy of the Old Testament are removed from the
isolation in which they previously seemed to stand : they
are seen to be connected by innumerable links with the
great movements taking place in the world without : and
the prophecies, in particular, assume often in consequence
a new meaning. The policy of Assyria in the age, for
instance, of Hosea and Isaiah stands before us as a whole :
we understand its drift and aim : we understand also the
nature of its influence upon the movements of parties in
Israel and Judah themselves ; and we see how it determined,
upon important occasions, the practical line adopted by
the prophets. The prophets are not solely preachers of
moral and religious truth : they are warmly interested in
the secular welfare of their people ; and their counsels,
or warnings, on matters of national importance cannot be
properly understood except in the light of the history
which prompted them. The inscriptions complete the
picture, which of course was familiar enough to those
living at the time, but of which only a few touches here
and there have been preserved to us in the pages of the
Old Testament itself.
We conclude with some miscellaneous illustrations of the
light thrown upon the Old Testament by Aramaic and
Phoenician inscriptions.
FIRST] INSCRIPTIONS FROM ZINJIRLI 131
Here is a portion of one of the Aramaic inscrip-
tions from Zinjirli (above, p. 6), dating from the eighth
century B.C. :
1 I am Panammu, son of Kara!, king of Ya'di, who have erected this
statue to Hadad
* There stood up with ( = helped) me Hadad, and El, and Resheph,
and Rakub'el, and Shemesh ; and Hadad, and El, 3 and Rakub'el, and
Shemesh, and Resheph, put into my hand the sceptre of Hilbabah.
And Resheph stood up with me. Whatever I take 4 into my hand
[succeeds].
Then, after some mutilated lines :
8 .... Also I sat upon the throne of my father : and Hadad gave
into my hand 9 the sceptre of Hilbabah, [and kept off] the sword and
tongue (of slander) from the house of my father.
There follow again some mutilated lines, in which Karal,
Panammu's father, speaks, declaring how he had desired
Panammu to succeed him, and how he had promised him
success or the reverse, according as he honoured or not his
god, Hadad ; and the inscription ends (lines 24-34) with
a curse, such as is very usual in Semitic votive or legal
inscriptions, against any one who destroys or defaces the
monument. In this inscription nearly every word illus-
trates something in the Old Testament. Hadad is the
Syrian god, whose name appears in the proper names Ben-
hadad and Hadad-ezer. Resheph is probably the fire-god :
the same word occurs in Hebrew in the sense of a fiery
dart (Deut. xxxii. 24, Hab. iii. 5, Ps. Ixxviii. 48, and else-
where). Shemesh (in Hebrew, " the sun ") is the sun-god (so
constantly in the Assyrian inscriptions : cf. Beth-shemesh).
Sceptre is in the original the same word (rare in Hebrew),
which is translated rod in Isa. xi. i. For "tongue" in the
sense of slanderous tongue, comp. the expression " man of
tongue "in Ps. cxl. 11, and " betongueth " (i.e. slandereth)
in Ps. ci. 5. Many similar illustrations might be quoted
from other parts of the inscription.
Here is part of another inscription : the Panammu
132 " HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
mentioned is probably a grandson of the Panammu named
in the former inscription :
1 This statue Bar-rekub has set up to his father Panammu, son of
Bar-zur, [in memory of the] year in which my father escaped [the
destruction of the house of] s his father. The gods of Ya'di have
rescued him from his destruction. There was a conspiracy in the house
of his father ; and there rose up [a conspirator , who brought]
destruction 3 upon the house of his father, and slew his father Bar-zur,
and slew seventy * brethren (i.e. kinsmen) of his father
4 [And Hadad said, Because ye have
brought] 5 the sword into my house, and have slain one of my sons (i.e.
Bar-zur), I also have brought (?) the sword into the land of Ya'di, and
Hilbabah And 6 corn, durra, wheat, and barley were
destroyed ; and a peres (of wheat) cost a shekel, and a shatrab [of
barley] a shekel, and an asnah of drink a shekel. And my father
carried [many presents] 7 to the king of Assyria ; and he made him king
over the house of his father, and removed (?) the stone of destruction
from his father's house ; 8 [and he rebuilt]
9 the house of his father, and made it more beautiful than it had been
before. And wheat and barley and corn and durra were abundant
in his days.
The result of Panammu's appeal to Tiglath-pileser was
thus, that he was recognized as lawful king, and tranquillity
was restored in his kingdom. It will be remembered how
the same king assisted both Menahem of Israel and Ahaz
of Judah in their difficulties. The inscription goes on to
narrate how the Assyrian king bestowed further marks
of favour upon his vassal, how Panammu accompanied
" his lord, Tiglath-pileser," on his expeditions, until in one
of them he died : Tiglath-pileser then organized a great
funeral ceremony (a " weeping " : cf. Gen. 1. 4, 10) on the
way, and had his body brought from Damascus to his
home for interment. Bar-rekub continues :
19 And as for me, Bar-rekub, son of Panammu, through the righteous-
ness of my father, and through my righteousness, my lord, the king of
Assyria, has caused me to sit [upon the throne] of m my father
Panammu, the son of Bar-zur. And I have set up this statue to my
father Panammu, the son of Bar-zur
",.... And may Hadad, and El, and Rakub'el, the patron of the
* Cf. Judg. ix. 5, 2 Kings x. 7,
FIRST] INSCRIPTIONS FROM ZINJIRLI 133
house, and Shemesh, and all the gods of Ya di [cause any one who
defaces this monument to be accursed] 2I before gods and before men.*
The name Tiglath-pileser in Assyrian, Tuklat-abal-i-
s/iar-ra is written in this inscription precisely as it is
spelt in 2 Kings xvi. 7. A second inscription of the same
Bar-rekub is also worth quoting :
'I am Bar-rekub, 2 son of Panammu, king of Samal, 3 servant b of
Tiglath-pileser, lord of 4 the four quarters of the earth. For the
righteousness of my father, and for my 5 righteousness, have my lord
Rakub'el G and my lord Tiglath-pileser made me to sit on 7 the throne of
my father .... 8 and I have run at the wheel of 9 my lord, d the
king of Assyria, among 10 great kings, the possessors 6 of n silver, and
the possessors e of gold; and I have taken in possession 12 the house
of my father, and I have beautified it "more than the house of any
of the great kings ; u and my brethren, the kings, have given liberally
15 to all the beauty of my house, and 16 through me has it been
beautified .... for my fathers, the 17 kings of Sam'al. It is a house
of 18 for them. Thus it is a winter-house f for 19 them,
and it is a summer-house ; f and so I have built this house.
The whole of that part of Syria in which Zinjirli lies
abounds with similar mounds, concealing the remains of
ancient castles and towers ; and it is much to be hoped
that the excavations there may be continued. Hittites
and Aramaeans met in this neighbourhood : who knows
how much a single bilingual inscription might contribute
towards solving the problem of the Hittite language ?
Here is part of an Aramaic inscription from Tema,
about two hundred and fifty miles south-east of Edom
(Isa. xxi. 14, Job vi. igi). e One Salmshezeb ("Salm has
delivered " : cf. Neh. iii. 4, Meshezeb'el, " God delivereth ")
a See further D. H. Miiller, Die Altsemitischen Inschriften von
Sendschirli (1893), and in the Contemp. Rev., April, 1894, pp. 563 ff.
b Cf. 2 Kings xvi. 7, " I am thy servant and thy son."
The form of this word is peculiar, and identical with that found in
the Aramaic verse, Jer. x. II. On the title, cf. above, p. 40.
d I.e. followed his chariot.
6 Ba'ctle, used similarly in Hebrew.
Cf. Amos iii. 15. The "house" meant in these lines is seemingly
a mausoleum : it is to be for the perpetual use of the kings of Sam'al.
See the Corp, Inscr. Sem , II. i. ( pp. io8ff.
134 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
had introduced a new deity, Salm of Hagam, into the
pantheon of Tema ; and this inscription states that the native
gods of Tema had made over certain annual dues to the
new-comer, and had also conferred upon Salmshezeb and
his descendants a hereditary priesthood in the temple :
8 This is the stele 9 erected by Salmshezeb, son of Petosiri, 10 in the
temple of Salm of Hagam. For the gods of n Tema have granted d[ues]
to Salmshezeb, son of Petosiri, 12 and to his seed, in the temple of
Salm of Hagam. And whoso "destroys this stele, may the gods of
Tema 14 pluck up * him and his seed b and his name b from the face
of (the ground of) 15 Tema. And this is the due which 16 Salm of
Mahram, and Shangala, and Ashira, 17 the gods of Tema, have given to
Salm of Hagam : viz. 18 from the (public) laud 16 palms, and from the
royal 19 treasure 5 palms, in all *2i palms, every year. 6 May neither
gods nor men 21 remove Salmshezeb, son of Petosiri, M from this
temple, or his seed, or his name, as priests d in this temple [for ever].
Here is a Nabataean inscription from the fagade in
front of one of the rock-hewn tombs of el-'Ola, a little south
of Tema 6 :
1 This is the tomb which 'A'idu, son of Kuhailu, son of l Alexi, has
made for himself, and for his children, and their descendants, and for
whoever produces in his hand 3 a writ of authorization from the hand
of 4 'Aidu, as a sanction for him and for any one to whom 'Ai'du, during
his lifetime, may grant the right of burial therein : in the month Nisan,
in the ninth year of 5 Harithat, king of the Nabataeans, lover of his
people. And may Dushara, and Manotu, and Qatsah curse 6 whoever
sells this tomb, or whoever buys it, or pledges or gives or 7 lets it, or
whoever frames for it any (other) deed,? or buries in it any man s except
such as are hereinbefore designated (lit. written). And the tomb and
this its inscription e are inviolable, 11 9 after the manner of what is held
inviolable h by the Nabataeans and Salamians, in perpetuity.
" Deut. xxviii. 63 (the same word). b Cf. i Sam. xxiv. 21.
c The idiom here used is one that is also common in Hebrew.
d The word is one found also in some other inscriptions, but in the
Old Testament only three times, always of idolatrous priests : Hos. x. 5,
Zeph. i. 4, 2 Kings xxiii. 5.
e Euting, Nabat, Inschriften (1885), pp. 25 f.
f Gods of the Nabataeans.
* Lit. writing. What is meant is the inscription itself, which is
also, as it were, a legal deed, defining who are to have the right of
burial in the tomb. Most of the Nabataean inscriptions are of
similar import.
b Or, sacred ; properly^/// off, prohibited, and so not to be infringed.
FIRST] NABATAEAN INSCRIPTIONS 135
Harithat is the Aretas of 2 Cor. xi. 32 ; and his ninth
year would be I B.C. " Lover of his people " ( = ^XoTrar/w)
is his standing title, both in these inscriptions and on coins.
The month Nisan (March April) is mentioned in Neh. ii. i,
Esther iii. 7 : it is one of the names of the Assyrian months,
which were borrowed by the Jews in post-exilic times.
The following Nabataean inscription is from one of the
rock-hewn tombs in a Wady debouching into the Wady
Musa, very near Petra, the capital of the ancient Edom a :
1 This tomb, and the great chamber within it, and the smaller chamber
within b that, wherein the graves are, constructed in compartments,
* and the surrounding wall (?) in front of them, and the
and the houses therein, and the gardens, and the feast(?)-garden, c and
the wells of water, and the dry places, and the rocks, 3 and the rest of
all the ground (?) in these places, are (registered) as the sacred and
inviolable possession of Dushara, the god of our lord, and his
council/ 1 and of all the gods, 4 in the deeds relating to sacred spots, as
is (stated) therein. It is the command of Dushara, and of his council,*
and of all the gods, that everything be done according as is (prescribed)
in those deeds relating to the sacred spots, and that nothing whatever
be altered 5 or taken away from what is (prescribed) therein, and that
no man whatever be ever buried in this tomb, except those for whom
the right of a grave is prescribed in those deeds relating to sacred spots.
The precise specification of everything appertaining to
the tomb recalls the terms of Gen. xxiii. 17.
Here is an inscription from Palmyra, on an altar
brought home by Wood in 1751, and now in the Ashmolean
Museum in Oxford :
1 In the month of Elul, in the year 396, 2 this sun-pillar and this
altar 3 were made and dedicated by Lishmash and Zebeida, * sons of
Malchu, son of Yaria'bel, son of Nesha, 3 who is surnamed the son of
Abdibel, of the G clan of the children of Migdath, to Shemesh (the sun),
7 the god of the house of their father, for its life (i.e. safety), 8 and for
their own life, and for the lives of their brethren 9 and their children.
a Neldeke, Zeitschr.fur Assyriologie, August, 1897, pp. i ff.
b The form of this word illustrates that which occurs in the Book of
Daniel (iii. 6, n, etc.).
c I.e., probably, the garden in which funereal feasts were held.
d Lit. session, assembly : cf. Ps. cvii. 32 (Heb.).
136 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
The word for sun-pillar is the same which occurs in
Isa. xvii. 8, xxvii. 9, Ezek. vi. 4, 6, Lev. xxvi. 30,
2 Chron. xiv. 5, xxxiv. 4, 7. The month Elul (August
September), as Neh. vi. 15. The year 396 (viz. of the
era of the Seleucidae) is A.D. 85.
The following are four Phoenician inscriptions : a passage
is occasionally mutilated, or uncertain, but the general sense
is clear :
1 I am Yebawmelech, king of Gebal, son of Yaharba'al, grandson of
Adommelech, king of * Gebal, for whom the lady, the mistress of Gebal,
made the kingdom over Gebal. And I call upon 3 my lady, the mistress
of Gebal, [because she heard my voi]ce. And I have made for my lady,
the mistress of 4 Gebal, this altar of bronze, which is in this [court],
and this golden carving, which is on this . . . . , and the .... of
gold, which is in the midst of the that is on this golden
carving. 6 And this porch, and its pillars, and the [capitals] that are
upon them, and its roof, I, 7 Yehawmelech, king of Gebal, have made for
my lady, the mistress of Gebal, because, since I called upon my lady,
8 the mistress of Gebal, she heard my voice, and shewed grace unto me.
May the mistress of Gebal bless Yehawmelech, 9 king of Gebal, and
give him life, and prolong his days, and years, (as he rules) over
Gebal, because he is a righteous king ! And may the lady, the mistress
of Gebal, give him favour in the eyes of the gods, and in the eyes of
the people of this land ; and may the favour of the people of the land
11 [be with him continually?]. Every kingdom, and every man, who
may make any addition to this 12 al[tar, or to this car]ving of gold, or to
this porch, I, Yehawmelech, [king of Gebal,] set [my face against]
him who does such a work M And
whoever upon this place, and whoever may the
lady, the mistress of Gebal, [cut off, or curse] that man, and his seed.
Gebal was one of the cities on the coast of Phoenicia,
mentioned in Ezek. xxvii. 9, called Byblus by the Greeks.
Above the inscription there is a representation of the
goddess seated, with the king standing before her, and
offering her a libation. The inscription dates probably
from the fifth century B.C. The resemblances which in
several places its phraseology displays to that of the Old
Testament will be noticed by the reader.
The funereal inscription of Eshmun'azar, king of Sidon,
FIRST] PHOENICIAN INSCRIPTIONS 137
from a sarcophagus, found in 1855 on the site of the
ancient necropolis of Sidon :
1 In the month of Bui," in the fourteenth year of his reign, viz. of
Eshmun'azar, king of the Sidonians, 2 son of King Tabnith, king of the
Sidonians, spake King Eshmun'azar, king of the Sidonians, saying : I
am snatched away 3 before my time b and I lie in this
coffin, and in this tomb, 4 in the place that I have built. I adjure (?)
every royal person, and every man, that they open not this resting-
place, 5 nor seek treasures (?), for there are no treasures (?) there, not
take away the coffin of my resting-place, nor superimpose 6 upon this
resting-place the chamber of a second resting-place. Yea, though men
speak to thee (of treasures there), hearken not to their falsehoods (?).
For every royal person, and 7 every man, who may open the chamber of
this resting-place, or who may take away the coffin of my resting-place,
or who may superimpose 8 anything upon this resting-place may they
have no resting-place with the Shades, and may they not be buried in a
tomb, and may they have no son or seed 9 to succeed them ; and may
the holy gods deliver them up unto a mighty king (?) who may rule over
them, 10 to cut off that royal person, or that man, who may open the
chamber of this resting-place, or who may take away u this coffin, and
the seed of that royal person, or of those men ; may they have no root
beneath, or u fruit above, neither any beauty d among the living under
the sun, for I am snatched away before my time .... 13 ...
For it is I, Eshmun'azar, king of the Sidonians, son of
14 King Tabnith, king of the Sidonians, grandson of King Eshmun'azar,
king of the Sidonians, and my mother Am'ashtart, 15 priestess of 'Ashtart
our lady, the queen, daughter of King Eshmun'azar, King of the Sidonians,
who have built the temples of 16 the gods, to wit, the temple of 'Ashtart
in Sidon, the country by the sea, and have made 'Ashtart to dwell there
And we it is 17 who have built a temple for Eshmun,
a sacred in the mountains, and ; and we it is who
have built temples ls to the gods of the Sidonians in Sidon, the country
by the sea, a temple for Baal of Sidon, and a temple for 'Ashtart, the
name e of Baal. And moreover, the lord of kings has given to us 19 Dor *
and Joppa,* noble lands of corn, which are in the field of Sharon,* for
* I Kings vi. 38.
b Job xxii. 1 6.
c Properly place for lying in, used in Hebrew both of a!bed (2 Sam.
xvii. 28), and also, as here, of a couch, or resting-place, in the grave
(2 Chron. xvi. 14, Isa. Ivii. 2, Ezek. xxxii. 25).
d Fig. for posterity.
e I.e. (probably) manifestation (cf. Exod. xxiii. 21).
f Josh. xi. 2, xvii. n.
e Josh. xix. 46, Jonah i. 3.
h Isa. Ixv. 10, i Chron. xxvii. 29.
138 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
which I have done ; and he has added (?) them 20 to the
borders of the land that they might belong to the Sidonians for ever.
I adjure every royal person, and every man, that he open not my
chamber, J1 nor empty my chamber, not superimpose anything upon
this my resting-place, nor take away the coffin of my resting-place,
22 lest these holy gods deliver them up, and cut off that royal person, or
those men, and their seed, for ever.
This inscription dates probably from the fourth century
B.C. The word for " Shades " in line 8 (which is also met
with elsewhere in Phoenician) is the same (" Rephaim ")
that occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament in the
same sense. 1 The similarity of expression between " root
beneath, or fruit above" (lines 11, 12), and Amos ii. 9,
Job xviii. 16, Isa. xxxvii. 31, is remarkable. 'Ashtart
is, of course, the 'Ashtoreth of the Old Testament
(i Kings xi. 5, 33, and elsewhere). 2
The following inscription is one found at Tamassus, in
the centre of Cyprus, in 1885 3 :
1 This is the statue which 2 Menahem, son of Ben-hodesh, son 3 of
Menahem, son of 'Arak, gave and set up to his lord, to Resheph of
4 Eleyith, in the month of Ethanim, in the 5 thirtieth year of King
Malkiyathan, king of 6 Kiti and Idail, because he had heard his voice.
May he bless (him) !
This inscription dates probably from about the middle
of the fourth century B.C. : several, very similarly ex-
pressed, have been found at the neighbouring cities of
Larnaca (the Greek Kition, here Kiti, whence the Kittim
i.e. the Kitians of Gen. x. 4, Isa. xxiii. i, 12), and Dali
(the Greek Idalion, here Idail). For Resheph, see above,
1 Isa. xiv. 9, xxvi. 14, 19, Ps. Ixxxviii. 10, Prov. ii. 18, ix. 18, xxi. 16,
Job xxvi. 5.
2 The funereal inscription of theTabnith, mentioned in line 2, shorter,
but similar in its general import, was found at Sidon in 1887 (see the
writer's Notes on Samuel, pp. xxvi-ix, with a facsimile). Here the
desecration of a tomb is described as "'Ashtart's abomination ": comp.
the expression "Jehovah's abomination," Deut. vii. 25, xvii. I, and
elsewhere.
3 Published by the late Professor W. Wright in the Proc. of the Soc.
of Bibl. Arch., ix. (1886), p. 47.
FIRST] PHOENICIAN INSCRIPTIONS 139
p. 131. The Phoenician month Ethanim ("ever-flowing
streams "), as in i Kings viii. 2. The word for " statue,"
in line i, is the rare Hebrew word found in Deut. iv. 16,
Ezek. viii. 3, 5, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7, 15.
Here, lastly, is the inscription on a small votive pillar
from Carthage :
l To the lady, Tanith, the face of Baal, and 2 to the lord, Baal
yamman (or, the Solar Baal), which 3< Azrubaal, son of tfanno, son
of 4 'Azrubaal, son of Baalyathan, vowed, because she heard 5 his voice.
May she bless him !
More than two thousand votive pillars or tablets, with
inscriptions couched almost in the same words, the only
difference being in the names of the offerers, have been
found in North Africa. There are many allusions in
the Old Testament to the practice of making vows.
Tanith was the patron goddess of Carthage. The ex-
pression, "face of Baal," seems to indicate that she was
in some way regarded as a representative of the supreme
Phoenician god. " Hamman " is the same word which
in the inscription from Palmyra (above, p. 135) was
rendered sun-pillar : it implies that the Baal here spoken
of was identified with the sun. Baal (like Zeus or
Athene among the Greeks) received in different places
different characteristic epithets : in the Old Testament,
we have Baal of Peor (Numb. xxv. 3, Ps. cvi. 28), Baal of
the Covenant (Judg. viii. 33), Baal of Flies (2 Kings i. 2) ;
and similarly in Phoenician inscriptions we read of Baal
of Sidon (above, p. 137), Baal of Lebanon, Baal of Tyre,
Baal of Tarsus, Baal of Heaven, and, as here, of the
Solar Baal.
Some examples may be added of scattered names and
expressions which have been elucidated by the monuments.
The names Gad, Baal, and Ashtoreth have been explained
briefly already. 1 Anatk (in the proper names, Anath,
1 Pp.47, 138, i39-
140 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
Judg. iii. 31, Beth-anath in Galilee, Judg. i. 33, Beth-anoth
in Judah, Josh. xv. 59, Anathoth, a little north of Jerusalem,
Isa. x. 30) is the name of a goddess, mentioned in Egyptian
inscriptions of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties, and
in (later) Phoenician inscriptions. Rimmon, in whose
temple Naaman craves pardon for bowing down (2 Kings
v. 1 8), is the Babylonian and Assyrian air- and storm-god,
Ramm&n : his name, it will be remembered, has already
. occurred in the Babylonian narrative of the Flood. Siccuth
or, better, Saccuth in Amos v. 26 (R.V.) is a name of
Adar, the Assyrian god of war and the chase. Chiun
or, better, Kaiwan in the same verse, is an Assyrian
name of the planet Saturn. Nahum (iii. 8) calls Thebes
" No of Amon," l and Amon (or Amen) is shewn by the
inscriptions to have been the tutelary god of Thebes, whc
afterwards became the national god of Egypt. Tammuz
(Ezek. viii. 14) is an old Babylonian (Sumerian) deity,
Du-mu-zi (" the son of life ") : 2 the fourth month of the
Assyrian and Babylonian year was named after him. 3
Some foreign official titles, occurring in the Old Testa-
ment, may next be explained. Pharaoh is the Egyptian
. Per-da, " the Great House," a title (something like the
" Sublime Porte ") constantly applied in the Egyptian
inscriptions to the ruling sovereign. In 2 Kings xviii. 17
we read that Sennacherib " sent Tartan, and Rab-saris, and
Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem." These terms,
however, are not in reality proper names. " Tartan " (also
Isa. xx. i) is the Assyrian turtanu, or commander-in-chief
of the army : Shalmaneser II., for instance, says, " In my
twenty-seventh year, I summoned my forces, and sent Dain-
Asshur, the turtan, at the head of my army, to Urartu
(Armenia)." 4 "Rab-saris" (also Jer. xxxix. 3), as Mr.
1 The rendering, " populous No," of the Auth. Version, is incorrect.
* Cf. above, p. 20. 3 Cf. p. 124.
4 K. B., i. 145 ; see also above, p. 101.
FIRST] O.T. NAMES AND TITLES EXPLAINED 141
Pinches 1 discovered, is the Assyrian rabu-sha-reshu, " chief
of the heads," the title of a court-dignitary. " Rabshakeh "
is the Assyrian rab-shak, " chief of the high ones," the title
of a high officer in the Assyrian army. Tiglath-pileser
says, " My officer, the rab-shak, I sent to Tyre," to receive
tribute of gold, 2 a curious parallel to what is here related
of Sennacherib. Pehah, i Kings x. 1 5 (" governor "), Isa.
xxxvi. 9 ("captain "), Neh. ii. 7, 9, Hag. i. i, and elsewhere
("governor"); and sdgdn, Isa. xli. 25 (R.V. "rulers,"
marg. " deputies ") ; both words together in Jer. li. 23, 28,
57 (R.V. "governors and deputies"), Ezek. xxiii. 6, 12, 23
(R.V. " governors and rulers," marg. " and deputies ") ; are
terms of exceedingly common occurrence in the Assyrian
inscriptions : both (the latter in the form shakrni) are
constantly used to denote the officer appointed over a
conquered district or province : the former may be rendered
for distinctness governor, the latter deputy or prefect. The
viceroys, whom Asshurbanipal installed in Egypt, are
called pihdti : 3 Tiglath-pileser appointed shaknus over the
conquered districts of Hamath and Northern Israel ; 4 we read
also of the sliaknu, or prefect, of a city, as Babylon, Arbela,
or Uruk. 5 In Jer. li. 27, Nah. iii. 17, there occurs the
strange, and manifestly un-Hebrew word, tiphsar, the mean-
ing of which was quite uncertain (A.V., guessing from the
context, '' captain ") : it is now seen that it is the Sumerian,
Babylonian, and Assyrian dupsar, " tablet-writer," i.e. scribe,
registrar (hence R.V. " marshal "), used, for example, in the
expression " the dupsar, who wrote this tablet," 6 and found
frequently in the contract-tablets, in the sense of scribe. The
peculiar word (appeden) rendered "palace" in Dan. xi. 45
is found in the Persian inscriptions of Artaxerxes II.
(405-359 B.C.), at Ecbatana 7 and Susa ; it occurs, for
1 Academy, June 25, 1892, p. 618. K. B., ii. 23.
3 K. JS., ii. 237, 239. K. B., ii. 27, 33.
4 K. B., ii. 73, 115, 143- e K. B., iii. i, p. 169.
7 Evetts in the Zcitschr.fiir Assyriologie, 1890, p. 415.
142 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
instance, in the inscription on one of the columns of
the great hypostyle hall, or throne-room, excavated by
M. Dieulafoy at Susa. 1 Another Persian word, dethabdr,
"law-bearer, judge," Dan. iii. 2, 3 (A.V. "counsellor"),
though the meaning was clear before from the Pehlevi, was
found to occur frequently in the commercial inscriptions
belonging to the reigns of Artaxerxes I. (465-425 B.C.)
and Darius II. (424-405 B.C.), excavated recently by the
Pennsylvanian expedition at Nippur.
Examples of the light thrown by inscriptions upon the
lexicography of Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic might readily
be quoted ; but they would be of too technical a nature to
interest the general reader. A few have been noticed above
in passing. There are perhaps a dozen Egyptian words
occurring in the Old Testament, but they are all such as
were naturalized in Hebrew : they are not confined to the
Pentateuch, 2 and they furnish no clue to the date at which
the books in which they are found were written.
We have just room for two or three illustrations, in
addition to those which have been already given, of the light
thrown by the inscriptions upon tribes and places. The
land of Ararat (Gen. viii. 4, Isa. xxxvii. 38, Jer. li. 27)
is the Urartu of the Assyrian inscriptions, repeatedly
mentioned in them, and occupying a place corresponding
generally to what we now call Armenia. Tiglath-pileser III.
tells us how he invaded the " land of Urartu," for the
purpose of punishing the revolt of its king, Sardaurri. 3
Minni, in the same verse of Jeremiah (li. 27), are the
1 " This hall (apaddna), Darius, my great-grandfather, built it ; after-
wards, in the time of Artaxerxes, my grandfather, it was burnt with
fire. By the grace of Ormuzd, Anahita, and Mithra, I have restored
this apaddna."
3 For instance, dhu, " reed-grass," Gen. xli. 2, 18, but also Job viii. n
(not elsewhere) : yifor, the Egyptian name of the Nile, regularly through-
out the Old Testament. The number of Egyptian words occurring in
the Pentateuch has been greatly exaggerated by some writers.
3 K. B., ii. 7, 8.
FIRST] GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES EXPLAINED 143
Mannai of the inscriptions, whose home was south of
Urartu : it is one of Sargon's boasts that he " reduced
to order the rebellious Mannai " ; and Asshurbanipal
describes at some length a victorious invasion of their
territory. 1 The " river Chebar," mentioned in Ezek. i. i, 3,
iii. 15, and elsewhere, as running through a spot where
there was a colony of Jewish exiles, and which was the
scene of Ezekiel's ministry, was for long searched for
in vain in the inscriptions ; but from two discovered at
Nippur, and published only last year, Professor Hilprecht
identifies it with great probability with the Kabaru, "a
large navigable canal not far from Nippur."
In the preceding pages, the writer, as far as was possible,
has allowed the facts to speak for themselves, merely, from
time to time, pointing out the inferences which appeared
to follow from them. But the reader will expect naturally
some more definite reference to questions which are of
present interest, and will desire to know what bearing
the archaeological discoveries of recent years have on the
so-called " Higher Criticism " of the Old Testament, and
whether, on the whole, they support or not the conclusions
generally accepted by modern critics respecting the
authorship and historical value of the books of the Old
Testament.
In considering these questions there is a distinction
which it is important to bear in mind the distinction, viz.,
between the testimony of archaeology which is direct, and
that which is indirect. Where the testimony of archaeology
is direct, it is of the highest possible value, and, as a rule,
determines a question decisively ; even where it is indirect,
if it is sufficiently circumstantial and precise, it may make
a settlement highly probable : it often happens, however,
that its testimony is indirect and at the same time not
1 K. B., ii. 37, 177, 179. .
144 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
circumstantial, and then, especially if besides it should
conflict with more direct evidence supplied from other
sources, it possesses little or no cogency. Examples of
the direct testimony of archaeology have been furnished
by the Books of Kings, though, as it happens, these have
related mostly to points on which there has been no
controversy, and on which the Biblical statements have
not been questioned. It would be an example of the
second kind of archaeological testimony, if, to take an
imaginary case, the Book of Genesis had described the
patriarchs as visiting various places inhabited by tribes
to which there were no references in later books of the
Old Testament, but which the evidence of the monuments
had now shewn to be correctly located : under such circum-
stances the agreement with the facts would be strong
evidence that the narrator drew his information from trust-
worthy sources. In cases of the third kind of archaeological
testimony, if its value is to be estimated aright, attention
must be paid to the circumstances of the individual case.
In the abstract, for instance, there is no difficulty in the
statement that Manasseh was taken captive to Babylon,
that he there repented, and was afterwards released : the
difficulty (as has been explained above) arises solely
from the circumstances under which the statement occurs
in the Old Testament, and from its apparent conflict
with statements made by earlier and nearly contemporary
writers ; and no amount of evidence respecting other kings
taken captive to Babylon and afterwards released can
neutralize the special difficulties attaching to the particular
case of Manasseh. In the abstract, again, there is no
reason why Hebrew names of a particular type should
not have been formed at an early period : but if an
induction from materials supplied by the Old Testament
itself renders the fact doubtful, the circumstance that other
Semitic nations framed names of this kind at an early
FIRST] NATURE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 145
period does not prove that the Hebrews did the same.
Analogies drawn from what may have happened under
different circumstances cannot neutralize the force of
positive and particular reasons arising out of the circum-
stances of an individual case. Similarly, other indirect
testimony, of the kind, for instance, frequently adduced
by Professor Hommel, and consisting not in the actual
statements found in the inscriptions, but in hypothetical
and often precarious inferences drawn from them, is
entirely destitute of logical cogency. The distinction
between the direct and the indirect testimony of archaeo-
logy is one which must be carefully borne in mind, if
false conclusions are to be avoided.
Now while, as need hardly be said, there are many points
on which, as between what may be termed the traditional
and the critical views of the Old Testament, the verdict of
archaeology is neutral, on all other points the facts of
archaeology, so far as they are at present known, har-
monize entirely with the positions generally adopted by
critics. The contrary is, indeed, often asserted : it is said,
for example, that the discoveries of Oriental archaeology
are daily refuting the chief conclusions reached by critics,
and proving them one after another to be untenable : but
if the grounds on which such statements rest are examined
in detail, it will be found that they depend almost uniformly
upon misapprehension : either the critics have not held
the opinions imputed to them, or the opinions rightly
imputed to them have not been overthrown by the dis-
coveries of archaeology. 1 And in cases belonging to the
latter category, the principal ground of the misapprehen-
sion lies in the neglect of the distinction between the
direct and indirect testimony of archaeology which has
been explained above. The conclusions reached by critics
1 Examples of both these misapprehensions abound, unhappily, in
Professor Sayce's writings.
10
146 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
have been opposed, not to statements made directly in
the inscriptions, but to questionable and even illogical
inferences deduced from them. A few examples will best
illustrate the truth of what has been said.
The Tel el-Amarna tablets, it has repeatedly been
alleged, by shewing that writing was practised in Pales-
tine even before the age of Moses, have undermined the
primary assumption of the criticism of the Pentateuch, so
that the conclusions based upon it all collapse together.
The statement implies a complete misconception of the real
grounds upon which the criticism of the Pentateuch depends.
The critical view of the structure of the Pentateuch, and of
the dates to which its component parts are to be assigned,
does not depend upon any assumption that Moses was
unacquainted with the art of writing : it depends upon the
internal evidence supplied by the Pentateuch itself respect-
ing the elements of which it is composed, and upon the
relation which these elements bear to one another, and
to other parts of the Old Testament. The grounds on
which the literary analysis of the Pentateuch depends
may, of course, be debated upon their own merits ; but
archaeology has nothing to oppose to them. Indeed,
according to Professor Sayce, the composite character of
the Pentateuch, so far from being contrary to the " teachings
of Oriental archaeology," is " fully in accordance with "
them : other ancient writings are known to be of composite
structure ; " the composite character of the Pentateuch,
therefore, is only what a study of similar contemporaneous
literature brought to light by modern research would lead
us to expect." 1
Even in regard to the dates of the elements of which the
Pentateuch consists nothing has hitherto been established
by archaeology, that is inconsistent with those commonly
assigned by them to critics. What has been alleged to the
1 Monuments, pp. 31, 34. Similarly Hist, of the Hebrews, p. 129.
FIRST] ARCHAEOLOGY AND CRITICISM 147
contrary is anything but conclusive. The argument, for
instance, that Gen. x. 6 which speaks of Canaan as the
youngest brother of Kush, Mizraim (i.e. Egypt), and Put
could have been written only under the eighteenth and nine-
teenth Egyptian dynasties, when Canaan was an Egyptian
province, depends upon a most questionable exegesis : in
no other instance in the table is political dependency
indicated by a tribe (or people) being represented as a
younger brother ; equality, rather than dependency, is the
relation that would naturally be understood as subsisting
between brothers ; and Mizraim does not even enjoy the
pre-eminence which might be supposed to belong to the
eldest brother in a family. Other parts of the same
chapter, as Professor Sayce himself remarks, " tell a different
tale," and must belong "to the seventh century B.C., or
later." 1 It has been said, again, that Gen. xiv. is a trans-
lation from a cuneiform document, and the narrative of
Joseph from a hieratic papyrus ; but in both cases the
grounds alleged are slender and inconclusive in the ex-
treme. The sale of the field of Machpelah, as narrated in
Gen. xxiii., it has been recently stated, 2 " belongs essentially
to the early Babylonian and not to the Assyrian period."
As a matter of fact, it does nothing of the kind. Of the
expressions quoted in support of the statement, " before "
occurs repeatedly, in exactly the same application, in the
contract-tablets of the age of Sargon, Sennacherib, and
Asshurbanipal ; 3 and the others are of common occur-
rence in Hebrew writings of the period of the Kings and
Jeremiah : even the term " current " occurs in 2 Kings xii. 4.
The truth is that none of the earlier Biblical narratives have
been shewn by archaeology to be contemporaneous with the
events to which they relate. The inherent nature o? the
1 History, pp. 131 f. ; Monuments, p. 9.
2 Sayce, History, p. 61.
8 K. B., iv. 109, in, 113, 115, 117, 119, 121, etc.
148 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
events recorded, for instance, in the narratives of Genesis
respecting Joseph, and in the account of the Exodus, makes
it exceedingly difficult to believe that they do not rest
upon a foundation of fact : but no tangible archaeological
evidence has yet been adduced shewing that any of these
narratives were the work of a contemporary hand : the
supposition that, at whatever date they were drawn up,
they embody substantially true traditions is one that does
abundant justice to the archaeological data which they
contain. And of course there are many parts of these
narratives in which even this supposition is not required
by the facts of archaeology.
Nor does more follow from the topographical accuracy
of the Old Testament. The Palestinian topography of the
Book of Genesis is exact ; but, upon the view taken of it
by critics, it was written by men familiar with Palestine ;
so that topographical correctness is only what would be
expected under the circumstances. As Professor G. A.
Smith justly says, " that a story accurately reflects
geography does not necessarily mean that it is a real
transcript of history else were the Book of Judith the
truest man ever wrote, instead of being what it is, a pretty
piece of fiction. Many legends are wonderful photographs
of scenery, and, therefore, let us at once admit, that, while
we may have other reasons for the historical truth of the
patriarchal narratives, we cannot prove this on the ground
that their itineraries and place-names are correct." 1 It is
for this reason that exploration in Palestine, valuable and
interesting as its results have been, has contributed but
little towards solving the great historical problems which
the Old Testament presents.
The verdict is similar when we pass to consider the
bearing of archaeology, not on the narratives, as such, but
on the histories which they recount. From this point of
1 Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 108.
FIRST] ARCHAEOLOGY AND CRITICISM 149
view, also, the results proved by archaeology have been
greatly exaggerated. The question, be it observed, is not
what archaeology has established with regard to other
ancient nations, but what it has established with regard to
Israel and its ancestors. Mr. Tomkins and Professor Sayce
have, for example, produced works on The Age of Abraham,
and Patriarchal Palestine, full of interesting particulars,
collected from the monuments, respecting the condition,
political, social, and religious, of Babylonia, Palestine, and
Egypt, in the centuries before the age of Moses : but
neither of these volumes contains the smallest evidence
that either Abraham or the other patriarchs ever actually
existed. PatriarcJial Palestine, in fact, opens with a
fallacy. Critics, it is said (pp. I f.), have taught "that there
were no Patriarchs, and no Patriarchal age " ; but, " the
critics notwithstanding, the Patriarchal age has actually
existed," and " it has been shewn by modern discovery to
be a fact." Modern discovery has shewn no such thing.
It has shewn, indeed, that Palestine had inhabitants before
the Mosaic age, that Babylonians, Egyptians, and Canaan-
ites, for instance, visited it, or made it their home ; but
that the Hebrew patriarchs lived in it, there is no tittle of
monumental evidence whatever. They may have done so :
but our knowledge of the fact depends, at present, entirely
upon what is said in the Book of Genesis. Not one of the
many facts adduced by Professor Sayce is independent
evidence that the patriarchs visited Palestine, or even that
they existed at all. What Professor Sayce has done is
firstly to draw from the monuments a picture of Palestine
as it was in pre-Mosaic times, then to work the history of
the patriarchs into it (chap, iv.), and having done this, to
argue, or imply, that he had proved the historical character
of the latter ! It is, of course, perfectly legitimate for those
who, on independent grounds, accept the historical character
of the narratives of Genesis to combine them with data
150 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART
derived from the monuments into a single picture : but
those who undertake to prove from the monuments the
historical character of the narratives of Genesis must, at all
costs, distinguish carefully between statements which rest
exclusively upon the authority of these narratives, and
those which depend upon the testimony of the monuments ;
if they fail to do this, misunderstanding and confusion will
inevitably result. Professor Sayce, unfortunately, often
neglects this distinction ; and confuses the illustration of a
narrative, known, or reasonably supposed, to be authentic,
with the confirmation of a narrative, the historical character
of which is in dispute. It is highly probable that the critics
who doubt the presence of any historical basis for the
narratives of the patriarchs are ultra-sceptical ; but their
scepticism cannot, at least at present, be refuted by the
testimony of the monuments.
The fact is, the antagonism which some writers have
sought to establish between criticism and archaeology is
wholly factitious and unreal. Criticism and archaeology
deal with antiquity from different points of view, and
mutually supplement one another. Each in turn supplies
what the other lacks ; and it is only by an entire misunder-
standing of the scope and limits of both that they can
be brought into antagonism with one another. What is
called the " witness of the monuments " is often strangely
misunderstood. The monuments witness to nothing
which any reasonable critic has ever doubted. No one, for
instance, has ever doubted that there were kings of Israel
(or Judah) named Ahab and Jehu and Pekah and Ahaz
and Hezekiah, or that Tiglath-pileser and Sennacherib led
expeditions into Palestine ; the mention of these (and such-
like) persons and events in the Assyrian annals has brought
to light many additional facts about them which it is an
extreme satisfaction to know : but it has only " confirmed "
what no critic had questioned. On the other hand, the
FIRST] THE WITNESS OF THE MONUMENTS 151
Assyrian annals have shewn that the chronology of the
Books of Kings is, in certain places, incorrect : they have
thus confirmed the conclusion which critics had reached
independently upon internal evidence, that the parts of
these books to which the chronology belongs are of much
later origin than the more strictly historical parts, and
consequently do not possess equal value.
The inscriptions, especially those of Babylonia, Assyria,
and Egypt, have revealed to us an immense amount of
information respecting the antiquities and history of these
nations, and also, in some cases, respecting the peoples with
whom, whether by commerce or war, they came into con-
tact : but (with the exception of the statement on the stele
of Merenptah that " Israel is desolated ") the first event
connected with Israel or its ancestors which they mention
or attest is Shishak's invasion of Judah in the reign of
Rehoboam ; the first Israelites whom they specify by name
are Omri and his son Ahab. There is also indirect illustra-
tion of statements in the Old Testament relating to the
period earlier than this ; but the monuments supply no
" confirmation " of any single fact recorded in it, prior
to Shishak's invasion. A great deal of the illustration
afforded by the monuments relates to facts of language,
to ideas, institutions, and localities : but these, as a rule,
are of a permanent nature ; and until they can be proved
to be limited to a particular age, their occurrence, or
mention, in a given narrative is not evidence that it
possesses the value of contemporary testimony.
Of course, it is impossible to forecast the future ; and
what has been said in this essay rests solely upon the basis
of facts at present known. The century which is now
closing has seen many archaeological surprises ; and the
century which is approaching will, in all probability, see
more. Many mounds in Babylonia and Assyria are still
152 HEBREW AUTHORITY [PART FIRST
unexplored ; there are others elsewhere in the East ; there
are many even in Palestine itself. The hopes of the future
rest in systematic excavation. Experience has shewn that
the more this can be carried on, the greater the probability
of obtaining valuable results. Sites in Palestine, especially,
ought not to be neglected. What the bearing of the results
thus obtained upon present opinions may be cannot of
course be foreseen : to the open-minded lover of truth,
whether they correct or confirm them, they will be equally
welcome.
PART SECOND
CLASSICAL AUTHORITY
CHAPTER I
EGYPT AND ASSYRIA
FRANCIS LL. GRIFFITH, M.A.
EDITOR OF THE " ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY " OF THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND
IN the annals of historical research the year 1802 is for
ever notable. Then it was that the first solid foundations
were laid for deciphering the writings of Egypt and the
lands of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The sciences of
Egyptology and Assyriology have both arisen within the
present century. For many years their growth was slow ;
but after a certain stage had been passed, so rapid was the
advance that now a time can hardly be far distant when
the history and civilization of the whole of the Nearer East
including Babylonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Syria, Asia
Minor, Arabia, and Egypt will be surveyed from a higher
platform and read as in an open book taking back its
readers by means of contemporary documents three or four
thousand years beyond even the traditions of our forefathers.
The perspective of time in the world's history that was
commanded by our predecessors from classical and later
standpoints is now more than doubled.
The early decipherers of EGYPTIAN found three forms of
writing to be dealt with : the pictorial or " hieroglyphic "
of the monuments, the cursive " hieratic " of the papyri,
and the " demotic," which was derived from the hieratic in
'S3
156 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
late times and employed for common purposes. The
demotic preserves few traces of its pictorial origin, and
the language itself when expressed in this writing is
' very different from the old language of the monuments.
The script is complicated enough, but, like hieroglyphic,
it includes a limited number of alphabetic characters
with which many words and foreign proper names are
completely spelled out ; and here it was that the first
success of the decipherer was gained.
In 1802 Akerblad, a Swedish Orientalist attached to the
' embassy in Paris, addressed to De Sacy a letter upon the
demotic inscription on the trilingual Rosetta Stone, which
had been discovered three years before. From the position
of their equivalents in the Greek text he identified almost
every one of the proper names in the demotic ; he analyzed
their component letters, and applied his newly won alphabet
successfully to the identification of a few other words.
This may be taken as the starting-point in the decipher-
ment of Egyptian. The hieroglyphic text upon the Rosetta
Stone was too fragmentary to furnish of itself the key to
decipherment; however, in 1818, guided by it, Thomas
Young, a brilliant but busy man of science and physician,
identified the names of Ptolemy and Berenike in a very
inaccurate drawing of a hieroglyphic inscription at Karnak.
This was the first step towards the reading of monumental
hieroglyphics. Young's analysis was by no means correct :
the results of his Egyptological investigations given in
the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1819) at first sight appear
a mass of errors, but any competent judge can see that
the attempt was full of the promise of ultimate success.
Champollion, however, had in the meantime with single-
minded devotion equipped himself with a knowledge of
Coptic and with every attainable aid, including a wide study
of original monuments, for the recovery of the Egyptian
history and language. About this date he received a copy
SECOND] DECIPHERMENT OF EGYPTIAN 157
of the inscriptions on an obelisk at Philae. On the base
was a Greek petition to Ptolemy IX. and Cleopatra, and
in the hieroglyphic text on the monument itself was a
Ptolemaic cartouche similar to that on the Rosetta Stone,
and another cartouche terminating in signs which the
French scholar and Young alike had elsewhere recognized
as belonging to the names of female divinities. This
cartouche therefore must represent the name of Cleopatra.
The equations thus obtained worked out with almost
mathematical accuracy : in a few weeks names of Mace-
donian and Ptolemaic kings and of Roman emperors
were freely read on the monuments, and Champollion was
able to construct an alphabet with numerous homophones
shewing how these foreign names were spelled in hiero-
glyphics. Labouring incessantly and successfully in France,
in Italy, and then in Egypt itself, before his early death in
1831 Champollion, and Champollion alone, founded the
science of Egyptology. After his death it passed through an
evil period of detraction, doubt, neglect, or misguided study ;
but gradually in almost every civilized country it obtained
serious recognition and progressed with rapid strides. At
the beginning of the century Egyptian was an entirely
unknown language buried in several most elaborate and
entirely unknown scripts : in 1899 it is being taught by some
twenty professorial exponents in the universities of Europe
and America. It is a study which rewards its votaries, not
only as philologists, but with a rich harvest of facts and
ideas of antiquity, and the hieroglyphic writing is certainly
in itself the most attractive in the world. It is not surprising
that the number of its students annually increases, and that
all liberal culture now takes cognizance of the results of
their work. Yet to Egyptologists themselves it often seems
as if they were only on the threshold of a satisfactory
reading of the inscriptions, although progress in this respect
has been very great during the last decade, chiefly owing
158 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
to the carefulness of the German philological school of
Erman. Now at length it is possible to produce a passable
version of at least an ordinary text ; yet great labour and
caution are required for this. Formulae of which transla-
tions come glibly enough to the tongue too often cannot
be analyzed, and the renderings of them are but conven-
tions. The general meaning of most words has been well
guessed, but their precise denotation and connotation are
still obscure. Coptic, the nearest ally of Egyptian, is but a
feeble aid to the student of the parent language of 4000 B.O
The CUNEIFORM script has little of the attractiveness of
Egyptian writing ; the groups of wedges in their endless
variety of combination seem, at first, intended only to
puzzle and bewilder. In the Persian inscriptions, however,
the spelling is simplified exceedingly, so that less than
forty signs are required, and the words are separated
from each other by a single slanting wedge : this was
the form least impregnable to the attacks of would-be
decipherers. In 1802, shortly after exact copies of several
cuneiform inscriptions had been published by Niebuhr,
Grotefend, with wonderful penetration, conjectured that
two short texts from the rocks of Elwend, near Ramadan
(Ecbatana), must read, " Darius the king, son of Hystaspes,"
and " Xerxes the king, son of Darius the king." So well
reasoned was his argument that the results could not be
gainsaid ; yet for thirty years scarcely any progress was
made, until at length in 1836 Lassen and Burnouf criticised
and improved on Grotefend's work in detail. In the mean-
time in 1833 Henry Rawlinson, an officer in the Bombay
army, had been called to Persia, and soon made his destiny
apparent. After important researches into the classical
and later geography of the country, he turned his attention
to the early inscriptions. Knowing only vaguely that
Grotefend had deciphered some royal names in cuneiform,
Rawlinson quickly discovered the key that Grotefend had
SECOND! DECIPHERMENT OF CUNEIFORM 159
found ; but his reading was of necessity less precise, since he
had little or no knowledge of the early forms of Persian as
found in the Zend-Avesta. This defect, however, was at
once counterbalanced by the discovery of a treasury of new
material in the great rock inscription of Darius at Behistun,
and the copying of the long inscriptions at Elwend ; at the
same time Rawlinson obtained Grotefend's memoir, and
studied Zend as best he could with the help of a native
of some learning. In 1837 he was able to send home
a tolerable translation of two paragraphs of the Behistun in-
scription, and in the following year he received from Europe
the works of previous decipherers and Burnoufs commentary
on the Yasna, which gave him a thorough insight into the
language of the sacred books of Persia. His progress was
now rapid, in spite of the attention required by his diplo-
matic duties, until in the winter of 1839 he was recalled to
Afghanistan. Resuming the work in 1843, he copied and
translated the whole of the Persian text at Behistun, and in
1845 was able to send it to England for publication. His
work, truly an unparalleled triumph over every kind
of difficulty, was received by European scholars with
enthusiasm. In 1849 he returned home, bringing with him
a complete copy also of the Babylonian version of Darius'
great inscription, which he was able to publish with tran-
scription and commentary in 1851. The large number of
proper names (nearly a hundred) in the Persian text had
furnished the necessary starting-point for decipherment
of the parallel version. But previously to this, in 1849,
Edward Hincks, labouring in an obscure parish in Ireland,
had studied the closely allied Assyrian writing with the
most brilliant results, his materials being the inscriptions
discovered by the French in the palace of Sargon at
Khorsabad. Hincks' treatise upon them was characterized
by extraordinary insight and genius, and established the
principles of that complex script. British scholarship may
l6o CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
well be proud of the part it has taken in the decipherment
of cuneiform. Since 1850 the progress of Assyriology has
been rapid, chiefly in England, France, and Germany. In
the last-named country it now flourishes exceedingly ; and
at length America is taking a very active share, not only
in Babylonian exploration, but also in the work of de-
cipherment.
It is from the native records and remains that scholars
and archaeologists of the nineteenth century have begun
to recover the histories of the Egyptian and Babylonian
civilizations. But Greek and Roman writers did not
neglect to describe notable places and things in the
countries of the Barbarians with whom they came in
contact, nor to place upon record what they might learn
as to the history of such peoples. And here it is our first
duty to examine how far their stories of Egypt, Babylon,
and Nineveh agree with our newly won knowledge, and
estimate, to the extent of this comparison, our historical
gains from the decipherment of languages long dead, and
buried in forgotten scripts. Afterwards we shall briefly
review some of the wider results of Egyptology and
Assyriology, both such as have flowed from decipherment
and from material archaeology. Since the unravelling of
the hieroglyphics began to yield its harvest soon after 1820,
and cuneiform research to make rich returns some twenty
years later, we can review the gains of three-quarters of a
century in the one case and of half a century in the other,
and from them forecast the future.
Biblical and classical writers are the first who present
1 us with reasoned and connected history. Nowhere in
the mass of ancient records to which Egyptology and
Assyriology have given access has history of a higher order
than the barest chronicles been found. In these, however,
lies a mine of wealth for the seeker after hidden treasure
SECOND] CLASSICAL HISTORIANS OF EGYPT l6l
of facts, and by means of them the historian is enabled to
form his own estimates from original documents as to the
march of events and the progress of civilization.
With the Biblical writers we are not here concerned.
The earliest of the classical historians whose work has come
down to our day is Herodotus. His professed aim in the
nine books of his history was to expound the causes which
led to the wars between Greece and Persia, at the same
time putting on record the great and marvellous actions of
both Hellenes and Barbarians. The Persian empire included
the greater part of the known world ; and as the thread
of his narrative leads him from one country to another,
Herodotus generally devotes some paragraphs to each,
mentioning what he thinks noteworthy either in its natural
phenomena or products, its cities, its institutions, or the
deeds of its rulers. No country obtains so large a share of
his attention as Egypt : for this land of marvels Herodotus
reserves the whole of his second book, making his " account
of Egypt so long, because it contains more wonders than
any other land, and more works that defy description."
Strange and foreign as it was, Egypt lay within easy reach ;
Greeks had long been in constant intercourse with it, the
Athenians in particular having incessantly aided its efforts
to retain or regain freedom as against the common enemy.
A Greek traveller's description of the country was sure
therefore to find an interested audience among his own
people. Babylonia, which to us rivals Egypt in wonders,
is treated by Herodotus with comparative brevity.
The only other ancient writer who covers the same
ground as Herodotus is Diodorus. In his day the rise
of the power of Rome and its successful conflicts with
Carthage had widened the outlook. But Herodotus has
always been the favourite : the Sicilian author of the
"Historical Library" has not the exuberant freshness of
the "Father of History."
II
1 62 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
THE NILE VALLEY
Formerly, apart from Biblical records, the common
knowledge of Ancient Egypt was derived from the narra-
tives of Herodotus and Diodorus ; Rhampsinitus and
Sesostris were the typical Egyptian heroes, and their names
were familiar to any man pretending to education. Some
few scholars went further afield : not only would they
examine the Manethonian fragments for the names and
chronology of the kings, Plutarch's De hide et Osiride for
Egyptian religious beliefs, the works of Ptolemy and Strabo
for geography, and those of Pliny for various lore con-
nected with the country ; but they would also collate scraps
of information from a multitude of minor authors, Christian
and pagan alike. Thus did the learned Jablonski in the
middle of the last century when treating of the Egyptian
deities, whose names he attempted to explain by the help
of Coptic. But such laborious erudition could impart nc
additional animation to the tales of Herodotus, much less
could it supplant them. It was founded, not on fact,
but on authority, that being often of the most doubtful
kind, and pressed into the service of unfitting theories.
The everlasting conflict of testimony made drearier in pro-
portion to their learning the efforts of savants to penetrate
deeper into the secrets of the forgotten past ; definite con-
clusions could only be reached by arbitrary methods and in
harmony with the preconceived views of the theorist.
To-day our museums are filled with the gatherings of
a century, amongst which figure largely the mummies, the
monuments, the furniture, the ornaments, the implements,
and the papyri of Ancient Egypt ; even the East End
Londoner finds a peculiar fascination in contemplating
these speaking relics of so remote a past. Newspapers
and popular magazines spread abroad stories fresh from the
papyrus on which they were written three thousand years
ago. The authority of Herodotus is no longer what it once
SECOND] SCHOLASTIC TRADITION 163
was, and it is from very different sources that the schoolboy
of to-day imbibes his first notion of Egypt. Yet Herodotus
and Diodorus are still the links between the old-fashioned
classical education founded on scholastic tradition and an
altogether fresh interest in the progress of ancient history
as revealed through the decipherment of dead languages
and by the new science of archaeology.
In their works on Egypt those " ancient " writers have
recorded the names of notable kings and private persons as
connected with certain anecdotes and historical events ; they
have described the people, their customs and their laws, the
geography of the country and its natural products, the
names and myths of deities, and the rites with which they
were worshipped. From the monuments, too, we have in-
formation quite as varied and far more abundant, though
their data are as yet but half intelligible, and extend over
so prodigious and bare an expanse of time that for no one
period are they even approximately full. Hence it is often
difficult for the Egyptologist to bring the classical writers
to book in particular instances ; and if in Herodotus per-
sonages, events, and customs are mentioned about which all
the known monuments are silent, why not accept his state-
ments, and place them to the credit of the historian, simply
assuming that it is the monuments which are at fault? It
will probably appear, however, on investigation that the
chance of any such statement being correct is not large, and
that the burden of proof must always fall on the apologist
for the classical writers, not on the critic.
The history of Egypt as told by Herodotus may be
divided roughly into what he would regard as Ancient and
Modern, the former covering the time from the supposed
formation of the land by the deposits of the Nile to the rule
of the Dodecarchy ; the latter extending from the accession
of Psammetichus (670 B.C.) to his own day (c. 450 B.C.)
164 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
We are also told (Hdt, ii. 154) that, after the settlement
of Ionian and Carian mercenaries in Egypt by Psammeti-
chus, the Greeks through intercourse with them had a
perfect understanding of events in that country. We will
now consider first what Herodotus tells us of the Ancient
History of Egypt, and ascertain to what extent he was able
to gather exact information concerning it : afterwards we
will test the accuracy of Greek recollection as shewn in
Herodotus' Modern History ; in the third place we will
test the writer's veracity and power of observation as a
traveller by his notes on land and people, in each case
comparing the records of Diodorus and of other writers.
For the Early period we find that Herodotus (ii. 99-153)
professes to enumerate the names and deeds of the most
noteworthy of the kings. Many of the names can be
identified in the long list excerpted by Africanus from the
lost work of Manetho, a native priest of Sebennytus, com-
missioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus (or Soter ?) to write
the history of his predecessors on the Egyptian throne.
This list of Manetho contains sundry mistakes, and the
names in it are often strangely deformed ; yet on the whole
it is confirmed by the monuments and by ancient lists
drawn up in the time of the XlXth Dynasty. The kings,
down to the conquest of Alexander, are arranged by
Manetho in thirty dynasties, the XXVIth Dynasty being
headed by Psammetichus ; and Egyptology has accepted
his arrangement as a reasonable working basis.
Herodotus, who constantly quotes the priests as his
authority for all matters concerning the Ancient History
of Egypt, gives the succession of the early kings as
follows: The first king was Menes, followed by 330
monarchs, of whom one was a queen, Nitocris, and the
last was Moeris. Then, in succession be it observed,
come Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus, Rhampsinitus, Cheops,
Chephren, Myceiinus, Asychis, Anysis, Sabaco, Sethos,
SECOND] GREEK LISTS OF EGYPTIAN KINGS 165
making a total of 341 kings after Menes. With regard
to the name and place of the first king, Diodorus and
Manetho are both in accord with Herodotus. Three out
of four of the XlXth Dynasty lists place MNY (i.e. Menes)
at the head ; a fifth list begins with a later king. Menes
is now thought to have been buried at Negadeh, opposite
Coptos. 1 Soon we may learn more of his actual historical
position ; at present Egyptologists are content to style
him the first king of the 1st Dynasty and the founder of
the Egyptian monarchy. Moeris, last of the 330 kings,
and excavator of the great lake that bore his name, can
only be Amenemhat III., last king but one or two of the
Xllth Dynasty. At the end of the Vlth Dynasty in
Manetho, and in the ancient Papyrus of Kings at Turin,
is a queen Nitakert, evidently the Nitocris of Herodotus.
330 is apparently quite double the number of the kings
who actually reigned from Menes to Moeris, and the
statement 2 that none but those whom Herodotus mentions
did anything worthy of note seems a hard judgment, at
least on the brilliant IVth, Vth, Vlth, and Xllth Dynasties.
As we read on, however, we may be inclined to admit that
down to this point, though decidedly meagre, Herodotus'
Ancient History does contain some facts in correct order.
But from Sesostris to Rhampsinitus it is all foggy in the
extreme. Rhampsinitus is evidently to be connected with
the Ramessides of the XlXth and XXth Dynasties. As
being a mighty conqueror, Sesostris (ii. 102) should belong
to the XVIIIth or XlXth Dynasty ; 3 but Manetho places
him in the Xllth, corresponding to Usertesen II., a not '
1 Borchardt's identification of the great royal tomb excavated at
Negadeh in 1897 as that of Menes is disputed by several leading
Egyptologists and awaits further proof.
2 On the authority of the priests, as usual (ii. 101).
3 There is evidence that Rameses II., perhaps the most likely of
all the kings to become the greatest hero in story, bore the popular
name Sesu, or Sesu Ra, with which may be compared Diodorus' '
Sesoosis for Sesostris.
1 66 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
very distinguished predecessor of Amenemhat III. (Moeris>
Pheron and Proteus (ii. 111-120) it is hopeless to identify,
though the name of the former may well be compared
with the Biblical title of the kings of Egypt, derived from
a well-known royal designation Per'o which gave to
Coptic the word pero, " the king." As Pheron is repre-
sented as the son of Sesostris, it may be that by this
name is intended Merenptah, son of Rameses II., who
is indeed supposed to be "Pharaoh" of the Exodus.
Between Amenemhat III. and the XXth Dynasty the
kings exceeded two hundred in number : according to
Herodotus, whose Rhampsinitus must be of the XXth
Dynasty, if of any, there were but three.
After Rhampsinitus, Herodotus places the group of great
pyramid-building kings (ii. 124-136), Cheops, Chephren,
Mycerinus, followed by Asychis, who is said to have built
his pyramid of mud, and is probably the Sasychis of
Diodorus. These can be none other than Khufu, Khafra,
and Menkaura, and probably Shepseskaf of the IVth
Dynasty. On comparing the monumental lists of the
IVth Dynasty it will be seen that only Dadkara, a very
unimportant king, is omitted. The first three built the
great pyramids of Gizeh ; but the tomb of Shepseskaf is
still unknown. Except for the utter misplacement of the
group in point of time, this is sound history. 1
Diodorus follows up the name of Menes with a list in
1 In an ingenious but erratic book, Dr. Apostolides has suggested
that the sections of Herodotus referring to the pyramid builders
have been put out of their place by a copyist, and should be read
between ii. 99 and ii. too. The " fit " is then in many respects
admirable; the IVth Dynasty takes its proper place after Menes,
and the three hundred less important kings appropriately follow. But
the emendation produces a gap in the text, and it is doubtful whether
Herodotus' general knowledge of the history is such as to justify our
altering the text of the MSS. to make it tally with facts, especially as
Diodorus agrees pretty well with Herodotus. At any rate our fore-
fathers had to take the text as it stood.
SECOND] GREEK LISTS OF EGYPTIAN KINGS 167
greater disorder than that of Herodotus : Busiris, Uchoreus,
Aegyptus, Moeris, Sesostris, Amasis, Actisanes, Mendes,
Ketes (Proteus), Remphis (Rhampsinitus), and Nileus,
most of these names being simply mythical. After
them he inserts the builders of the Gizeh pyramids, as
does Herodotus, calling them Chemmis, Chephren, and
Mecerinus, but offering, as an alternative view, three other
names that have nothing to do with these monuments.
From the kings of the IVth Dynasty to those of the
XXVIth really a period of from 2,000 to 2,500 years
it was but a little leap to the Greek historians. Herodotus
allows for it scarcely more than two reigns : the reign of
(i) Anysis (i.e. perhaps Bocchoris, XXI Vth Dynasty) was
interrupted by Sabaco the Ethiopian (XXVth Dynasty),
who drove him into exile, but he was restored and
eventually succeeded by (2) Sethon, priest of Hephaestos
at Memphis. 1 Then, out of a brief combined rule of twelve
1 The story of Sethon (ii. 141) is apparently one of a series of tales
about the high priests of Ptah, two such stories having been discovered
in late Egyptian papyri. "Sethon'' is simply the high-priestly title,
used as an appellative. Herodotus (who mistook the title for a proper
name) states that his Sethon was king, as well as priest of Hephaestos
i.e. Ptah. " Sethon " systematically slighted the soldiery, and when
threatened with an invasion under "Sanacherib" he was saved from
disaster solely by the intervention of his god, who promised aid in a
dream. An army of mice invaded the camp of the " Arabians " in
the night, devoured their bowstrings, etc., and rendered them powerless
to fight, whereupon they fled, not without losing multitudes of their host
at the hands of the rabble troops of Sethon. In the troubled period of
Ethiopian and Assyrian invasions the kings or princes had only local
power, and whichever among them held Memphis would probably
consider the high-priesthood of Ptah one of his chief titles to honour.
This we know to have been the case with Tafnekht (730 B.C.). By
" Sethon," therefore, we may understand a local king or prince of
Memphis, officially devoted to the worship of the great god of the city,
and with authority over at least the greater part of Lower Egypt. The
story in Herodotus seems based on the same foundation as that in
2 Kings xix., and in the absence of more definite information it is not
without historical value. (The Egyptian parallels indicate that Sethon
rather that Sethos is the name intended in the ambiguous wording of
the Greek.)
1 68 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
kings, rises Psammetichus (c. 670 B.C.), with which event
the Modern History of Herodotus may be said to com-
mence. Diodorus, too, gives only Bocchoris (XXIVth
Dynasty), and "long after him" Sabaco, the latter being, in
Manetho, the slayer and immediate successor of Bocchoris.
As Bunsen and others shewed long ago, Greek notions
of the order of the earlier Egyptian kings were founded
on a patchwork of different statements wrongly adjusted.
Diodorus, more or less, follows Herodotus ; and Herodotus
would seem to have been the first to put the patchwork
together, since he quotes the priests as his authorities for
so many of its component parts. Probably the priests had
recorded as legitimate three or four hundred rulers from
Menes to Psammetichus ; but while keeping to the number.
Herodotus is hopelessly astray as regards the order. It
has been shewn above that, beginning with Menes, he names
three monarchs who reigned at long intervals from each
other from the 1st to the Xllth Dynasty in correct
order, only greatly exaggerating the intervals. As for the
rest of the kings known to him by name, he imagined them
to have reigned immediately afterwards, in succession.
Among them is one solid group of the I Vth Dynasty kings,
before and after which he places the most incongruous
names from Graeco-Egyptian legend.
That Herodotus, rather than the priests, was the author
of the confusion is more than probable. The Manethonian
and native lists testify that the Egyptians kept fairly
clear records of the succession of their kings. The Turin
Papyrus of Kings was the fullest of the native lists ; but
its terribly mangled condition prevents us from ascertain-
ing even the plan of the compiler. Besides the names of
the kings, it gave the length of each reign ; and in the
few instances in which these data can be tested, they
are found to be probably accurate. Manetho also records
the lengths of the reigns ; but although Professor Petrie
SECOND] GREEK IGNORANCE OF ANCIENT EVENTS 169
strongly upholds his statements, it seems impossible to
credit him with a single date for the early period that
tallies unmistakably with monumental evidence. The
dynastic divisions and the epithets" Theban," " Mem-
phite," etc. ascribed to the dynasties in Manetho gener-
ally stand the test of Egyptological research. Even the
qualification of " Thinite," by which he designates the
first two, has been shewn to be reasonable by some of
the latest discoveries, although these kings reigned not
less than three thousand years before his time. But why
the Vth Dynasty should be of Elephantine still remains
a mystery.
Obviously ignorant as to the succession of the kings,
the classical authors can hardly be expected to exhibit
much knowledge of events in Egyptian history of the early
period. Herodotus has no knowledge even of the most
important phases of the history, but entertains us profusely
with frivolous stories of the treasury of Rhampsinitus and
the clever thieves, or gravely relates how Sesostris went
forth and subdued an empire greater than that of Darius,
for not only did it include "all Asia" (as far as India,
Bactria, etc.), but also Scythia and Thrace (ii. 103, no).
He was evidently not aware that the Egyptian empire
never touched Asia Minor, nor crossed the Euphrates.
Even Manetho, who must be classed apart from other
writers in Greek on the same subject, affords no certain
evidence of accurate acquaintance with the true history
of his country. The few notes to the names in his lists
of kings, as they have come down to us, are meagre in
the extreme, and might be explained easily as additions
of the excerptors. They refer, for example, to the legend
of Sesostris, who stood four and a half cubits high, or state
that Ammenemes (Amenemhat II.) was slain by his own
eunuchs ; it is rarely that they record anything of real
historical interest. In many cases they seem to recall
1 70 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
some leading feature of a popular legend by which the
king could be identified in story. 1
One long extract from Manetho is, however, preserved
to us by Josephus ; namely, the well-known account of
the Hyksos. Josephus relates how, in the time of the
Egyptian king Timaus, a strange ignoble people coming
from the East subdued the country without a battle,
ravaged the cities, and demolished the temples. At length
they made themselves a king, who was called Salatis, and
who dwelt in Memphis. In fear of the Assyrians he built
and garrisoned on the eastern frontier a great stronghold
called Avaris, 2 and here he made his summer capital. These
foreigners, who called themselves Hyksos, i.e. " Shepherd
Kings," 3 retained possession of Egypt for 511 years.
Several kings succeeded Salatis : Bnon, Apachnas, Apophis,
lanias, Assis. After this the kings of the Thebaid and the
rest of Egypt made insurrection against the Shepherds,
1 Even since the above was written a striking instance of the stuff
history was made of has been furnished by Professor Krall. Africanus,
the principal excerptor of Manetho, gives this note to the name of
Bocchoris : e'c^'ov apviov tydiyf-aTo try ~^^j, "in whose time a lamb spoke
990 years (!) " This has been a fine crux interpretum, who have
changed the reading and theorized about the number. Krall has
discovered the key to the meaning in some fragments of the last
pages of a story, written on papyrus in demotic, about the " curses
on Egypt after the sixth year of King Bocchoris." It is there related
how in the reign of Bocchoris a lamb prophesied that the spoil of the
temples of Egypt should be carried to Nineveh, and for 900 years the
land should be in misery. Then God (?) would look upon the distress
of His people, and lead them into Syria, the spoil would be won
back, and Egypt again be in prosperity. This curious papyrus was
written in the first years of our era ; but there is no reason why
Manetho himself should not have heard the story and noted it. In the
time of Africanus (A.D. 221) the term of years from the reign ot
Bocchoris was already past ; but by the change of 900 to 990 the
hopes of the Egyptians were still kept up.
3 The Egyptian Het-Wart (H.t-W'r.t, pronounced Ha-wari, in the
Graeco-Roman Period), see p. 172. Its site is still doubtful.
3 Such is the interpretation given by Josephus, not without reason.
But the title belongs rather to the kings alone, and may mean " Ruler
of foreign nations."
SECOND] MANETHO AND THE HYKSOS 171
and a long and mighty war was waged between them. At
length the Shepherds, being worsted by a king named
Alisphragmuthosis or Misphragmuthosis, were driven out
of all the rest of Egypt, and shut up in Avaris, where
they fortified themselves strongly. The son of Alisphrag-
muthosis, named Thummosis, or Tethmosis, laid siege to
Avaris with a vast army of nearly half a million men, but
failed to capture it. At length the Shepherds capitulated
on condition of being allowed to depart from Egypt
unharmed whithersoever they pleased, and accordingly
they left, in number not less than 240,000, and went
towards Syria ; but being afraid of the power of the
Assyrians, they built a city in Judea large enough for
their numbers, and called it Jerusalem. Still quoting
from Manetho, Josephus gives the names of the successors
of Tethmosis, and in a further extract he relates that the
Egyptian king Amenophis consulted a wise priest of the
same name, Amenophis, son of Papis, as to how he might
behold the gods. The answer was that he might behold
them if he would cleanse the country of all lepers and
other unclean persons. This the king did : gathering
together the defective inhabitants 01 Egypt to the number
of 80,000 he sent them to the quarries. But among
them were some learned priests ; and Amenophis, the wise
man, foreseeing the vengeance of the gods on their behalf,
prophesied that the lepers would receive aid from another
people, and hold Egypt for thirteen years. At length the
city of Avaris, which had been left desolate by the Shep-
herds, was granted to the exiles to dwell in. They chose
from among themselves a priest of Heliopolis, named
Osarsiph, who enacted laws contrary to the customs of the
Egyptians, and abolished the worship of the gods. He
rebuilt the walls of Avaris, and sent ambassadors to
Jerusalem, offering Avaris to the Shepherds if they would
assist him against the Egyptians. Amenophis feared to
172 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
do battle with the lepers and their allies, lest he should
be fighting against the gods, and retreated into Ethiopia
with all his army, taking with him the sacred animals,
which would otherwise have been destroyed by the in-
vading Osarsiph. The Shepherds again oppressed Egypt
more barbarously than before, until Amenophis, returning
with a great army from Ethiopia, expelled them.
We cannot be certain that the quotation in Josephus
fairly represents the original Manetho ; but if it does, it
exhibits Egyptian notions of history in a very sorry light.
The Hyksos period is still one of the most obscure to us.
Two only of its kings are known by name from the monu-
ments ; both were called Apepa, and evidently Manetho's
Apophis is one of them. To those who have seen the
strange guise in which Egyptian names appear on the
Greek lists, it is not surprising that the other is still
unidentified. When the Egyptian names of the Hyksos
kings have all been ascertained and placed in their proper
order, then it may be possible to identify them in Manetho.
But from a tomb at El Kab we have definite informa-
tion as to the expulsion of the Hyksos. Here the high
admiral Aahmes, son of Abana, recounts how the city
of Avaris was taken and the Hyksos were finally subdued
by Aahmes I., the founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty :
I came into existence in the city of Nekheb ; my father was an
officer of King Seqenen-ra ; Baba, son of Reant, was his name. I acted
as officer in his place on the ship of the Wild Bull in the reign of
Nebpehti-ra (Aahmes I.), while I was still young and without wife, and
slept in the shenu garment. Then, after I had made a household, I
was taken to the Ship of the North for my valour. And I followed the
king on my feet when he went forth on his chariot. They laid siege
against the city of Het-Wart (Avaris), and I was valorous on my
feet before his Majesty. Then I was promoted to the ship called
Resplendent in Memphis. There was fighting by water on the Z'edku
(canal ?) of Avaris ; I made a capture and carried off a hand ; it was
announced to the royal reporter, and gold of valour was given unto me.
Again there was fighting at this place, and again I made a capture there
and took a hand, and I was given gold of valour a second time. They
fought in the Kemt south of the city, and I took a live prisoner : I
SECOND] MANETHO AS HISTORIAN 173
leapt into the water and he was taken, being captured on the road to
the city, and I crossed over with him on the water. It was told to the
royal reporter, and there was given to me gold of valour in double
quantity (?). Then Het-Wart was captured, and I carried off thence
one man and three women, in all four persons ; and his Majesty gave
them to me for slaves. Siege was laid to Sharhana l in the fifth year.
His Majesty captured it ; I took two women and a hand, and gold of
valour was given unto me.
This siege of Sharhana indicates that Aahmes had
absolutely subdued the Hyksos, or expelled them from
Egypt, in his fifth year. In the Manethonian list
Aahmes I. appears as Amosis ; but in the fragment
preserved by Josephus, Manetho represents the capture
of Avaris as having been effected by Thummosis, son of
Misphragmuthosis. Now these names occur after Amosis
in Manetho's much-confused list of the XVIIIth Dynasty,
where they represent kings of the time when Egypt was
at the height of her power, long since delivered from the
Hyksos, and now the envy and terror of the world. There
are other details of great improbability in Manetho's
account of these events, and we cannot treat the latter
as more than legendary history with a basis of confused
facts. 2 If, then, a native priest commissioned to write
history by the king, having access to temple records
and surrounded by inscriptions of historical importance
the meaning of which he could readily gather, if such
a man, and so circumstanced, failed to collect materials
better than those provided by tradition and popular legend,
it is not to be wondered at that the priests and guides
consulted by Herodotus should have led him far from
the truth.
1 On the border of Southern Palestine, in the country which after-
wards was allotted to the tribe of Simeon.
* In agreement with facts are the importance attributed to Avaris
in the Hyksos period, and the contemporaneity of Amenophis, son of
Papis, with Amenophis, i.e. Amenhotep III. The memory of this great
priest remained to a late time, and the honours paid to him reached
their acme in the Ptolemaic period, when he was worshipped at Thebes
as a god along with Aesculapius.
174 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
An almost incredible instance of utter lack of historical
knowledge among the educated classes in Egypt can be
quoted from a far earlier time than that of Herodotus.
In the fine tomb of Khnemhetep at Beni Hasan, cut
out of the rock in the Xllth Dynasty, the cartouche of
Khufu appears several times conspicuously in the in-
scriptions, because it happens to form part of an ancient
name current at that time for the provincial capital. At
the end of the XVIIIth or beginning of the XlXth
Dynasty a scribe visited this tomb and admired its splendid
paintings. The cartouche of Khufu caught his eye, and
he recorded his impressions in a graffito, of which the
translation is as follows :
The scribe Amenmes came : " I have gone out to see the temple of
Khufu, I find it like heaven when Ra rises therein ; it (heaven) droppeth
with fresh incense on the roof of the house of Khufu."
These remarks are confirmed by the graffito of another
scribe, who uses almost the same words, and adds, " O that
I may repeat the visit!" The full significance of this is
better apprehended when we find that a scribe of the time
of Thothmes III. commemorates his visit to the chapel
attached to the pyramid of Senefru at Medum in identical
terms in a graffito upon the walls of that building, sub-
stituting only the name of Senefru for that of Khufu.
The whole style of the Xllth Dynasty tomb called out
loudly against its being a temple of Khufu, and almost
every line of its inscriptions proclaimed its real object.
As to the preposterous notion of its being Khufu's place
of sepulture, which is apparently implied by the graffito,
was not his pyramid one of the wonders of the world at
a later date, and the name of its builder well known even
to Herodotus? Perhaps the attention of XVIIIth or
XlXth Dynasty Egyptians was absorbed in the vigorous
present life of the time, in the gathering of captives and
spoil from every known quarter of the world, and in the
SECOND] EGYPTIAN IGNORANCE OF HISTORY 175
erection of vast buildings and colossal monuments. They
may have had little reverence or leisure for the study of
the past, and the careful lists of kings which were com-
piled in the XlXth Dynasty may have been the result of
a reactionary effort to preserve their memory to a more
pious age. But later, when Lower Egypt again became
the centre of government and Memphis outshone Thebes,
then the pyramids were regarded with greater veneration,
the Old Kingdom tombs about them became models for
imitation, and unsuccessful combat with races more warlike
than themselves drove back the Egyptians on memories
of their mighty past. This late revival explains how
Herodotus came to give so accurately the names and
succession of the builders of the three Great Pyramids.
Deliberate priestly forgeries intended to bring honour to
certain temples were not unknown in olden time. There
is the story of the miraculous healing of a princess of the
distant land of Bekhten by means of an image of the god
Khons which was solemnly sent to her help from Thebes.
The account of the successful performances of this image
was inscribed and set up on a tablet in the temple of
Khons. Professedly it was a contemporaneous narrative,
dated in the reign of Rameses II. ; but an analysis of the
style and contents of the inscription proves it to be the
production of a far later age. Another stela, apparently
of the XXXth Dynasty, and placed in a temple near the
Great Sphinx, records how that temple and various other
buildings were the work of Khufu, thus taking advantage
of the ready growth of legend to claim for them the
reverence due to hoary antiquity. With equal piety and
unveracity the planning and foundation of shrines were
attributed to the gods themselves.
It will be seen from the foregoing that even the
Egyptian materials must be handled with judgment and
reasonable caution. The archaeological faculty is gradually
176 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
developing among Egyptologists ; sacerdotal monuments
not long ago accepted as genuine records contemporary
with Khufu or Rameses are now looked upon with
interested amusement, presenting as they do every
characteristic of the basse epoque. Where modern scholar-
ship has been so much at fault, we may well excuse the
pious scribes who mistook the tomb of Khnemhetep for a
work of the IVth Dynasty.
In this connexion it is important to note that an acute
German archaeologist is now endeavouring to prove that
the majestic statues of Khafra (the Chephren of Herodotus)
are not the primeval masterpieces which they have hitherto
been accounted, but are in fact the consummate pro-
ductions of the XXVth Dynasty artists (c. 700 B.C.). He
believes, too, that at the same late period a vast amount
of anonymous rebuilding and reconstruction took place
at the pyramids. One small fact is clear : the inscription
on the coffin of Mycerinus, from the third pyramid, cannot
possibly be earlier than the New Kingdom, and is probably
later.
It is certain that in the XXVth Dynasty the archaistic
tendency set in suddenly and strongly. Thereafter and
in the XXVIth Dynasty the remains of the Old Kingdom
were ransacked for models in subject and style for the
sculptures of tombs and temples. As time went on the
artists copied from these imitations, and the style gradually
changed, though it never reverted to that of the New
Kingdom. And here we may find another explanation for
the New Kingdom names, such as Rhampsinitus, being
placed before those of the Pyramid Kings by Herodotus,
even as Diodorus put Thebes, the capital of the New
Kingdom, to an earlier date than Memphis. The style of
art under Psammetichus was to a not very exact observer
the same as that under Khufu, while a world seemed to
separate it from that of the New Kingdom. Hence to the
SECOND] LATER HISTORY OF EGYPT 177
sojourner in Memphis it might seem correct to range the
builders of the pyramids just before the XXVth Dynasty,
and to throw the New Kingdom far back : there was,
however, no necessity to displace the whole of the Old
Kingdom along with the IVth Dynasty. Two sources of
information would influence the curious traveller : on the
one hand, the art connected the Pyramid Kings with the
XXVth and XXVIth Dynasties ; on the other, the royal
lists in the temples, read over to him by the priests, shewed
that the New Kingdom intervened. It was probably this
conflict of evidence that led to new names of a later type,
Armaeus, Amasis, and Inaros (preserved by Diodorus),
being invented for the builders of the pyramids. Herodotus
noted on the one hand scraps from the temple lists, and
on the other bits of information from his guides at the
monuments ; but any discrepancy between them he does
not seem to have observed.
We now come to the second and later part of the
Egyptian history of Herodotus. This refers to some
small extent to contemporary facts and events ; for the
rest it covers a period stretching back scarcely more than
two hundred years before the historian's own day, and is
concerned with matters which according to his statements
were familiar to the Hellenes. Under the Saite (XXVIth)
and Persian (XXVIIth) dynasties numbers of Greek
mercenaries and traders had been settled in Egypt, and
had participated in its wars and in its commerce. In this
part of the history there is, then, as might be expected,
a decided improvement. The names and succession of the
kings of the XXVIth Dynasty are accurately given by
Herodotus, as well as those of the Persian invaders and
rulers Cambyses, the false Smerdis, Darius, and Xerxes
who appear in one part or another of the nine books.
Manetho's list confirms Herodotus. The chronology, too,
12
178 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
is fairly well ascertained ; that of the Saite rulers given by
Herodotus is closely accurate, and is confirmed by other
authors and by the monuments, there being only one reign
out of six the length of which he seems to have stated
wrongly, and even that may perhaps be explained by a
- presumed co-regency. So far as they have any evidence
to give concerning the chronology of Egypt during the
Persian rule, the Canon of Ptolemy, the cuneiform records
of Persia and Babylonia, and the Egyptian monuments are
- all in agreement.
None the less, the account ot the Dodecarchy, im-
mediately preceding the XXVIth Dynasty, and of how
Psammetichus attained the throne and founded the Saite
monarchy, is very inexact. It is certain, for instance, that
Necho, the father of Psammetichus, was not slain by Sabaco,
whom, in fact, he long survived. The Labyrinth (if, indeed,
we know anything about it) was built ages before the
Dodecarchy by "Moeris" of the Xllth Dynasty. The
Dodecarchy of Herodotus and Diodorus is but a vague
reminiscence of the divided state of Egypt during the
times of the Ethiopian and Assyrian invasions. The
smens of the brazen men from the sea and the helmet used
by Psammetichus as a libation cup are suspicious items.
It is only with the actual accession of Psammetichus that
the work of Herodotus enters on its new phase of com-
parative accuracy ; and here with our imperfect knowledge
it is difficult for us to fix upon errors. Probably there
are many of detail, and certainly the narrative is scanty
enough. There is no sign in it of more than a general
acquaintance with the history of the country. But the
accounts of the Syrian campaigns of Psammetichus I.,
Necho, and Apries (Hophra), as well as the Ethiopian
campaign of Psammetichus, are either probable enough in
themselves or are confirmed by independent evidence from
Biblical and monumental sources.
SECOND] CAMBYSES IN EGYPT 179
In regard to Cambyses' invasion and occupation of
Egypt there are a few points in Herodotus to be refuted.
The Greek historian connects the invasion with the
marriage of an Egyptian princess to the Persian king. Of
this story he gives three versions (iii. i). One of these,
that which makes Cambyses marry Nitetis, daughter of
A pries, is chronologically improbable, for she would have
been at least forty years old when sent to Cambyses. On
the other hand, the Egyptian story that she was wife of
Cyrus and mother of Cambyses seems rightly rejected by
Herodotus as an invention designed to shew that the
conqueror of Egypt was himself an Egyptian on the
mother's side. Herodotus is quite right in assigning
to Amasis a reign of forty-four years, and in making his
son Psammenitus (Psammetichus III.) succeed him before
the storm broke and the victorious invasion of Cambyses
put a summary end to the dynasty (iii. 10). The story of
the revenge taken by the Persian king on the mummy of
Amasis (iii. 16) may find some confirmation in the fact that
the name of Amasis has been erased on several monuments
from Sais and in the north-east of the Delta. But
Cambyses seems to have conformed to the practices of
an Egyptian king. An Egyptian named Uza-hor-ent-res
records on his inscribed statue, now in the Vatican, that
he had been admiral under Amasis and Psammetichus III.,
that he was appointed to high office by Cambyses, and
held an important commission under Darius. On his
recommendation, Cambyses ordered the temple of Sais to
be cleared of the profane, whose dwellings had accumulated
in it ; and on reaching the city the Persian king bowed
down in the temple and sacrificed :
Now there came the great chiel, the lord ot every country, Kembath
(Cambyses), to Egypt, the peoples of every land being with him ;
he ruled this whole land, and they established themselves therein.
... I petitioned in the presence of King Kembath concerning all
the foreigners that were established in the temple of Neith to drive
l8o CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
them thence, to cause the temple of Neith to be in all its splendour as
it was aforetime. Commanded his Majesty to drive out all the foreigners
that were settled in the temple of Neith, to destroy all their dwellings
and all their belongings which were in that temple. . . . The king
of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kembath, came to Sais, and his Majesty
himself proceeded unto the temple of Neith and bowed down before
her Majesty very fervently, as is done by every king, and he made a
great offering of all good things unto Neith the Great, the Mother of
the God, and to all the great gods who are in Sais, as is done by every
good king. His Majesty did these things because I caused his Majesty
to know the greatness of her Maiesty, she being the mother of Ra
himself.
But later, as the inscription tells us, there was a period of
" great woe in all the land," which must have been the time
of Cambyses' madness described by Herodotus as following
on the failure of his expeditions to the Oasis and against
the Ethiopians and that of the Magian usurpation :
... I was a man good in his city. I rescued its people from the
very great calamity that happened in the whole land, there never having
been its like in this land. ... (I provided for my whole family in
Sais), for behold ! a calamity happened in this nome in the very great
calamity that happened in the whole land. 1
In all the Greek accounts of Egypt Cambyses has a
very evil name as a destroyer ; hitherto modern discovery
has enabled us to lay our finger on one only of his
misdeeds. The Behistun inscription of Darius states that
1 As illustrating the benevolent policy of Darius, a further passage
is worth quoting : " The Majesty of the king Ndruth (Darius) com-
manded me that I should return to Egypt (not improbably he had
left the country in attendance on Cambyses as physician), for his
Majesty was in Arma (Aram or Elam) behold, he was the supreme
monarch of every land and the great ruler of Egypt to establish the
office of the Per Ankh (the College of Scribes) . . . after its decay.
The peoples conveyed me from place to place, forwarding me on to
Egypt, by the command of the Lord of the Two Lands. I did as his
Majesty commanded me ; I provided them with all their students, con-
sisting of sons of men (of position), and there was not the son of a
nobody therein. And I put them under the direction of every learned
man [to instruct them] in all their work. His Majesty commanded that
they should be supplied with all good things that they might do all
their work. I provided them with all things advantageous to them,
with all their appliances which were in writing, such as were among
them aforetime."
SECOND] LATER HISTORY OF EGYPT l8l
Cambyses slew his brother Bardiya (Smerdis) before starting
for Egypt. Doubtless this was a brutal but not unusual
precaution for securing his own life and throne. It was
clearly not what Herodotus represents it to be (iii. 30),
one of the outrageous acts of madness of his last years.
As regards Cambyses' stabbing of the Apis bull, it should
be noted that in the eighth year of his reign one of these
animals was certainly buried with all honour, though perhaps
secretly by the priests without the king's knowledge.
Diodorus follows Herodotus' account of the XXVIth
Dynasty pretty closely, but is very brief, and makes the
mistake of attributing 55 years instead of 44 to the reign
of Amasis. He counts Bocchoris, Darius, and Amasis,
amongst the great legislators of Egypt, along with Mnevis,
Sasychis, and Sesoosis ; but here we cannot check his
statement. After Amasis there is a gap in his history,
which extends to Xerxes' invasion of Greece. Even in
his laborious annals of the later times, Diodorus is in
hopeless confusion as to the names of the Egyptian kings
Achoris, Nectanebus, and Tachos during the struggles
of Egypt with Persia. Whether his facts are in better
order than his names may well be doubted ; but Egyptology
knows little of that time except the wonderful architectural
activity displayed in the temples while the native kings
were striving to hold their own against the Persians by
the aid of Greek mercenaries.
In general regarding this period we are singularly ill-
informed from contemporary monuments. Many of these
exist, it is true ; but few among them are of a historical
character, or indeed calculated to throw light on the times.
Throughout most of the earlier periods in Egyptian history
the manners and customs of the country were depicted in
lively fashion on the walls of the tombs, the wealth, services
to king and country, and rewards of the deceased being
often enumerated. In the New Kingdom especially, the
1 82 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
bringing of tribute and gifts from the surrounding nations
is represented. For the Saite period and onwards we are
deprived of those precious illustrations because of the
archaizing tendency which prevailed and ordained the
slavish copying of subjects and designs borrowed from
far earlier tombs. At this time touches of contemporary
life were rarely added in tomb paintings or sculptures ;
the religious taste of the period suppressed biographical
inscriptions, while covering the walls with ritual scenes
and texts in astonishing variety and abundance. These
texts were mostly copied from very ancient originals,
and had they been more intelligently reproduced might
throw a flood of light on early beliefs ; perhaps much
may still be done with them. Taken as a whole, the
inscriptions of the Saite time, a period of really great
historical interest, impress one as a wilderness full of
dead bones laboriously collected and laid together, which
cannot be made to live.
There is, however, little doubt that historical stelae were
set up in some numbers under the later Pharaohs. Frag-
ments of such are occasionally found ; but the facts that
I Sais, in the Delta, was now the capital, and that the
activity of the country centred in Lower Egypt, are
sufficient to explain why so little of importance has come
down to us. The temples of Lower Egypt are utterly
destroyed. Their materials were of first-rate value in a
stoneless country, and from age to age they have served
as quarries. Granite, basalt, quartzite, and other hard
stones are now used for millstones and mortars ; in times
of greater luxury they were in request for the embellish-
ment of buildings in Cairo, Rosetta, or Alexandria. Lime-
stone, however, of which the great temple walls were
usually built, is and always has been the greatest prize.
Mosques and villas can be built and rebuilt of it, the stone
being easily fashioned. Now that the supply from the
SECOND] DESTRUCTION OF DELTAIC RECORDS 183
ruins is almost exhausted, stray pieces can at least be
burnt for lime and whitewash. The temple area in the
midst of the rubbish mounds of a city has become a mere
hollow filled with chips and dust. The walls are gone, the
pavement has disappeared, the foundations to the water
level are removed. On the sand or mud at the base lie
shattered remains of statues, columns and architraves in
hard stone where they have been levered backwards and
forwards in the effort to get at and extract the underlying
blocks. Huge fragments have been wedged out for mill-
stones, heads and limbs are broken off and gone from the
statues, often the solid square block of the throne is all
that has survived, oftener still nothing but a few chips.
Thus have the pious or egotistical records and monu-
ments of whole dynasties of kings, the polished labours of
whole generations of artists and skilled and toiling slaves,
been reduced by their successors without a pang of remorse
to the original raw material, and this again re-worked and
reduced to chips and dust. From the temple of Sais, the
capital of the Psammetichi, of Necho, Apries, and Amasis,
not a single monument has been recovered beyond what
had been transported elsewhere in ancient times. An
obelisk of Apries is at Rome, whither many other choice
pieces of sculpture were carried, and where they have been
disinterred anew. Fragments from Sais can be identified
at Alexandria ; others are in several of our museums.
But the mounds of the city are a mass of clay walls
filled with dust, chips, and potsherds, from which probably
no substantial monument will ever emerge. A broken
sarcophagus lid of fine workmanship alone marks the
site of the necropolis in which the nobles of the Saite
court were interred.
It is impossible therefore to test the statements of
Herodotus concerning the monuments erected by the
Saite kings. Great monolithic shrines of granite such as
1 84 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
the one he describes at Buto are certainly characteristic
of the time : here at any rate is a true touch. Again, the
Greek colony of Naucratis which the historian described
' has been identified, and its ruins and remains a heap of
crude brick and dust, in the midst of which shards of Greek
painted pottery " crackle under the feet of the traveller "
testify to the general truth of his statements which
connect its foundation and importance with the XXVIth
Dynasty (ii. 178). The ancient temples of the Milesian
Apollo and of Hera were clearly traced by vases with
inscribed dedications, which had been broken and cast
away. A late inscription naming the temple of Zeus was
1 recovered, and a large enclosure was provisionally identified
with the great Hellenium. The last two sites may be settled
by further excavation. Two other temples of Naucratis
which must have existed in his day are not recorded by
Herodotus ; namely, those of Aphrodite and of the Dioscuri.
The former at least was important and much frequented. 1
The ruins of Daphnae likewise have yielded ample evidence
of occupation by Greek soldiers in the same age. Frag-
ments of stelae of Darius have been found on the canal
to the Red Sea, and confirm Herodotus' statement that
it was excavated by that enlightened ruler (ii. I58). 2
Darius the king saith : " I am a Persian ; a Persian I govern Egypt.
I commanded to cut this canal from the Nile, which is the name of the
river that runs in Egypt down to the sea that is connected with Persia.
Then the canal was cut here. I commanded this canal to be made, and
said, ' Go from . . . this canal down to the shore of the sea. . . . Such
is my will.'" (Some read, "Destroy half the canal from the city of
Bira to the sea.")
1 [To these the most recent excavation (March, 1899) has added
shrines of Herakles, Poseidon, Demeter, and Artemis. It has also
shewn that the Hellenium was probably not in or near the large
enclosure at the south of the site, but was at the north, and it has
thrown some doubt on the situations previously assigned to the temples
of Hera and the Dioscuri. ED.]
1 Of the previous attempt in the same direction by Necho we have
at present no monumental evidence.
SECOND] FOUNDERS OF EGYPTIAN CITIES 185
Strabo (xvii. 804) says that before the time of the
Trojan war Sesostris began the canal, but left it unfinished.
The portion that passes along the Wady Tumilat is cer-
tainly very ancient, and the name of Rameses is common
on the monuments of Pithom, which is on its banks.
With regard to the foundation of cities, Herodotus
says that Menes was the founder of Memphis, perhaps >
only on the strength of the name. The shrine of Ptah
must be of extreme antiquity, probably established long
before Menes. As early as the Illrd Dynasty the centre
of power gravitated to the Memphite region ; but Memphis
itself was not the settled capital of the country before the
Vlth Dynasty, and its "profane" name, Men-nefer, i.e.
Memphis, is taken from the name of the pyramid of Pepy,
the second king of that dynasty.
Diodorus represents Thebes as founded before Memphis,
and eventually overshadowed by it. This idea, though
absolutely contrary to history, might well be suggested by
the grandeur of ruined Thebes and the fact that Memphis
was still great in the writer's own day. Egyptian Babylon
(Old Cairo) was founded, he says offering the choice of
two myths either by the rebellious Babylonian captives
of Sesoosis, as Egyptian Troy (Turrah) was by Trojans,
or by the Assyrian queen Semiramis when she invaded
Egypt ! But what of Thothmes, Amenhetep, and Rameses?
Later still the Arab historians and geographers enter-
tain us with a new type of eponymous heroes as founders
of the cities of Egypt, intervening Christianity having
cut them off from the Pharaonic tradition which was still
strong in the time of Herodotus and even of Diodorus.
The power of monumental record to preserve the
memory of events in the minds of men is feeble : the '
works of one generation are forgotten by the next, no
matter how carefully the one engraves its memorials on
stone or brass and the other is taught to read. Rarely
1 86 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY PART
has the historian like Maqrizi arisen, to put in books the
dedications of gateway, tomb, and mosque, and so give
them a longer lease of life. The ordinary Muhammedan
of culture takes no note of the antiquities even of his own
faith and language. It is only Western inquisitiveness
and modern culture combined that will interrogate the
monuments of a dead language and a dead civilization.
A person who has travelled in a little-known country
is nowadays expected to describe localities, scenery, and
buildings with considerable accuracy, and to have carried
away with him definite pictures photographed upon his
memory of the more remarkable sights and scenes that he
has witnessed. Even if the turn of his discourse does not
lead him into description, his casual references to places
and things that he has seen will be in general correct. In
Herodotus such picturesque touches are exceedingly few.
Although the art of travel, as now practised, was then
utterly unknown, one would expect a person with any
natural faculty of observation to have dealt very differently
with the physical conditions of things and the mighty
works that everywhere met his eye in Egypt. The few
keen or critical observations made by Herodotus may
very well have been suggested to him by his guides or
companions. Take, for instance, his note as to the differ-
ence of thickness between the skulls of Persians and
Egyptians on the battlefields of Papremis and Pelusium
(iii. 12). In the temple of Sais he saw a number of
handless wooden statues, which he was informed repre-
sented the tiring maids of a princess, whose hands were
cut off for treachery to their mistress. This statement
was too much even for the credulity of Herodotus ; yet he
records it for its relish, only adding that from his own
observation he knew it to be untrue : the hands lay at the
feet of the statues, and had evidently dropped off from
SECOND] HERODOTUS: WANT OF OBSERVATION 187
decay. But if now and again mildly critical, Herodotus
generally preferred to acquiesce in what was told him.
When one considers the folklore that clusters round castles
and churches in England of to-day, and the inconsequent
stories reeled off by un instructed guides, there is no need to
suppose that Herodotus on his Egyptian travels had more
than an ordinary share of absurdity poured into his ears.
The Greek mind was artistic and speculative, and in the
literary man was not trained or disposed to matter-of-fact
in the smallest degree. Thus Herodotus was very ready
to take up any strange stories sometimes not of the most
seemly that were told to him, especially such as appeared
to have a philosophical bearing, to listen to other versions,
and to report them all with the merest superficialities
of criticism. He appears, indeed, to have been entirely
dependent on his cicerones, not only for explanations, but
also for noting the existence of the wonders he describes,
except when he borrowed from the writings of his pre-
decessors. If occasionally his descriptions are truthful,
they present so marked a contrast to the general standard
of his history that one is disposed to credit them to other
vision than his. Regarding Egypt, at any rate, he is
simply reporter to the Greek world of the current gossip
of the traders, guides, and priests whom he met there, so
far as it accorded with the plan of his history. Let us
not revile him for this. What other sources had he to
draw upon? To investigate matters for himself in a
foreign land was not within the compass of a Greek
traveller's notions. The sacrifice of ease and comfort and
the throwing of oneself out of one's own nationality in
order to penetrate the history and thoughts of another
race was an ideal undreamt of. The traveller in those
days can have had little energy left for observation. To
have accomplished a journey to Egypt at all was a con-
siderable feat. Again, trading was understood, and would
l88 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
meet with a ready response from the Egyptians ; but a
foreigner hunting relentlessly for information, and to this
end intruding into every sacred enclosure, would receive
scant courtesy at their hands.
It is. however, the frequent absence of even superficial
knowledge that tries our belief in the veracity of Herodotus.
When once the Delta is passed, Egypt is the easiest of
all countries to comprehend in its main features and land-
marks, without the aid of a map. If the traveller and his
boat be not buried deep in the trough of Low Nile, as he
passes up and down the river he can look over the whole
valley to the hills which bound it on either side of him.
Yet Herodotus has practically nothing to tell us of the
Upper country ; his few geographical remarks upon it
(ii. 8 et seqq.) seem only to shew his complete ignorance
of Egypt above Memphis. He appears to think that the
eastern range of hills did not run parallel to the Nile, but
turned off a little above Memphis in a long trend to the
Red Sea or the Indian Ocean, where incense trees grew
on its terminal slopes. In all Egypt, he says, there was
no sandy hill except the range over Memphis, on which
the pyramids stood (i. 8, 12). His estimate of the width
of the valley is far too high, and the notion of a great
widening comparable to that of the Delta four days south
from Heliopolis is absurd. His visit to Chemmis
(Ekhmim), " in the Theban nome," was productive only
of a most fantastic tale of its temple being dedicated to
Perseus, a story one would think more easy to credit or
invent when gossiping at home than when traversing the
streets of Chemmis itself. How could Herodotus, of all
people, have failed to tell us, when mentioning Elephantine,
that it was built on a little island in the midst of the
river ? and how could he leave without a word all the real
wonders of the upper country ? Yet Herodotus states
that he not only visited Thebes (ii. 3, 143, cf. 54), but even
SECOND] HERODOTUS: EGYPTIAN GEOGRAPHY 189
went as far as Elephantine (ii. 29). Beyond the First
Cataract his geography is of course extremely faulty. The
mention, however, of Meroe (ii. 29) as the capital of the
Ethiopians who worshipped Zeus (Ammon) and Dionysus
(Osiris) is good, and some enthusiasts may find references
even to the Bahr el Ghazal and the dwarfs of the Congo
(ii. 31, 32). The story about the springs of the Nile at
Elephantine (ii. 28) Herodotus justly doubts, but rather it
would seem because it was contrary to other information that
he had received than from his own observation. There was,
in fact, a mystic idea that the springs, or perhaps some
secondary sources of the Nile, were in the Cataract, and
the spot was reverenced accordingly. This view was
imparted to Herodotus by a priest of some standing in
the temple of Neith at Sais, and Herodotus is careful to
specify the rank of his informant. The idea that the Nile
flowed from the Cataract southward into Ethiopia, as
well as northward, was possibly a logical development of
the priestly account, due only to the Greek historian.
Professor Sayce holds the view that Herodotus never
went south of the Faiyum, and it is hard to avoid
adopting the same conclusion.
Egyptologists are, nevertheless, grateful to the Father
of History for an interest in Egypt which to many con-
stitutes almost the only claim of the subject on their
regard. It is, of course, as a raconteur about Egypt, not
as a guide or authority for its history or monuments,
that he wins our affection. Yet the industrious seeker
after facts will constantly meet with statements on the
pages of the second book which he knows to be un-
questionably true. Often they have served as useful hints
to the investigator ; and when circumstances point to a
particular conclusion without proving it, the statement of
Herodotus in support of that conclusion is not without
weight.
190 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
In contrast to his scanty information regarding the
Upper Country, the references of Herodotus are numerous
to localities in the Delta, and even throughout Lower Egypt
and as far south as the Faiyum to the mouths of the
Nile, to Naucratis, Daphnae, Bubastis, Heliopolis, Memphis,
and to the Labyrinth, pyramid and statues in the Faiyum ;
and if not correct, these references are at least intelligible.
His account of the coastline is very fairly accurate. Of
Naucratis he knows a good deal ; but the cities which he
names as having been passed in journeying thither are
mostly unknown to us. He seldom gives clues to the relative
positions of places. Several names, such as Myekphoris
and Papremis, that figure in his pages more than once,
are still undetermined, though some of them, according
to him, represent nomes or nome capitals. His distances,
even in the Delta, are all wrong, and the statement that
at a day's sail from the coast of the Delta the sea was
only eleven fathoms deep (ii. 5) is very far from the truth :
probably the depth would be sixty fathoms. The Greeks
ought certainly to have known this.
None of the geographical or local information vouch-
safed to us by the classical writers is without value. The
Greek and Roman place-names are in themselves part of
the later history of the country, and have left their
mark in the modern nomenclature. The main lines of
Egyptian ancient geography are now well known, yet in
the Delta especially the situation even of some of the
nomes is still uncertain. Strabo's list of the nomes is
very accurate. His summary treatment of those above
the Hermopolite nome in Upper Egypt, under the term
" Thebais," is shewn to be in accordance with later usage
by the famous Greek Revenue Papyrus of Ptolemy
Philadelphus. The same writer is also very correct in
indicating the positions of cities. Ptolemy is here, as
usual, fairly trustworthy ; yet considering that he lived
SECOND] HERODOTUS: EGYPTIAN CUSTOMS 191
at Alexandria, his geography of Egypt might have been
far more complete as well as more accurate than it is.
The distances between cities and stations given in the
Roman itineraries are often quite wrong, yet the order
of the names is right.
It follows, from what has been said above in reference
to the sculptures and inscriptions of the later period, that
the pictures drawn by Herodotus of Egypt and Egyptian
life are not easily tested by contemporary native docu-
ments. The manners and customs of the Xllth and
XVIIIth Dynasties are better known to us than those of
the fifth century B.C. Nevertheless, while we can point
out some instances in which his observation is correct,
there are others in which it cannot be. In fact, where
we are able to check his individual statements, they
generally seem unfounded, or a distortion of the facts,
or applicable to the exception rather than the rule. To
take a favourable instance, the Indian or rose lotus
(Nelumbiuni} has only been found among remains of
Roman date ; the evidence of Herodotus (ii. 92) for its
cultivation as a vegetable as early as the fifth century B.C.
is valuable, and is not likely to be controverted. Probably
this lotus had been introduced by the Persians. Again, in
saying that the arura, the standard field measure, was a
hundred cubits square he is right, and has aided in the
solution of a fundamental problem of metrology. But, in
spite of Herodotus, no one doubts that beans were eaten
as freely in ancient as in modern Egypt (ii. 37), nor will
the texts allow us for a moment to believe that Egyptians
despised barley and wheat as food (ii. 36). " They use
barley wine, for they have not vines in their country " (ii. 77). 1
Barley beer was, indeed, the universal beverage, and a
1 In the first edition there here followed an instance of apparent error
in Herodotus, the proof of which was founded on the silence of the
monuments always a dangerqus argument in Egyptology.
CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
portion of it was allowed to every labourer ; but wine was
largely drunk at banquets and much used also at sacrifices,
as in most countries, and in gardens the vine was greatly
cultivated. Athenaeus judged the Mareotic wine good, and
in inscriptions from the earliest times onwards four kinds
of wine are very commonly mentioned. There is no doubt
that kiki oil was much used by the inhabitants of the
marshes ; but that they spread their fishing-nets over their
bodies at night to keep off the gnats is beyond belief (ii.
94, 95). The division of the Egyptian soldiers into the
Calasiries and the Hermotybies (ii. 165) and their apportion-
ment amongst the nomes is a mystery to Egyptologists.
Herodotus cites a number of Egyptian customs reversing,
as he says, the practice of other nations. Few of these
can be traced as prevailing either in ancient or in
modern Egypt ; hence we may fairly argue that they
were not really much in vogue in his day. Wiedemann,
in an excellent commentary on the second book of
Herodotus, is time after time driven to desperate ex-
pedients to suggest even the shadow of basis for such
statements of his author. For instance, according to
Herodotus, women in Egypt carried burdens on their
shoulders, while the men carried them on their heads,
this being exactly contrary to the usage of the rest of
the world. Wiedemann suggests, as the origin of this
wondrous assertion, that Herodotus may perhaps have
seen women carrying their babies on their shoulders,
as is commonly done in modern Egypt, though never
represented in the ancient paintings. Now and again,
too, men would be seen carrying baskets and trays on
their heads, as occasionally they have done at all times
and, one would think, in all countries.
Egyptian religion knows nothing of the three orders
of deities of which so much has been made, nor can we
find in it the famous doctrine of metempsychosis, at any
SECOND] HERODOTUS: EGYPTIAN RELIGION 193
rate in the full form in which it is stated by Herodotus.
The soul was not supposed to pass through the whole
gamut of creation and then to re-embody itself in human
form, though certainly the pious Egyptian hoped to be
able to take upon himself after death any form he pleased,
and to return from time to time to the sunlight as a
sacred hawk, a heron, an egret, a scarabaeus, a lotus, or,
in fact, as any living thing he chose. The Pythagorean
doctrine may, however, have entered Egypt as a systema-
tizing of this idea, and have found some acceptance
without affecting the religious formulae. Herodotus seems
generally to designate the Egyptian deities by the same
Greek names as later writers ; but his mythological allusions
much need confirmation, and his air of mystery over the
name of Osiris is amusing. Perhaps it is pardonable that
he should have thought the Greeks borrowed their twelve
great gods from Egypt (ii. 4), though he thereby displays
an utter absence of the critical spirit. In excluding from
the Egyptian religion Poseidon and the Dioscuri, or any
equivalent for them, he is right (ii. 43).
The goat of Pan at Mendes should be a ram (ii. 46).
The little horned snake, or cerastes, he speaks of as
harmless, whereas it is the most deadly of all the Egyptian
serpents (ii. 74). Occasionally a piece of description is
true to the life ; such is the excellent portrait of the sacred
ibis (ii. 76). " The head and all the throat are naked : it
is white in the feathers, except the head and neck, and the
tips of the wings and the tip of the tail, these parts that I
have mentioned being exceedingly black. The legs and
the face are like the other sort " (i.e. legs cranelike and
bill somewhat hooked). Here Herodotus is truer to fact
than many a richly illustrated modern book, in which a
figure of the Indian variety does duty for the sacred bird
of Egypt. But how isolated is this gem of veracity !
" Hardly Herodotus," one would say, on reading its
13
194 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
wondrous context. After all, even the most unobservant
of theorists and the most irresponsible of writers may
sometimes stumble into accuracy.
Diodorus, who travelled in Egypt before he wrote his
historical work, relates in his first book, on the ancient or
" mythological " history of Egypt, page after page of
absurdity, such as the travels of Osiris and the wars and
other achievements of Sesoosis (Sesostris), the greatest of all
kings that ever reigned in the world. Even here, however,
we not only have genuine Egyptian names constantly oc-
curring, but out-of-the-way facts characteristic of Egypt
are curiously interwoven with ideas utterly alien. He men-
tions, for instance, that five deities Osiris, I sis, Typhon
(Set), Apollo (Horus), and Aphrodite (Nephthys) were
born on the five intercalary days, and Egyptian inscrip-
tions affirm that these were the birthdays of Osiris, Horus,
Set, Isis, and Nephthys respectively, only Isis and Horus
have been transposed by the Greek writer. The desig-
nation of Isis as the goddess of healing is a true touch ;
but how absurd and exaggerated is the description of the
boundaries of Egypt and of the dangers of the harmless
salt marsh known as Lake Serbonis ! The tomb of
Osymandyas has strong reminiscences of the Ramesseum,
the funerary temple of Rameses II., though not his tomb.
The law attributed to an Ethiopian conqueror, Actisanes
for cutting off the noses of malefactors and banishing
them to Rhinocorura in the desert can be paralleled in the
decree of Horemheb(XVIIIth Dynasty), where oppressive
and cheating government officers are condemned to lose
their noses and to be banished to a place in that very
neighbourhood, on the north-eastern frontier of Egypt.
The other laws recorded by Diodorus we altogether fail
to trace.
The origin of his idea that burial was refused until
the deceased had been judged worthy of it may easily
SECOND] VALLEYS OF TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES 195
be found in the Book of the Dead. Here the dead man
is not admitted to the presence of Osiris until his heart has
been weighed and found free of evil, and he has replied to
each of the forty-two assessors that he is guiltless of the
different sins of which they respectively take cognizance.
Also, if the literature of the Egyptians were more fully
known to us, possibly we might find a papyrus of precepts
for kings, conceived more or less in the vein of the laws
which Diodorus says regulated every act of the royal life
in every hour of its day : at present, however, it is safer to
regard them as the outcome of Greek imagination.
In Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride trie main lines of the
ancient myth can be seen through the clouds of comment,
expansion, and transformation in a more connected and
fuller form than elsewhere. The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo
are apparently a composition of the Middle Ages ; at any
rate they are more misleading than any of the casual state-
ments of the early Greeks with regard to the hieroglyphic
writing. It is seldom that the fancies of this author can
be supported by more than shreds of fact, and his re-
presentation of the nature of the writing must have been
a terrible stumbling-block to the early decipherers.
VALLEYS OF TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES 1
On the remote history of the Euphratean peoples
Herodotus is almost silent : from the little he says about it
his ideas seem to have been very far from correct. In the
Assyrian history which he promised (i. 184; cf. 106), but
perhaps never wrote, we should doubtless have had as
plentiful and entertaining a store of myths as in the book
on Egypt. He never distinguishes clearly between the
Assyrians and the Babylonians, calling them both Assyrians.
1 The writer has to express his obligation to Mr. T. G. Pinches, of
the British Museum, who has read the {.-roofs of the sections referring
to Assyriology, and suggested important improvements.
196 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
The name, of course, properly belongs only to the Ninevite
kingdom, which may be considered almost as an offshoot of
Babylonia. But for a century before the fall of Nineveh
the latter had been subject to the power of Assyria, though
occasionally in rebellion ; and it was probably for this
reason that after Nineveh and Assyria had been blotted
out the inhabitants of Babylonia were still known to the
Greeks as Assyrians. Assyriology has come to be the
universally accepted name for the study of the Euphratean
civilization in all its branches and developments.
Diodorus, in his second book, has much more to say on the
subject. His chief authority, Ctesias, a Greek physician at
the court of Artaxerxes Mnemon, drew his information
so he tells us from the royal records of Persia. But if
this is true, the Persian records must have been almost
incredibly bad as history, and have consisted merely of
popular tales ; yet we know that the Babylonians were active
in compiling and copying lists of their former kings in the
time of Darius. Berosus, a priest of the time of Antiochus
Soter, wrote a history of Babylon in Greek ; of this unfor-
tunately little survives beyond the title of the dynasty,
its duration, and the number of its kings, the names of the
individual sovereigns being lost. Ptolemy, in his canon
of the later kings of Babylonia, recorded for astronomical
purposes their succession down to Alexander, and the
lengths of the reigns, which covered in all 424 years.
When compared with the monuments, this record is correct,
except that the names of the kings are curiously deformed,
and reigns of less than a year are not noted.
The only mention of an Assyrian king by Herodotus
occurs in the Egyptian section, where he tells how
" Sanacherib " (704-681 n.c), called, strangely enough, king
of the Arabians and Assyrians, was miraculously over-
thrown on the Egyptian frontier. 1 Herodotus can hardly
1 Set above, p. 167 note.
SECOND] ASSYRIAN TALES 197
have understood what an Assyrian king meant. Though
the detailed annals of Sennacherib's reign afford no hint
of a defeat, the Biblical narrative of the destruction of his
army (2 Kings xix. 35) suggests that the story was not
without some basis of fact ; and chronologically it is sound.
A reference to Assyrian domination occurs in Herodotus
in connexion with the origin of the power of the Medes.
He refers to the fall of Nineveh as a great event, but /
perhaps without understanding its full significance : he
regards it, not as ending the Assyrian empire, but as
depriving the Assyrians of their northern capital and
causing the transfer of the seat of power to Babylon. This
view has been partially justified by recent discoveries.
Even when Assyria was hastening to her ruin only a few
years before the fall of Nineveh, Babylon was not wholly
independent : it still acknowledged at least the nominal
sovereignty of the weak descendants of Assurbanipal, and
contract-tablets dated in their reigns are found in Babylonia.
An inscription of Nabonidus, however, shews that a king .
of Babylon, apparently Nabopolassar, joined in the attack
of the uunnan-manda " the hordes of the Manda " or " of
the nations " which overran Assyria and wasted its cities. 1 -
The Assyrian stories quoted by Diodorus from Ctesias
are more wildly imaginative than the Egyptian stories
of Herodotus. Ninus, the alleged founder of Nineveh,
who is said to have conquered an empire as extensive
as that of Persia in its most flourishing days, is quite
unknown to cuneiform writings ; his name is simply that
of Nineveh in Assyrian Ninua, in Greek Ninus.
Semiramis, his queen and successor, whose exploits
rivalled his own, has the name of Sammuramat, wife or
mother of Rammanu-nirari III., king of Assyria (about
1 Professor Driver has kindly given me information about this
inscription, as well as valuable comments and suggestions, which have
been utilized throughout the chapter.
198 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
812-783 B.C.). Warlike expeditions, principally to the
north and west, are recorded of this king. It is possible
that some faint recollection of the rise of the second
Assyrian empire in the ninth century B.C. is preserved
in the stories of Ninus and Semiramis. Many pages of
the second book of Diodorus are occupied with the
marvellous deeds of Semiramis, and she is even men-
tioned by Herodotus, who, however, regards her as
Babylonian. What are we to think of her twenty-eight
luxurious successors, down to Sardanapalus, each more
orientally effeminate than the last? To Diodorus one
of them only appears worth naming on account of his
connexion with the Trojan war. Tithonus was governor
of Persia when his son Memnon was sent by Teutamus,
king of Assyria, to the help of his vassal Priam of Troy !
When at length we are vouchsafed a gleam of history
in the attack on Nineveh, Diodorus expressly states that
no impression could be made on the walls of the city
by the Medes and their allies, because battering-rams and
suchlike engines had not yet been invented. But both
in Egypt and in Assyria the battering-ram was regularly
used at least some centuries before this time. By Diodorus
the king of the Medes is called Arbakes (Cyaxares in
Herodotus) : the cuneiform documents do not name him.
Belysis, who brought the Babylonian contingent, is no
doubt Nabopolassar. Sardanapalus has long been thought
a fancy portrait of Assurbanipal (667-626 B.C.), under
whom learning and the arts flourished, and the Assyrian
empire reached the zenith of its magnificence while
hastening to its ruin. But (as Mr. Pinches remarks) this
idea can hardly be maintained, for it is now known that
Nineveh was not destroyed until twenty years after his
death, probably in 607 B.C. : Sin-sharra-ishkun (Saracos)
was the last king of Nineveh, and of him we practically
know nothing. Clinton, arguing from the Greek sources,
SECOND] SEMIRAMIS, NITOCRIS 199
placed the fall of the Assyrian empire at 876 B.C., a date
which happens in reality to be marked by the beginning
of its great development.
Among the rulers of Babylonia, Herodotus tells us of
two queens. One was Semiramis ; she threw up embank-
ments to prevent the river from flooding the plain round
the city. The other was a Nitocris, who, after the capture
of Nineveh by the Medes, improved the fortifications
of Babylon along the river, and added greatly to their
strength. He says that she was mother of Labynetus,
who was deprived of his kingdom by Cyrus. This Laby-
netus, son of Labynetus, is evidently Nabonidus, whose
father, however, was an officer named Nabo-balatsu-ikbi. 1
His mother's name is unknown : that she was a queen in
her own right seems improbable, though she may have
belonged to the royal family of Nebuchadnezzar. Her
death in the Babylonian camp is prominently mentioned
in a record by Cyrus of the events of the reign of
Nabonidus, and from this we may gather that she was
a personage of real importance, and that, unlike the king
himself, she was active in the defence of his realm.
" Nitocris " is an Egyptian name of the same period, and
it is quite possible that the mother of Nabonidus was of
Egyptian descent. The works ascribed to her by Herodotus
belong, however, rather to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.
Semiramis, who reigned five generations before Nitocris,
we cannot at all identify ; but for this the monuments
may be at fault, seeing that they scarcely ever record
the name of a queen. Of queens reigning in their own
right there is only one recorded in the lists of Babylonia
and Assyria ; she was named Azaga-Bau in Akkadian,
Bau-ellit in Semitic Babylonian, and belongs apparently to
1 All those kings whose names begin with the name of the god
Nebo seem to be called Labynetus by Herodotus. Thus (i. 74)
Labynetus, who mediated between the Lydians and the Medes
(Alyattes and Cyaxares), must stand for Nebuchadnezzar.
200 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
the earliest period, some twenty-five or thirty centuries B.C.,
when Babylon was still an obscure city.
The rise of the power of the Medes is recounted by
Herodotus at considerable length. He says (i. 96) that after
the Assyrians had ruled Asia 520 years, the Medes were
the first to revolt from them. From this it would seem
that the Medes, after being long subject to the Assyrians,
finally contrived to throw off their yoke ; but this does
not agree with the evidence of the cuneiform texts. There
r is, indeed, doubt as to who the Medes were. In the texts
from the eighth century onwards we read of the " Madai " in-
habiting Media as being from time to time attacked by the
Assyrian kings, and that the western border of their country
was overrun. But there are also the uminan-manda, who are
supposed to be Scythian nomad invaders, in or about Cappa-
docia in the time of Assurbanipal, about 670 B.C. ; and
Astyages, the king of the Medes overthrown by Cyrus, is
Ishtuwegu, the king of the umman-manda. The Medes
i should be Aryan ; but this, of course, the Scythians are not.
However that may be, Herodotus says that the Medes,
who had previously lived in separate communities, united
themselves under a king Deioces into one body and built
Acbatana ; during the reign of Deioces they prospered
exceedingly. Media was anciently inhabited in all proba-
bility partly by the true Aryan Medes, partly by non-
Aryans. In the north of this very region Sargon (715 B.C.)
captured a chief named Diakku, and transported him
to Hamath. Deioces' son, Phraortes, who was killed in
battle, bears at least a Median name ; for the inscription
of Darius at Behistun tells of a Mede named Phravartish,
who rebelled during that king's reign. The name of
Cyaxares, successor of Phraortes, is thought by some to
occur in an Assyrian inscription. Finally, Cyrus states
that the soldiers of Astyages, "king of the itmman-
manda" an expression which has been rendered "the
SECOND] CYRUS 2OI
hordes of the nations," revolted and gave up their king-
to him. This to some extent confirms Herodotus, who
in his long account of the relations of Astyages with
Cyrus represents the former as unpopular with the Medes,
who were almost as ready to desert him in the battle
as the Persians themselves (i. 127 and 124). The capital
of the Medes at this time was Acbatana, and Cyrus
carried the spoil of Acbatana (Agamtana) to his kingdom
of Anshan. Herodotus says that it was built by Deioces,
which is improbable, and in seven circles, each circle of
a different colour. This idea, mythical as it is, is derived
from the Babylonian towers : in the Birs Nimrud at
Borsippa each stage was coloured differently to symbolize
the colours of sun, moon, and planets, one perhaps being
even plated with silver, another with gold.
It may be conceded readily that Greek'accounts of early
Mesopotamia!! conquerors were mythical, and yet it may
be contended that the conquests of Cyrus mark an epoch
after which history was clearer and the classical versions
of it trustworthy. The fall of Nineveh, Lydia, and
Babylon left the Persians in possession of a vast empire,
and with their power Asia Minor and the Greeks early
became only too well acquainted. But even as regards
this period the old confidence in Greek historians meets
with rude shocks, and that notwithstanding the scarcity
of historical data for the time amongst the cuneiform
inscriptions. One of the most surprising discoveries made
from those inscriptions is that Cyrus was not a Persian
who rose from a subordinate position, as Herodotus had
led us to believe, but that he was king by inheritance
of a part of Elam called Anshan, as were his father
Cambyses, his grandfather, and other ancestors before
him. 1 Xenophon, in his unhistorical Cyropacdia, represents
the father of Cyrus as king of Persia, and so is nearer
1 See pp. 124, 126, in Part First.
202 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
the truth than Herodotus. It was not until after the
overthrow of Astyages that the Elamite king called
himself king of Persia. After this readjustment of our
ideas as to the origin of Cyrus, we are less surprised to
find that he acted as a polytheist, and professed himself
a devout worshipper of Bel Merodach at the capture
of Babylon, restoring the worship of the gods whom
Nabonidus (Labynetus) had neglected.
The untrustworthiness of the accounts in Herodotus is
evident as soon as they can be definitely compared with
monumental records. The famous siege and capture of
Babylon by Cyrus is contradicted by his inscription, which
relates that, after a battle at Opis and another at Sippara,
his general, Gobryas, entered the city without a struggle.
Babylon had stood many sieges before the time of Cyrus,
and stood many more afterwards : it is thought that one
of the two captures by Darius, whose general was also
named Gobryas, may have been confused with the entry
of Cyrus. The inscription of Wady Brissa seems to shew
that Nebuchadnezzar had built a great wall, 1 stretching
from the Tigris at Opis to the Euphrates at Sippara,
and intended to ward off attacks from the north by
flooding the country above it. He continued this defence
on the east of the Euphrates, behind Babylon, by a great
wall and artificial marshes. The area enclosed included
enough cornland to support the country during the most
prolonged wars. Cyrus' trick of diverting the stream and
entering along its bed may have been practised in reality
for overcoming this outer defence at Opis and at Sippara,
instead of at Babylon, as Herodotus represents. The
story of how Cyrus avenged the drowning of a sacred
horse in the river Gyndes at Opis is perhaps another
version of the same occurrence. It is quite intelligible
that after such a disaster to the country the capital should
1 The "Median Wall" of Xenophon.
SECOND] CAMBYSES, DARIUS 2OJ
have opened its gates to Gobryas. It is instructive to note
that Herodotus counts this as the first capture of Babylon ;
yet it had been besieged by one Assyrian king after another,
and Sennacherib had taken it with cruel slaughter 689 B.C., ;
and Assurbanipal as late as 648. No one, however, had
before contended with the great Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar.
Of Cambyses there is little to say apart from his con-
nexion with Egypt ; but his long absence in that country
prepared the way for the subsequent troubles in Assyria.
The monuments of Darius are numerous, and the great
inscription of Behistun tells how, belonging to the old royal
family, he first wrested the empire from the hand of the
usurper and afterwards quelled eight rebellions during
the early part of his reign :
Saith Darius the King : " This was what was done by me before I
became king. One named Cambyses, son of Cyrus, of our race, he
exercised the dominion before me, and this Cambyses had a brother
named Bardiya, of the same mother and the same father with Cambyses.
Then Cambyses slew that Bardiya. When Cambyses slew Bardiya, the
people knew not that Bardiya was killed. Then Cambyses proceeded
to Egypt. When Cambyses had proceeded to Egypt, then the people
became wicked, and the lie was great in the land, both in Persia and in
Media and in the other lands. And there was a man, a Magian, named
Gaumata : he revolted in Pishiauvada, on a mountain named Arakadrish.
On the I4th day of the month Viyakhna he revolted. He lied to the
people : ' I am Bardiya, the son of Cyrus, the brother of Cambyses.'
Thereupon all the people fell away from Cambyses and went over to
him, both Persia and Media and the other lands. He seized the
dominion. On the ninth day of the month Garmapada they fell away
from Cambyses, and thereon Cambyses died by suicide."
And King Darius saith : " That dominion of which Gaumata the
Magian deprived Cambyses, the same (?) dominion our family exercised
from ancient days. Thereupon Gaumata the Magian deprived Cambyses
both of Persia and of Media and of the other countries, and he seized
the sovereignty over them according to his will.' 1
And King Darius saith : " Of the men there were none, whether
Persian or Mede, or one of our family, that would have deprived the
Magian Gaumata of the sovereignty. The people feared him ; he slew
much people who had known the former Bardiya. On this account he
slew much people ' that they may not recognize me that I am not
Bardiya, the son of Cyrus ' ; and no one ventured anything in regard
to the Magian Gaumata ; till I came. Then I prayed Ahuramazda.
Ahuramazda brought me aid. By the grace of Ahuramazda I slew,
204 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
with a few men on the loth day of the month Bagayadish, Gaumata the
Magian and the men who were his chiefest adherents. In a city named
Sikayauvatish, in a country named Nisaya, in Media, there I slew
him, I deprived him of the dominion. By the grace of Ahuramazda I
exercised the dominion : Ahuramazda gave me the dominion."
Herodotus makes two Magi, brothers, seize the throne
while Cambyses was in Egypt, the one called Smerdis pre-
tending to be Smerdis, the younger brother of Cambyses,
whom that king had privily put to death. Darius confirms
this, but mentions only one Magus, and says that his real
name was Gaumata, not Smerdis. From the same inscrip-
tion it appears also that Cambyses committed suicide, and
did not kill himself accidentally (as Hdt, iii. 64). Herodotus
gives with great accuracy (iii. 70) the names of the six
conspirators who with Darius slew the Magians ; only
one among them is incorrect. The account is also quite
right in representing that none but these seven con-
spirators were concerned in the plot. The scene of the
assassination is, however, wrongly given as the palace
of Susa, whereas the Behistun inscription states that
the Magus was slain in the fort of Sikayauvatish, in
the district of Nisaya in Media. The fall of Inta-
phernes (iii. 1 1 8) had not taken place at the time of
engraving the inscription. The Babylonian revolt told
of in Herodotus (iii. 150) must have occurred at the
beginning of the reign of Darius, preparations for it having
been made during the reign of the false Smerdis. This
would coincide in time with the revolt of Nadintu Bel,
which was, as the contract-tablets shew, put down after
ten months ; but the incidents related by Herodotus do
not agree with the record left by Darius.
Herodotus also tells us something of the land and its
geography, of the city of Babylon, and of the religion of
the Persians. His description of "Assyria" really applies
to Babylonia only. According to him the land, though
intersected by irrigation canals, is unlike Egypt in that the
SECOND] HERODOTUS ON BABYLONIA 205
river does not rise sufficiently to inundate it ; this, however,
is hardly the case. Its richness and fertility are rightly
insisted on, and it is fairly true that fig, olive, and vine do
not grow there. Besides Babylon, he mentions only three
places by name. Is, where the bitumen wells were, at
eight days' journey from Babylon, is evidently the modern
Hit, about one hundred and eighty miles up the Euphrates.
Of Ardericca nothing is known, and Opis seems rather
misplaced. The description of Babylon is somewhat
fantastic, and would at once condemn a modern traveller ;
but perhaps we must accept the statement that Herodotus
really saw the place, even if he carried away no true idea
of it except that it was big, that the Euphrates ran through
it, and that it was marked by great tower-temples. The site,
he tells us, was a square of one hundred and twenty stadia (i.e.
fifteen miles), which, judging by the extent of the ruins, seems
an enormous exaggeration. The stupendous height attri-
buted to the walls two hundred cubits is absurd. 1 Such '
figures may well be the product of a story-teller's imagina-
tion in dealing with a city which was no doubt the great
typical city of the world and far enough off from Greece (
to be described freely. Something of Nineveh also may be
included in the description. The lofty walls of that city
on the top of its gigantic mound must have been hugely
imposing ; the total height of the Assyrian capital combined
with the area of the Babylonian capital each considerably
multiplied furnish remarkable figures, and Herodotus was
not the man to question the actuality of the result. Little
is known of the topography of Babylon ; but so far as it is
known it is difficult to bring any part of the description
of Herodotus into agreement with it.
The most famous and picturesque of the Babylonian
customs related by Herodotus is that of the marriage
1 It is curious, however, that Nebuchadnezzar speaks of walls that
he built as being " mountain high."
206 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
market in the villages. Unfortunately his pretty story
has received as yet no confirmation. Neither have any
of the other customs mentioned received fresh warrant
from Assyriology, though it would be foolish therefore to
deny that they existed. Nuptial documents are very
numerous among the cuneiform remains, but they are
chiefly concerned with marriages of wealthy men in the
great towns with women who were either equals or slaves.
Of the Babylonian religion Herodotus says nothing
except in a passing reference while describing the temple
of Zeus Belus (Bel Merodach ?) at Babylon. The Persian
religion is set forth with some fulness ; but it is difficult
to reconcile the description with the facts as known to us.
Probably religion in Persia was at that time very various :
some sects would be strict monotheists (Zoroastrians) ;
others, worshippers of the elements (Magians) ; others, again,
would combine elements of both Zoroastrianism and
Magism, adding also gods from the cults of the provincial
nations. Cyrus and his Elamite ancestors had probably
long worshipped gods borrowed from Babylonia, and he
certainly acted as the faithful servant of Bel Merodach.
It is clear from his inscriptions that Darius was a Zoro-
astrian, and restored the Zoroastrian temples, though
Herodotus represents the Persians as worshipping the
elements and being without either temples or altars.
One cannot expect that a Greek like Herodotus would
know the Persian language, even if he was born at
Halicarnassus and had travelled long in the Persian
dominions. It is not surprising, therefore, that he thought
all Persian proper names terminated with s ; this is true
enough of all of them in their Greek dress, but in Persian
only a moderate proportion end in s, or rather in sh, even
in the nominative singular. Herodotus says that Persian
boys were taught only three things to ride, to shoot, and
to speak the truth. This may or may not be correct ; but
SECOND] GENEALOGY OF DARIUS 2O7
it is interesting to find that in the Behistun inscription
Darius particularly condemns liars, and frequently uses
the word " lie." It must be admitted, though, that a
king who suffered from provinces revolting under pre-
tenders on no less than nine occasions had unusual cause
to be impressed with the evil of lying.
The genealogy of Xerxes is given by Herodotus (vii. n)
as follows : i Achaemenes, 2 Teispes, 3 Cambyses,
4 Cyrus, 5 Teispes, 6 Ariaramnes, 7 Arsames, 8 Hystaspes,
9 Darius, 10 Xerxes. The authenticity of the mere names
is shewn by the Behistun inscription, in which Darius gives
his ancestry as I Achaemenes, 2 Teispes, 3 Ariaramnes,
4 Arsames, 5 Hystaspes, 6 Darius, and says that he was
the ninth of the kings in his family. Thus it seems at
first sight as if Herodotus gave the full and correct
genealogy ; but according to him (iii. 70), Hystaspes was
not a king, and cannot therefore count among the eight
kings of the family of Darius. Cyrus, however, did belong
to the family of the Achaemenids, though to a different
branch. He himself gives his genealogy as follows :
i Shispish, king of Anshan ; 2 Kurash, king of Anshan ;
3 Cambuzia, king of Anshan. The family branched at
Teispes (Shishpish). Probably, therefore, Darius reckoned
his royal relatives according to the following tree, especially
as in a later passage of the same inscription he includes
Cambyses in his family ; in this case Herodotus is not
quite accurate :
i ACHAEMENES.
I
2 TEISPES.
3 CYRUS. 4 ARIARAMNES.
5 CAMBYSES. 6 ARSAMES.
7 CYRUS. HYSTASPES, Governor only.
I |
8 CAMBYSES. 9 DARIUS.
20S CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF ANCIENT HISTORY
How different is the standpoint of the modern student
from that of the Greek or Roman writers, and how
radically opposed to that of the mediaeval schoolman !
We may praise Herodotus for his excellent perception,
at that early date, of what is required of the historian of
a country, even though we may notice that arts, science,
and literature figure little in his narrative of Egypt, for
at any rate the land, its history, chronology, traditions,
religion, manners, and customs, its domestic animals, its
zoology, are all touched upon. Here was a broad sketch
for his successors to correct, extend, and fill in, if only the
Baconian philosophy had been known and practised by
the sages of Alexandria. But a world seems to separate
us of the passing nineteenth century from their methods,
and even from those of a hundred years ago ; and it has
been reserved for us to draw forth the true history of
Egypt and Babylonia straight from their soil and ruins.
The classical writings on the Ancient East are now studied
more as records of the views of the time and of the
personalities of the authors than of facts, and only those
rare scraps of the old lore that bear rigorous testing are
fitted into the new structure. No Greek or Roman ever
dreamed of such a study, even of his own country, as we are
attempting for Egypt in illustration of the history of man.
In briefly reviewing some of the salient points of this
reconstruction we cannot omit to note the triumphs that
have been won by the spade of the scientific excavator
in Egypt. Scientific excavation is among the latest
developments of Egyptology, and is mainly the personal
achievement of a single Englishman. Northern archaeo-
logists long since divided the early history of man or
rather the prc-history into periods which resemble in
name at least those imagined by the classic poets : the
SKCOND] EGYPTIAN EXCAVATIONS 2O9
stone age, the bronze age, and the iron age, with their
subdivisions into palaeolithic ard neolithic, early bronze
and late bronze, early iron and the rest. Before the
nineteenth century, history began for us in the iron age,
and only traditions or /.wdoi remained of earlier stages
of civilization. Since then the decipherer has reconstructed
the succession of the Egyptian kings, and carried the
history of their recorded deeds thirty centuries beyond
600 B.C. The excavator has followed, late, but still not
too late, and he has pushed back historic archaeology
some twelve centuries, to the beginning of the late bronze
age, in the dark period between the Middle Kingdom and
the New. He finds that then, and not till then, must
stone have been practically driven out of the field by
bronze as a material for weapons and implements. Through
the Middle Kingdom and the Old Kingdom he is further
tracking back the use of stone in ever-increasing pro-
portion, side by side with copper and bronze, until twenty
centuries have been added to the twelve, and Menes,
the traditional founder of the Egyptian monarchy, is
reached. Beyond this still he tracks it, but with no rule
for the measurement of time, until metal becomes rare
indeed, and the perfection of the flintwork testifies to
the enormous labour which had been spent on it. In
the subtle curving, symmetry of flaking, ' ripple-marking,
and serration of its flint knives, Egypt has come into
competition with the whole of the primitive world, and
has carried off the prize unchallenged. The excavator
perseveres : inscriptions have long since ceased, the art
of making pottery on the wheel disappears, but copper or
bronze, though rare, seems ever to be present. The be-
ginning of the early bronze age still lies hid, and the work
of neolithic man in Egypt has not yet been disentangled
from that of his successor who ran metal from the furnace
into the mould and invented coloured glazes and glass
14
210 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
itself. Far behind the later stone age again is palaeo-
lithic man, who may have lived before the Nile valley
was grooved out by the river, and whose rude implements
i strew the desert plateaus of Egypt and Somaliland.
Thus we gain from Egypt some insight into the
chronology of the ages of man in the world. At least
we learn that the antiquity of even the later stages of
civilization is respectable, and that probably each period
was immensely longer than its successor and shorter than
its predecessor. When Babylonian archaeology has been
followed out on the same lines and the early chronology
of the two countries fixed, we shall have the means of
estimating the course and speed of the different waves
of civilization that carried the metals or the knowledge of
their uses from one country to another and spread them
over the globe. In Egypt iron, though perhaps long
known, had not begun to be in common use much before
the seventh century B.C. ; in Britain, probably not before
the third century.
The leading aim of Flinders Petrie throughout his years
of excavations in Egypt has been to establish dated series
of common objects, especially pottery, by means of which
the age of any remains associated with similar types can
be approximately fixed, even when unaccompanied by
inscriptions. Brickwork, stonework, objects in flint, in
metal, and in wood, all bear the impress of the period to
which they belong, all can be made to tell their tale and
to furnish a basis for wide-reaching conclusions. To
Hellenic archaeology in particular the Egyptian excavator
has already contributed a datum of first-rate value in
the synchronism of the XVIIIth Dynasty with the early
Mycenaean Age.
The source, or perhaps rather the nidus of development,
of the Nilotic and of the Euphratean civilization must have
been a fertile river valley. A certain degree of Semitic
SECOND] NILOTIC AND EUPHRATEAN CIVILIZATIONS 211
influence or relationship is observable in each at a very
early period. Egyptian, like most of the other languages
of North Africa, is of a sub-Semitic type, though no Semitic '
traits are to be discerned in the features of the ancient
people. In Babylonia the Semites were numerous and
powerful at the earliest known period ; but the language
of the earliest texts is neither Semitic nor Aryan, and the
sculptured type indicates, some say, a dark Australasian
race of which relics still exist in the neighbourhood of
Susa, in Beluchistan, and in India. The power of Egypt
was hemmed in by deserts on three sides, and not until the
XVIIIth Dynasty did she burst her eastern barriers and
overrun Syria to the Euphrates. The frontiers of Baby-
lonia were not so delimited, and struggles with tribes of
almost equal power in surrounding plains and mountains
rendered her sons hardy and warlike. It seems that thirty
or forty centuries B.C. Sargon of Agade led a host up the
Euphrates and across Northern Syria to the Mediterranean
a feat imitated by few but the most powerful of the
Assyrian kings. It was at that time, too, that art appa-
rently reached its culmination in Babylonia, judging by the j
delicate and impressive relief representing Naram-Sin, the
son of Sargon. But there is nothing from the Euphrates .
or Tigris to compare with the noble and exquisite sculp-
tures of the IVth Dynasty in Egypt. In warlike and
cruel Assyria, which borrowed all its culture from Baby-
lonia, the finest work known is the latest, the reliefs in the
palace of Assurbanipal being both spirited and delicate. '
Babylonia was the birthplace of astronomy, and arithmetic
and geometry were more highly developed there than in
Egypt ; the latter was especially the home of art. In
neither country was there any profound science or philo-
sophy, nor any literature of signal merit.
To chronology, the results of modern researches are most
precise and important in Babylonia and Assyria. Here
212. CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
the clay-tablets have preserved to us several " canons " by
which dates were intended to be identified. The Ptolemaic
canon of Babylonian kings, which agrees absolutely in
its chronology with the cuneiform evidence, gives a fixed
starting-point B.C. In Assyria the dating of documents
was by means of annual eponymous magistrates, canon-
lists of whom exist that cover nearly 250 years, one ending
667 B.C. in the reign of Assurbanipal, and stretching back
to 902 B.C. The date of accession of each king is noted
in them. This is all positive chronology, so that the
precise dates of a vast number of events in Assyrian
history are now exactly known. For Babylonia we have
several long lists of kings with the lengths of their reigns,
the years of which \vere summed up at the end of each
dynasty. One of these lists was compiled or copied for
the library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh, others date from
the Persian period. They reached back regularly to about
the twenty-fourth century B.C., shortly before the unifica-
tion of the country under Khammurabi, to the time when
Babylon first became a royal city ; those at present known
are too fragmentary to yield of themselves a positive
chronology, but the date of their starting-point seems
ascertained within a century. Apparently these lists were
compiled from shorter canons of one or two dynasties
each, which had been constructed from time to time in
order to interpret the dating of legal and other documents.
In the earlier periods such documents were dated only
by the name of the king or viceroy, and the principal
military expedition or other event of the year. An almost
contemporary canon of the years of the first seven kings in
the first dynasty of Babylon has been published recently
by the British Museum, and proves that authentic materials
go back to a very distant age. It was written in the reign
of the tenth king, the fourth in succession from Khammurabi.
A much later tablet from Babylon gives the lengths of the
SECOND] EUPHRATEAN CHRONOLOGY 213
reigns of this dynasty apparently in a rather careless copy.
A total reduction of 19 years in about 202 is observable
in the earlier document.
Not unfrequently, when some previous ruler is promi-
nently referred to by the Babylonian and Assyrian
kings in the records of their own exploits, a statement
is added as to the length of time which separated him
from them. The most famous example of such a docu-
ment is that in which Nabonidus (555-538 B.C.) assigns
to Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, king of Agade, the
remote date of 3200 years before himself. Opinion is
much divided as to the trustworthiness of this date. Until
the recent excavations of the Americans at Nippur laid
bare the handiwork of Sargon, a considerable school in
Germany considered him mythical. So little is as yet
known about the early chronology that, while many affirm
that there is no reason to doubt the correctness of the
date of Naram-Sin in this inscription, one Assyriologist,
Lehmann, after devoting a book to careful examination
of the chronological data and probabilities, concludes that
the scribe employed to reproduce a hastily written original
must have read one stroke too many in the numerals, and
so made an excess of a thousand years. Others consider
it impossible that Nabonidus should have known the real
date of Naram-Sin. The chronological statements con-
cerning even a far later time are not perfect. The different
copies of one and the same canon have their slight dis-
crepancies, and in the evidence of different documents
there are greater apparent inconsistencies. Lehmann has
succeeded in removing some of these as being due to
misreadings by modern decipherers of originals that art
injured or not very clearly engraved. But plenty of others
remain to accuse the ancient scribes of carelessness or
uncertainty, if not of wilful perversion. Vast numbers of
dated tablets exist for almost all the flourishing periods of
214 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
Babylonia. The local record offices were involved in the
periodical overthrow of cities by foreign conquerors ; and
when a city prospered again, rebuilt upon its own ruins,
it was not convenient for a later king to restore the un-
certain chronology by excavating the buried documents.
This work is reserved for our own day. Thirty thousand
record-tablets have already been found at Nippur by the
American expedition, and every great museum is adding
annually to its own stores of them.
In any case the Assyriologist may hope in course of
time to complete the canons and control their statements
by dated documents to such an extent that he will be
able to trace his way back almost year by year to the
beginning of the importance of Babylon, an epoch generally
considered to fall about 2300 B.C. A clear chronological
table for any one of the Euphratean countries after the
unification of Babylonia will serve in great measure for
them all, owing to their constant intercourse in peace and
war. Whether the chronology before that time can ever
be more than very roughly estimated is still extremely
doubtful.
In Egypt we have not much that is positive in
chronology to set against the precise canons of Meso-
potamia. Doubtless the need of such documents was
sometimes felt ; but the Egyptians were probably not
so exact in their business arrangements as the Semitic
Babylonians, and, even if they were equally precise, the
early papyrus records have perished almost utterly,
important and unimportant alike. The Turin Papyrus
of Kings was only written about the time of Rameses II.
(XlXth Dynasty), and its tattered fragments are still
unique of the kind. Persian and Assyrian documents
carry back the chronology of Egypt by occasional syn-
chronisms to the end of the XXVth Dynasty, 674 B.C.,
the date of Esarhaddon's first invasion. Again, about
SECOND] EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 215
1450 B.C., in the XVIIIth Dynasty, a correspondence
was carried on between certain Pharaohs and Babylonian
and Assyrian kings, for which the Euphratean records
as yet afford no precise date. This synchronism is, in
fact, quite as valuable for Babylonian as for Egyptian
chronology. A calendrical notice at the beginning of the
XVIIIth Dynasty is interpreted by astronomers with great
probability as giving a date close upon 1550 B.C.
The first twenty dynasties of Egypt are divided for
convenience into those of the Old Kingdom (flor. Dyn.
IV.-VL), those of the Middle Kingdom (flor. Dyn.
XI.-XIIL), and those of the New Kingdom (flor. Dyn.
XVII.-XX.). Of these groups the first two begin and end
in the utmost obscurity. On the other hand, as far back
as the beginning of the New Kingdom (c. 1650 B.C.) there
is a certain solidity about our information ; our lists of the
kings belonging to this time are very full, and dated monu-
ments are numerous throughout, so that the error in any
assigned date probably does not exceed a century. Behind
the New Kingdom, unfortunately, we have no synchronisms,
and the great gaps in the dynasties, which fill but slowly,
make even a rough estimate of the lapse of time difficult.
A low estimate (Meyer's) places the Xllth Dynasty about
2100 B.C. ; a high one (Petrie's) places it about 2800 ; while
for the 1st Dynasty we have 4777 B.C. (Petrie), as against
3180 (Meyer), shewing a difference of over 1,500 years.
And these are not extreme estimates. The attempt has
often been made to cut down the figures by making
Manetho's less important dynasties contemporaneous ; but
the progress of discovery is constantly reducing the field
available for this treatment, and one hesitates to apply it
even to such shadows as the Vllth, Vlllth, IXth, XlVth,
and XVth Dynasties, of which we know practically
nothing. The method of dating in Egypt from the
earliest times was by regnal years, so that for some
2l6 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
brilliant periods where there is an abundance of documents
we know the length of almost every reign in a dynasty.
Even then comes the question, often difficult to decide,
/how many of these years must be discounted as belonging
to times when father and son were associated together
on the throne. But generally the documents are scanty
indeed, and a laborious guess at the probabilities from the
number of known kings and the apparent peacefulness or
turbulence of the time has to serve. Perhaps our best
chance for a true reconstruction of the chronology will
be in the recovery of another Graeco-Egyptian Manetho
with names and figures ungarbled, or another Ramesside
Papyrus of Kings ; some clear astronomical data may
also be looked for, and would be of great value.
Suppose now for a moment that the classical writings
on Egypt and Assyria had been wholly blotted out of
existence, what would have been our loss ? Less for the
history of Mesopotamia than for that of Egypt. Egypt
is nearer to the West historically as well as geographically ;
by commerce and by politics her life became organically
connected with that of Greeks and Romans ; and of old,
as to-day, cultivated European travellers, notebook in
hand, were attracted to the pleasant and accessible banks
of the Nile. Yet for the history of the country the loss
of their works would be little felt until the Saite and
Persian periods are reached. From that point onward
we are greatly dependent for filling the canvas upon
the statements of Greek authors, in which, however, we
can have but little confidence. The later history, from
the conquest of Alexander, would of course have been a
miserable remnant if gathered only from Egyptian sources.
Even for the earlier times the loss of Manetho, Berosus,
and the Canon of Ptolemy would be very appreciable ;
the loss of the geographers too would be felt It would
SECOND] VALUE OF THE CLASSICAL RECORDS 21 7
be difficult also to compile from the monuments alone
a good outline of the important myth of Osiris such as
may be obtained from the immensely garbled and overlaid
version in Plutarch.
Nevertheless, and apart from the innumerable state-
ments in the classical authors that have proved at least
usefully suggestive, the loss of their works to Oriental
learning would have been immense. The literary value
and interest of their writings on the East led to a deep
study of the subject-matter by highly trained minds.
No doubt at first this prejudiced many against receiving
evidence that tended to overthrow classical authority ; but
in many other cases it originated a desire to learn more
from any warranted source. The existence of imperfect
yet interesting work calling for improvement is one of
the most powerful incentives to the exercise of originality
and observation. The loss of the classical writings on
Oriental subjects would have diminished the prestige of
research into Oriental antiquity, by which so much illumina-
tion may be reflected back on to Hellenic studies. For
in Egypt and Mesopotamia the attitude of Greek and
Roman writers to the world around can be better under-
stood than in their own native countries, and their per-
ception of fact in remote antiquity can be more definitely
tested than where inscribed monuments earlier than the
fifth century B.C. are rare.
But suppose, again, that the monumental records of
Egypt and Mesopotamia were non-existent, and that the
classical accounts of their history and civilization alone
remained. The critical faculty of endless Grotes and
Niebuhrs could not decide finally whether to prefer
Manetho and Berosus on the one hand, or Herodotus
and Ctesias on the other. The history and archaeology
of these unfortunate lands would, in fact, be a mass of
more or less contradictory legend, the supposed bases of
2l8 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
which would be discovered and re-discovered periodically
in different forms until the happy day might dawn when
scholars should cease at length from the hopeless and
unprofitable quest.
Egyptology and Assyriology are now alive at every
point, and their sober yet quickening influence on study
is felt in every direction. Those who cultivate these
sciences see them growing under their hands in every
branch and twig, and thus are constantly incited to
further effort. In the course of a few months a carefully
formulated theory may be definitely swept out of the
field by new evidence, or modified and crystallized into
ascertained facts. Three successive years have just added
to the realm of Egyptian archaeology, not only the period
of the first two dynasties, hitherto absolutely unrecognized
from contemporary remains, but also a long prehistoric
period. Assyriology likewise has lately been pushed back
into antiquity with almost equal rapidity. Though the
subjects will probably always have their limitations, yet
the insight of scholars and explorers is opening up new
vistas on all sides. Picturesque and sustained narrative
may be entirely wanting to the records except in tales
and myths. The connexion of events in history has
generally to be supplied as best it may by the modern
writer. Yet Egypt and Assyria have left us a rich
legacy of glimpses and pictures of human life, arts and
manners and modes of thought in far-off times ; and
upon this legacy we are abundantly entering. For its
due appreciation we must recognize that the interest is
essentially anthropological and in no wise literary.
Our prospect for the future is bright. Egypt itself
seems inexhaustible. Few of the cities of Babylonia and
Assyria have yet been excavated, and each of them had
its library and record office of clay-tablets as well as
monuments in stone and bronze. In Northern Meso-
SECOND] FORECAST 219
potamia are countless sites still untouched ; in Elam
and in Armenia monuments are only less plentiful. In
Arabia inscriptions are now being read which may perhaps
date from 1000 B.C. The so-called Hittite hieroglyphs
still baffle the decipherer ; but as more of the documents
become known these will in all likelihood prove a fruitful
source for the history of North Syria, of Cappadocia,
and of Asia Minor throughout. Occasionally, too, though
it is but rarely, an inscription in the Phoenician type
of alphabet yields up important historical facts.
When all is done, there is but scant hope that we shall
be able to construct a consecutive history of persons
and events in the ancient world. All that we can be
confident of securing, at any rate in Egypt, is the broad
outline of development and change, chronologically gradu-
ated and varied by occasional pictures of extraordinary
minuteness and brilliancy.
'. 3 .
[PART
CHAPTER II.
PREHISTORIC GREECE
BY
I). G. HOGARTH, M.A.
DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF ARCHAEOLOGY AT ATHENS
THAT there were great men in Greece before Agamemnon
has been a familiar saying these two thousand years ; but
it has been left to the present generation to recognize
actual work of their hands. Hardly twenty-five years ago
the first significant documents of that prehistoric age were
happened upon by the enterprise and the fortune of Henry
Schliemann, but some years had still to pass before the
true character and significance of what first he found
was brought home to scholars at large. Signs that a
revelation was at hand had indeed appeared a few years
earlier, but they had been little regarded because little
understood. Certain representations of Aegean races
bringing tribute or booty to the Pharaohs of the Middle
Empire, which had been remarked on Egyptian monu-
ments, were discredited by the acknowledged possibility of
serious error in the identification of race-names and lands.
Indeed, it is only since we have had actual remains of those
races themselves that their counterfeit presentments have
had much meaning for us. Now that we can recognize
the true nature of their garments by comparison with
" Mycenaean " engraved jewellery and idols, and identify
SECOND] BEFORE SCHLIEMANN 221
the objects they bear with the products of " Mycenaean "
graves, we can assign to the Egyptian tributaries their
racial family and habitat, without recourse to the still
not too certain names of tribes and regions inscribed in
hieroglyphic above or beside them. Furthermore, certain
implements of an Aegean stone age had been collected ;
but these were felt to be evidence of no more singular
fact than that " man everywhere has the same humble
beginnings." Early dwellings, containing painted stucco
and vase fragments, had been found in the Santorin group
of islands under secular lava deposits ; and tombs had been
opened at lalysus in Rhodes full of pottery, implements,
and ornaments of highly developed, but not Hellenic, type
and technique. But in the absence of parallel objects else-
where, and the prevailing state of ignorance concerning
west Asiatic products, these stray Rhodian finds conveyed
no intelligence to the world of scholars, and lay, little
noticed, in the British Museum. The Homeric poems
remained still the objective and farthest limit of archaeo-
logical criticism. By help of material documents, scholars
had not been able to approach within centuries even of the
Epic world ; nor did their most sanguine hopes aspire
higher than some day to attain so distant a goal.
Neither hoping nor expecting more than they, Henry
Schliemann in 1868 brought his hard- won wealth and
childlike belief in the literal accuracy of the Homeric Epics
to the area of Homer's world. Money, an intimate and
uncritical knowledge of the Epic text, boundless enthu-
siasm and equal persistence, a simple faith impervious to
ridicule, and a humility always ready to be taught and to
share credit with others these were his stock-in-trade.
Of archaeological experience he had next to nothing, nor
up to the day of his death much sense of archaeological
propriety or method. But in Schliemann's case, as in that
of Mariettc, the immensity of his discoveries makes it
222 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
impossible to compare what he failed to see and what he
destroyed with what he found.
All the world now knows how Schliemann believed that
the palace of Odysseus, the gates and towers of Ilios, and
the bones of King Agamemnon were waiting only for his
spade. His earliest essay in Ithaca ended in disappoint-
ment ; but, undeterred, he went on to the Troad in 1870,
and cut into the mound of Hissarlik, long marked by one
school of topographical critics for the site of Troy, and
actually opened first by Mr. Calvert, the American consul
at the Dardanelles. In the next two years Schliemann
succeeded in arousing only sufficient interest to be ac-
counted a spy by the Porte and a harmless enthusiast
by Europe. But the year 1873 was to bring promise of
greater things ; for, above one or perhaps two very primi-
tive settlements on the bed-rock, Schliemann revealed a
burned city with strong ramparts, something like a palace,
a gate to serve for the Scaean, and, for crowning mercy,
a regal hoard of goldsmith's work hidden in a crumbling
' coffer between interstices of masonry. Who could doubt
this was Priam's own treasure, hastily concealed while the
Achaeans fired and looted Ilios? The world was startled
out of its habitual apathy in regard to its own past, and
England especially, led by Mr. Gladstone, was disposed
to believe, despite a few protests that, Ilios or no, this
" Burnt City," besides being but insignificant in size, took
archaeology in virtue of its products back at a bound,
not merely to Homer, but far behind him.
The Porte, aggrieved by the division of the treasure,
kept Schliemann away from Hissarlik awhile, and diverted
his restless energy to Greek soil. Pausanias had recorded
that in his day the burial-place of the house of Atreus was
pointed out at Mycenae. Why should it not be there
still in Schliemann's day? It was then 1876. Schlicmann
concentrated his efforts, in August of that year, on the
SECOND] SCHLIEMANN AT MYCENAE 223
site of the Achaean capital, notorious since the revival
of interest in Greece for its walls, its sculptured gate,
and its great domed tombs. While searching afresh
one of these, the already rifled "Treasury of Atreus,"
(which yielded little or nothing), and clearing the Lion
Gate, the German had also been having a great hole,
a hundred feet this way and that, dug just within the
citadel, somewhat at random, but also, apparently, after
reasoning out in his own way the topography of Pausanias'
narrative. His diggers came presently on a high double
ring of slabs, fallen or standing. The Homeric analogy
suggested itself at once to Schliemann. Here was such a
" well-polished circle of stones " as that on which the divine
artificer of Achilles' shield seated his elders by the city
gate. Why then, it was asked at the time, dig deeper, for
what in reason was to be found in the artificial filling in of
a place of assembly ? But one of this particular searcher's
secrets of success was a rigid rule not to stop short of
virgin rock, and down to virgin rock, despite protests, he
would now go. Encouragement was speedily granted.
Certain slabs of soft stone came into view bearing reliefs.
If these were, as they seemed, funerary, Schliemann could
not doubt whose tombs should lie below ; for who but
a city's greatest heroes could be, and in historic Hellas
ever were, laid in its Agora ?
For some reason, however, he paused on the brink of
discovery to wind up other work, and not till late in
November persevered in the Circle. The remaining earth
was soon dug out, and one after another, at different levels,
appeared five rock-hewn graves, once roofed, but now in
a state of ruin and filled with detritus. This was scraped
away from the graves as each was found, and piece by
piece was revealed one of the most wonderful hoards that ,
have ever met a treasure-seeker's eye. Gold appeared in
abundance never before seen in Greek tombs, or indeed
224 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
in any but Scythian, beaten into face-masks, head-bands,
breast-pieces, and innumerable stamped plaques, into
bracelets, necklaces, rings, baldrics, trinkets, dagger- and
sword-hilts. Ivory, silver, bronze, alabaster were there as
well and in profusion, the whole treasure in mere money
< value being worth thousands sterling. Some loose lying
objects and a sixth grave were found later, the latter
not by Schliemann.
To the discoverer, and to many others (who have repre-
sentatives yet), the supreme interest of this marvellous
treasure-trove consisted in the relation it was conceived
to bear to the great " Achaeans " of Homer's story. The
discoverer proclaimed far and wide that he had found Aga-
memnon and all his house ; and Mr. Gladstone, writing a
preface to the narrative of discovery, quoted approvingly
Schliemann's inferences drawn from the " hasty character "
of the burials and the " half-shut eye " of one male corpse
videlicet, the murdered king's, denied by Clytaemnestra
the last sad rites of piety ! Less sanguine scholars, how-
ever, demurred. The grave-furniture was not all of one
period ; the condition of the corpses and the half-shut eye
were due to the collapse of the grave-roofs ; the number
of persons and their apparent sexes did not fit either
with the legend or with Pausanias, nor was it held con-
ceivable that that traveller could have seen the actual
graves in the second century A.D. Wonder turned to
laughter, laughter which Schliemann's fanaticism, issuing
in headlong joyous discovery of trivial realities in the
Homeric story, was always in danger of arousing. But
there is less laughter to-day. Twenty years have brought
opinion almost round to him again. The majority
of critics now admit the extreme probability that what
Schliemann found was at least what Pausanias intended
to denote. If the Greek traveller in his account fol-
lowed any geographical order, and if he meant by the
SECOND] THE CIRCLE-GRAVES 225
wall, within which was pointed out to him the burial-
place of Atreus and his house, not the mean enceinte of
the lower town, but the great conspicuous rampart of
the Acropolis, then the traditional cemetery of the city's
Heroes in the second century after Christ was that which
Schliemann was destined to unearth in the nineteenth.
Whether these graves contained the real Atreus and
Agamemnon and their house we are not, and shall pro-
bably never be, able to say ; but little doubt remains that
what were believed to be their remains as long as seventeen
centuries ago have now been brought to light And it
must be added that the pre-eminence of splendour which
these Circle-graves still retain at this day, after Mycenae
and its vicinity have been ransacked from end to end by
the Greek Archaeological Society, creates a strong pre-
sumption that they were indeed those of the Heroes pat
excellence of heroic Mycenae. The tombstones may have
been visible to Pausanias ; or those, as well as the graves,
may have been covered in his time by the earth-slides
from the Acropolis (as was the case when Schliemann
first went to Mycenae), and only their situation may have
been pointed out by the awed tradition of the surround-
ing shepherds. This, however, may be asserted with
confidence, that, either by sight or by faith, Pausanias
became aware of the Circle-tombs, and handed down a
tradition concerning them which probably contained more
truth than falsehood.
But the gain accruing to science from the Mycenae
hoard does not consist in this academic question. As soon
as the Treasure was cleaned and arranged, the student of
early civilization found himself confronted by a wholly
new element of first-rate importance, whose place had to
be found and fixed products of an art which, as Charles
Newton was the first to proclaim, could not be identified ;
with any other art known at that time. Hellenists of the
15
226 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
old school were forced to take account of the momentous
fact that a civilization, capable of higher achievement, had
preceded the primitive Hellenic in Hellas. What must
have been their mutual relation, and to whom to ascribe
this art before history? The world revealed by it re-
called in some respects that depicted by the first articulate
utterance of the Hellenes, the Homeric Epics ; but also it
diverged in vital points.
The glitter of the Mycenae gold drew many eyes, and
by its light earlier discoveries were seen more clearly
and fresh discoveries were made possible. While it was
discerned that the lalysus vases, now rescued from their
obscurity, and certain intaglios known as "island gems,"
bespoke a wide area for this "Mycenaean" civilization,
the products of the " Burnt City " at Hissarlik fell back
into a place long antecedent. The world had gained
cognizance already of an earlier and a later stage in a
long process of prehistoric civilization in the Greek lands.
Thenceforward the eyes of archaeologists were open to
a new sort of documents in the Aegean lands, whether
walls or tombs, pottery or work in metals, gems, ivory,
sculptured stone, or modelled clay ; and it was not
long before the revelation, first made by Schliemann at
Hissarlik and Mycenae, came to be extended far beyond
the point contemplated by him or any one else in 1876.
Twenty years have brought an uninterrupted series of
discoveries, of which the succession and particular nature
up to 1896 have been set forth too lately in short and
clear form to call for enumeration now ; many of them
will be referred to in the sequel. 1 The two years that
1 Up to 1890 the prehistoric discoveries in Greece have been
gathered together in Dr. Schuchhardt's Schliemann' s Excavations
(Eng. tr.); up to 1896, in the Mycenaean Age of Messrs. Tsountas and
Manatt, and the third volume of Mr. J. G. Frazer's Pausanias, pp. 98 ff.
The same ground is also covered by the sixth volume of Perrot and
Chipiez, History of Art. More special attention is devoted to the
SECOND] PROGRESS OF LATER DISCOVERY 227
have elapsed since 1896, in spite of war and rumours
of war in the Levant, have proved little less productive.
The troubles, in which Crete has been involved, did not
prevent Mr. Arthur Evans from acquiring new evidence
from that island in the shape of engraved seals and other
objects belonging to both the earlier and later bronze-age
civilization. The general result is to differentiate further
the two prehistoric systems of Cretan writing whose
discovery was announced in 1894 and to refer them to
separate origins. The pictographic system, now believed
to be the later, shews strong Egyptian influence, and
perhaps like the returning spiral ornament is owed to the
Nile valley in the time of the twelfth dynasty. The
linear system, on the other hand, whether syllabic or
alphabetic or neither, seems to go back to more primeval
times possible relations with the Nile valley and Libya
have been mooted and to have been in the more general
use. Latterly over fifty of its symbols, similar to those
already known in Crete and the Fayum, and shewing
close parallels to the Cypriote characters, have been found
scratched on Melian sherds. Dr. Tsountas has opened
graves of a most early sort in Naxos and Pares, ante-
dating, apparently, the well-known Amorgan cemeteries ;
and the Greek savant has continued the exploration of
both the citadel-houses and the rock-tombs of Mycenae,
finding, among other things, a head which finally establishes
the prevalence of tattooing in the later bronze age. A
Mycenaean cemetery has been explored at Thebes, and
the existence of a civilization of the same period at Delphi
earliest and island remains in the Danish summary of Dr. Blinkenberg,
translated into French by E. Beauvois (Mem. des Antiq. du Nord,
1896), Antiquites Premyceniennes. A good rapid summary of the
whole " Aegean " question from first to last has appeared in Science
Progress (1896-8), from the pen of Mr. J. L. Myres ; and a
survey of the evidence from Sicily and Italy has been published by
Professor Petersen in the Bulletin of the German Arch. Inst. in Rome,
xiii. 2 (1898).
228 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
has been proved by sherds found in tombs and the sub-
structures of the Temple of Apollo. Throughout the
Cyclades it has been shewn by the explorations of Messrs.
Tsountas and Mackenzie that the sites and cemeteries of
the most primitive civilization, on the edge of the neolithic
age, far exceed in number those recorded hitherto for
that region ; and especially in the island of Melos, the
site of Phylakopi, long known for its tombs, rifled about
1830, and its obsidian "razor" blades and very early
potsherds noticed by Dummler in 1885, has been taken
in hand by the British School at Athens, and shewn to
contain remains of three distinct early settlements, one
built on the ruins of the other, the latest being
" Mycenaean," while the earliest is a typical unwalled
village of the late Mediterranean neolithic period, called
into existence by the local working and export of
obsidian ; between earliest and latest lie the remains of
a strongly fortified town of the early and middle period
of bronze, inhabited through many centuries. Influences
of Asia, Crete, and the European mainland meet on
this site, whose further exploration ought to contribute
notably towards the solution of the problems which
concern the origin and development of civilization in the
Aegean.
The whole face of the Aegean prehistoric problem has
been changed by these discoveries. Summarizing them
geographically we find that remains, attaching to a more
or less homogeneous prehistoric civilization in various
stages of development, have been yielded sporadically by
all Hellas, but chiefly by the south-eastern mainland and
the Cyclad isles. The west Asian coast, as yet very
imperfectly explored, has produced similar, though more
scanty, evidence, chiefly at Hissarlik, in a regular strati-
fication culminating in the sixth and greatest city, which
SECOND] GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 2 29
Schliemann, failing, by a strange irony, to recognize the
only " Troy " that could possibly be contemporary with
his Mycenaean graves, had called Lydian. Crete, not
much better known, is evidently a focus of the earlier
and later culture of the prehistoric period, and probably
of much " sub-Mycenaean " survival. Cyprus has given
abundant evidence of this civilization and of its later
derivatives. Egypt, under Mr. Petrie's hands, has yielded
deposits of prehistoric " Aegean " pottery to use a term /
invented by the discoverer for momentary convenience
in the Delta, the Fayum, and even on the Middle Nile.
Finally, in the western Mediterranean, Sicily in chief,
Italy less plentifully, Sardinia, and Spain sporadically
supply parallels to the same class of products, whether of
native or imported fabric. In Greece itself, the principal
find-spots have been in the Argolid and in Attica. In the
former region most has been learned from the palace-
fortress at Tiryns, so complete in ground plan, and from i
the further exploration of Mycenae itself, where not only .
have most important architectural remains been exhumed,
but, bit by bit, from the remains of the palace and the
numerous smaller houses on the Acropolis, and from
unrifled rock-tombs west of the city, a treasure of almost
equal interest with that of the Circle-graves has been
collected by M. Tsountas into the Athenian Museum. In
Attica have been found the most remarkable "Mycenaean"
dome-tombs outside Mycenae, one alone excepted, that
of Vaphio in Laconia ; remains of early houses have '
been unearthed at Thoricus and in Egina ; while every-
where in and about Athens the early sherds underlie
later varieties. Indeed, such has been found to be the
stratification on every prehistoric site that has been dug
thoroughly in southern Greece ; while Thessaly, Delphi,
and most recently Thebes, Eleusis, and Corinth, have
given earnests of what may be expected when the rest
230 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
of Greece comes to be searched systematically for early
remains.
Historically, if the interrelation only of all this dis-
covery be considered, the result, rounded in a paragraph,
is this : that before the epoch at which we are used to
place the beginnings of Greek civilization, that is, the
opening centuries of the last millennial period B.C., we
must allow for an immensely long record of human artistic
productivity, going back into the neolithic age, and cul-
minating towards the close of the age of bronze in a
culture more fecund and more refined than any we are
i to find again in the same lands till the age of iron was
far advanced. Man in Hellas was more highly civilized
before history than when history begins to record his
state ; and there existed human society in the Hellenic
area, organized and productive, to a period so remote, that
its origins were more distant from the age of Pericles
than that age is from our own. We have probably to
deal with a total period of civilization in the Aegean
' not much shorter than in the Nile valley.
The remains of this vast age before history, so far as
we may yet interrelate them, may be distinguished, for
clearness' sake, as representing three periods. The first,
stated broadly, is a primitive age of stone implements,
vases, and idols, and of a brittle hand-made pottery, not
painted or varnished, but often highly polished by hand,
with piercings for suspension by cords, and, when not
plain, bearing incised rectilinear or spiral ornament. Metal
is only just beginning to be worked, and gold is not
found. The dead are buried in cist-graves. To the
settlements of this type, as yet best known in the
Cyclad islands, are related the lowest strata of remains at
Hissarlik (into which, however, enters a strange element,
probably owed to inland Asia), and, apparently, Dr. Orsi's
"pre-Sikel" remains in Sicily.
The second period in this artificial classification seems
to cover an immense space in time. It is characterized
by a great advance in building both with squared and
unsquared stone, by the erection in its later ages of
great fortifications and of many-chambered residences
with ornament in stucco, by the introduction and full
development of paint on ware, and by the passage from
stone to bronze implements and work in many metals
but not in iron, and by the first appearance of written
symbols. The dead are buried in chamber-tombs. Of
this period was Schliemann's first " Troy," the " Burnt
City " of the second (or third ?) layer of Hissarlik ; of
the earliest part of this period are the village settle-
ments found five years ago at Thoricus in Attica and
on the island of Egina ; and of two stages in this period
are the first and second settlements at Phylakopi in
Melos. To the latter part of the same period belong
the oldest parts of Mycenae and Tiryns themselves, the
earlier prehistoric remains found in Crete, the buried
houses in Therasia, that class of Egyptian remains which
Mr. Petrie was the first to separate from the " Mycenaean "
by the light of discovery in the Fayum and to call
" Aegean," and the foreign influence noted in Sicily in
products of the early Sikel period.
Finally, the third period, an immediate consequent of
the second, is that "full flower of the European bronze
age," the distinctively " Mycenaean," revealed in the
Circle-graves, but there already on the verge of decline.
Its apogee seems to fall in the middle of the second
millennial period B.C. Its later products, ere the tribes
of the north scattered it and in part destroyed it, seem
to be represented by the contents of the Vaphio tumulus
and of the Spata tomb in Attica, and to belong perhaps
to the thirteenth and twelfth centuries. Later still we find
its style surviving in Egina. In this period we meet fully
232 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
developed colour, glaze, and varnish on the baked ware ;
the ornament has become mostly marine in motive, but
human, animal, and vegetable forms also appear rarely.
Processes of gold and silver work have been brought to
great perfection, and the smiths have learned to make
and use various alloys ; bronze is still the useful metal,
but iron is just beginning to be wrought. The horizon
of intercourse has grown very wide, and materials, models
of form, and motives of decoration, which are derived
from the neighbouring civilizations outside Europe, appear
in profusion. Men live in walled citadels of elaborate
plan, constructed on methods approaching to the later
Hellenic, and are buried in beehive-tombs ; and all their
remains seem to speak to a widely extended baronial
system, possessed of great wealth and power, and having
connexions in commerce and politics, which transcended
Greece and the isles, and reached far into neighbouring
continents.
Neither the precise dates nor the precise relation which
these periods bear each to the other can be determined as
yet. They are consequent, not coincident, so much has
been established by the stratification of more than one site
_ in the Aegean ; and that, starting to ascend from about
900 B.C., we cannot halt till at least the opening of the third
millennial period is rendered certain by the depth of over-
lying deposits, by the many stages of the development in
- style, and by the comparison of parallel Egyptian objects.
The derivation of various decorative motives, and probably
of the returning spiral, from twelfth-dynasty scarabs (which
seems established), takes Cretan art back at least to
' 2500 B.C. ; and in all probability there is yet another
i millennium to be reckoned with. But what ethnic or
political changes divided the Aegean periods, if indeed
any such changes did divide them, is matter as yet for
argument, not statement. The available evidence seems
o J
SECOND] THE AEGEAN PEOPLES 233
to point to a more or less unbroken continuity in Aegean
production, but to that production having been focussed
successively in different localities, now the eastern islands,
now Crete, now the south-eastern extensions of the
European mainland. The productive race was probably
more or less identical everywhere and all the time ; but its
political condition varied, perhaps according as influences
from outside were active or the reverse, and the race lived
under its own lords or under intruders. That the eastern
Mediterranean was the scene in early times of the passage
and temporary settlement of intrusive warrior clans, mostly
moving from east to west, is hardly doubtful. Such in
all probability were the " Phoenician " dynasty of Minos
in Crete and the Etruscans in Italy ; and such too
perhaps were the " Pelopid " kings of the Argolid. But
the whole matter is still so new, that, while some consensus
has been arrived at in regard both to the origin and to the
ultimate fate of this prehistoric civilization in the Greek
lands as a whole, few views have yet been propounded on
the vicissitudes of its internal and intermediate history,
and those few as various as the persons that propound
them.
The better supported of these, however, will come up
incidentally in the statement of those more momentous
matters that regard the beginning and the end of the
whole. Whence originated this great early civilization of
the Greek lands ? and what in the end became of it ? these '
are the questions that concern the world at large ; for they
bear in general on the mysterious origins of our civilization
in Europe, and in particular on that seeming miracle of
spontaneous growth, the art and culture of the Hellenes.
And in all discussion of the latter problem must be
involved also some discussion of a universal heritage of
civilized man, the Homeric Epic.
Before Mycenae had been excavated by Schliemann
234 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
archaeologists had become familiar with an extensive
bronze-age civilization of central and western Europe.
Still earlier had they become familiar with bronze-age
products of western Asia and the Nile valley ; and a
prejudice due in about equal parts to philology and to the
Hebrew story of the dispersion of mankind caused it to be
generally assumed that the culture of the bronze period
in Europe was in some way the child of Asia. This,
however, was no more than a presumption : no sound
links were known, and there was on the whole more
positive evidence for independent development from
independent neolithic ages in each continent, than for
the affiliation of the bronze age of one to the bronze age
of the other.
In the geographical interval between these two areas
rose to view in 1876 a bronze-age civilization of the
' Aegean. Since the minds of the classical scholars, in
whose special province it was assumed to fall, were dis-
posed, by all Greek literary tradition and the trend of a
century of discovery in Egypt and Mesopotamia, to relate
south-eastern Europe only to itself or at most to the
East, the opening controversy already mentioned, upon
the relation of Mycenae to Homer, led at first only to this
further question, To which of the peoples, known to the
Epic, and influenced by what civilization, also known to
the Epic, should the newly found objects be ascribed ? So
strong at that time was the belief that Hellas derived the
finer arts from the Orient belief for which the Hellenes
themselves are responsible that an immigration or at
least an importation from beyond sea was inevitably
presupposed ; and both the examination of the Circle
Treasure and the evidence of later discoveries seemed for
- a time to confirm this a priori view. For many of the
Mycenaean objects, early found at Mycenae itself and in
Rhodes, have beyond all question come from the East,
SECOND] EASTERN INFLUENCES 235
most obvious among these being fragments of Egyptian
porcelain glass and paste, an ostrich egg with clay
dolphins moulded on its surface, scarabs and porcelain
plaques bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions and a cartouche
of the eighteenth dynasty. The cleaning of the oxidized
matter from dagger-blades, found in the Circle-graves,
revealed inlaid scenes of most Oriental character, where
figure the palm and lotus, lion and cat ; the human figures
seem to wear the scanty raiment of a sub-tropic clime ;
and the scenery is that of the Nile valley. The technique
of these blades recalls nothing so much as the intarsia
of the Ramesside epoch, of which superb examples are
exhibited at Cairo. Two splendid goblets found later at
Vaphio in Laconia were held to reflect in some degree
an Assyrian style ; and the ivories, which the tombs of
Attica, as well as the graves found after Schliemann's time
at Mycenae, have yielded, are even more suggestive of
decorative motives and methods of fabric peculiar to the
Semitic East.
It was not, however, conceived to be possible that either
actual Egyptians or actual Assyrians imported the
Mycenaean culture to Hellas, much less that they settled
there. But an intermediary was looked for, and found at
once in the Semites of Phoenicia. Homeric tradition made
strongly in their favour. Their seafaring fame accorded
well with the distinctly marine character of much Mycenaean
decoration in metal or ceramic, which derives its motives
from polyps and algae ; and Greek legend, reinforced by
the philological analysis of place-names on the Greek coast-
line, of cult-epithets, and the like, and by the discovery
of unmistakable remains of purple fisheries at Cythera
and Gythium, created a positive presumption that the
finer Mycenaean work had been created by Sidonians, of
whose products, as it chances, we know otherwise very
little ; for the mass of the Phoenician objects, as yet i
236 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
surely ascribed, issue from the later stylized and eclectic
art of Tyre.
It was soon remarked, however, that a large proportion
of the art-work at Mycenae and other prehistoric sites
could not have been produced otherwise than on the spot.
This was obviously the case with all the architectural
ornament, even such as a fresco at Tiryns and a similar
ceiling of Orchomenus, whose motives seemed most certainly
derived from the East, the counterpart having been found
in a tomb of Egyptian Thebes. It was the case also with
the stone reliefs, widely divergent as they are in style and
period, set up on the citadel gate at Mycenae and above
the Circle-graves ; with the gold death-masks, which Mr.
Frazer suggests were designed to keep a ghostly " evil eye "
from the royal dead ; with much even of the smaller gold
ornamentation, for the moulds have been found in which that
was fashioned ; and, of course, with the architectural fabrics,
one type of which, that of the dome-tomb, presupposes a
very long process of development in constructive methods.
Mere importation by Phoenician traders, therefore, would
not meet the necessities of the case. It had to be assumed
that either Phoenician artizans had come repeatedly to
inland Greece, or Phoenicians had been settled there for
a long period. The difficulty felt about either of these
assumptions in the face of Homer, Greek tradition, and
philology, led presently to the appearance of counter
schools of belief, which, having searched Greek literary
authorities for an early race settled in Hellas and reputed
productive, pitched now upon the " Carians," to whom
Herodotus and Thucydides, if not Homer, attached import-
ance before history ; now on the " Pelasgi " of many legends
and many genuine survivals ; now, in defiance of the chrono-
logists, even on the Dorians of the brilliant early Tyrant
period. Each claimant-race had its supporting arguments:
in one case, the supposed presence of analogous art-motives
SECOND] AEGEAN CIVILIZATION NOT PHOENICIAN 237
in Asia Minor, where " Carians " were also established in
historic times, and their supposed historic connexion with
the islands of the Aegean ; in another, the wide area of
" Mycenaean " remains, more or less coincident with that
extensive range which vague Hellenic tradition ascribed
to the " Pelasgi " ; in the third, the evidence of continuity
between " Mycenaean " and Hellenic products, and the late
date at which Mycenaean decorative motives and fabrics
have certainly been found in both south-eastern Greece
and the isles. In the face, however, of these and all other
views has persisted the Phoenician claim, put forward again
and again by Dr. Helbig ; and it still finds furtive and half-
hearted support among certain archaeologists.
The longer, however, the investigation is continued and
the deeper and farther afield it is carried, the more hopeless
becomes the case of these particular Semites, whom, on all
other shewing, we know to be the least original of their
great family. 1 Out of all the positive evidence of documents,
now collected from Syria and the Lebanon, there is nothing -
to shew that a culture identical or even kindred with that
of the Aegean bronze age ever existed at all on the east
coast of the Levant. On the other hand, the forms most
characteristic of Phoenician art as we know it for example,
the cylinder and the scarab are conspicuous by their
absence among the products of the bronze-age culture of
the Aegean.
For many years now we have had before our eyes two
standing protests against the traditional claim of Phoenicia '
to originate European civilization, and those protests come
from two regions which Phoenician influence, travelling
west, ought first to have affected, namely, Cyprus and
Asia Minor. In both these regions exist remains of early
systems of writing which are clearly not of Phoenician j
descent. Both the Cypriote syllabic script and the
1 A. J. Evans' Address at Liverpool Brit. Ass., 1896.
238 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
" Hittite " symbols must have been firmly rooted in their
homes before ever the convenient alphabet of Sidon and
Tyre was known there. And now, since Mr. Evans
, has demonstrated the existence of two non-Phoenician
i systems of writing in Crete also, the use of one of which
has been proved to extend to the Cyclades and the main-
land of Greece, it has become evident that we have to
deal in south-eastern Europe, as well as in Cyprus or
Asia Minor, with a non-Phoenician influence of civilization
which, since it could originate that greatest of achieve-
ments, a local script, was quite powerful enough to account
also for the local art.
Those who continue to advocate the Phoenician claim do
not seem sufficiently to realize that nowadays they have
to take account neither only of the Homeric age nor only
of even half a millennium before Homer, but of an almost
geologic antiquity. Far into the third millennium B.C. at
the very least, and more probably much earlier still, there
was a civilization in the Aegean and on the Greek mainland
which, while it contracted many debts to the East and to
Egypt, was able to assimilate all that it borrowed, and to
reissue it in an individual form, expressed in products
which are not of the same character with those of any
Eastern civilization that we know. This intense indi-
viduality of artistic style displayed in the prehistoric Aegean
products is the one point in all the " Aegean Question "
that has commanded the general assent of archaeologists
since Newton proclaimed it in 1878. And this character
belongs not only to the later products, but to the earlier.
The development of those from these is certain. If the
Sidonians were the authors of " Mycenaean" art, they were
the authors equally of the earlier " Aegean " art.
Without adventuring into too remote a period, we can
now be fairly sure that, at the opening of the bronze age in
SECOND] CHARACTER OF AEGEAN CIVILIZATION 239
the Aegean, the islands and perhaps the indented coasts of
much of the mainland were peopled by a folk which had
attained to commerce with their Eastern neighbours and
to an independent development of civilization ; and the
probability is that the Aegean peoples, rather than the
inhabitants of the harbourless Syrian coastline, were the
pioneers of Levantine navigation.
To a vigour and enterprise, such as were later to charac-
terize the historic inhabitants of the same area, these pre-
Hellenic folk added a like originality. In the course of
their traffic with the productive and prolific populations of
the early bronze age in the Nile valley and inland Asia, they
acquired, among many other things, from one the decorative
motive of the returning spiral, which had come into being
even before the use of metal was known, from the other the
Ishtar types of cult-image and cult-symbols ; but in each
case they grafted the borrowed thing on to their own
indigenous products, and gave, as it were, to the alien art a
wholly new expression in new and native materials. The
later we descend in time, the more frequent grows this
sort of borrowing ; till in the later period of bronze, the
" Mycenaean," when there were possibly colonies of actual
Aegean folk established in northern Africa, some of whose
remains Mr. Petrie found in the Fayum, there was so much
intercourse with Egypt that on the one side half the finer
art-motives and many of the fabrics of Mycenae were
derived from the Nile, and on the other Mycenaean art
in its turn came to influence that of the later Pharaohs ;
and the Aegean folk, bearing their characteristic products,
become familiar objects in Egyptian paintings and reliefs.
That the Phoenicians also had intercourse with the
Aegean people in the later bronze period no one proposes
to deny. Homer can be amply justified, if not made to
ascribe more to the Sidonians than actually he does. For
a close analysis of the Epics will reveal the fact that the
240 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
most art-production is there ascribed, not to Phoenicians,
but to the Gods ; and the most seafaring is done by
Greek not Sidonian ships. And perhaps in their historical
character of carriers of other men's goods tfiese Semites
did indeed constitute no small part of the medium by
which a measure of Semitic symbolism and cult-ritual
came to permeate the native Aegean religion in the
later prehistoric age. But they carried away from
Mycenae as much as they brought, and in the words of
Mr. Evans 1 " the Tyrian civilization of historic times, so
far as we know its actual remains, is little more than a
depository of decadent Mycenaean art."
Schliemann's find at Mycenae, then, represented a late
stage of an Aegean, or rather Levantine, civilization,
which, like other high civilizations that the world has
contained, borrowed all that it could, and as soon as it
could, whether from Egypt of the twelfth dynasty by
way of Crete, or by way of Phoenicia from immemorial
Babylonia, whose city mounds seem to be almost as old
as the river deposits on which they stand, or through
the mediation of that " Hittite " kinfoik of northern Syria '
and Asia Minor, whose probable part in the history of
transitional civilization, at first unduly trumpeted, and now
unduly depreciated, must be estimated by their two un-
questioned achievements, the development of a particular
system of writing and a peculiar art. But not for all
these debts was the culture of the Aegean bronze age one
whit less individual and original than the civilizations
from which it borrowed.
Thus, when we come to the ethnological question, we
know at any rate what Aegean civilization was not. It
was not the disguised product of any of the eastern
peoples with which we have long been acquainted, least
of all of the Phoenician Semites. But we can assert less
1 Brit. Ass. Address, cit. supra.
SECOND] ETHNOLOGICAL QUESTIONS 241
positively than we can deny ; and no name more dis-
tinctive than ;< Aegean " can yet be applied to the folk
that produced the Aegean products. There were probably
at different times different racial elements in its com-
position, that had come or came to share a common
civilization. Some of these had been fused during the
countless ages that Man had existed on the earth, even
before the prehistoric Aegean productive period : some
were fused wholly or partially only during that period.
The small collection that has been made of skulls from
the earliest graves of the region shews wide varieties of
type in such neighbouring islands as Syros and Paros.
If the later Hellenic and hellenized immigrants from the
north detected in the early populations that they conquered
or assimilated traits akin to their own, and called these
" Pelasgian " or what not, there was also in that early
people much that was non-hellenic, and always escaped
Greek notice. We know now much more of the prehistoric
ethnology of Greece than was known to the Greeks, and
how should it serve us, therefore, to insist on the vague
ethnics of their tradition ? As we may not be sure even
in the historic period how much of the Hellene there
was in the Greek race, and how much of the hellenized
alien, we may resign ourselves to silence at the present
time concerning the precise ethnology of the prehistoric
Aegean civilization.
And if we do not know the great racial family of the
prehistoric Aegean folk, still more do the individual
proveniences and vicissitudes of their sub-families and
tribes escape us. The beehive tombs have been said to
shew that the men, who originated that type of sepulchre,
copied it from subterranean dwellings in a northern
country such as central Europe. But the need for such
dwellings is a matter, not of latitude, but of altitude
above sea-level, and they might exist as well on the
16
242 CLASSICAL AUTHORITY [PART
Lebanon as the plains of Germany. Also this type is not
a primitive one, but succeeds the rock-chamber with pitched
roof, and is itself the product of more highly developed
powers of construction. Again certain stone boxes in
hut form, and the statement that Mycenaean houses had
often a lower story not used for human inhabitation, have
been held to indicate a tradition of pile-dwellings surviving
from a lake region such as Switzerland. But the hut-boxes
(far from certainly " huts " at all) are found in Melos and
Amorgos pile-dwellings in the arid Cyclades ! and this
"lower story" has been shewn to be no story at all,
but the foundation walls only, carried down underground
to the rock. We shall probably learn something some
day of the origins of these several peoples, but not by
such subtleties as these.
The history of Aegean culture, could it ever be recovered
entire, would almost certainly prove to be a history like
the Egyptian, of intermittent renascences. After a period
of decay or a tribal catastrophe, the old root revived
under fresh influences from within and without, and put
forth blossom again ; but each renascence owed much to
survivals from the one before it.
In proportion as "Mycenaean" art declined by stages,
of which we have positive evidence in the series of finds
from Mycenae itself and in the late dome-tombs, we
fortunately approach the beginning of reliable literary
tradition. The passage from decadent Mycenae to re-
nascent Corinth and Athens is illumined for us by the
Dorian and Ionian legends, which many Greek authors
have preserved, and by the poems which go under the
names of Homer and He 
