χαμαι. Palestine. Furthermore, the word Ham is the Coptic name of Egypt-Chem. "Chemi," says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, "the black land, the land of Ham,' or of Khem (the Egyptian god Pan, or the generative principle of nature), is said by Plutarch to have been so called from the blackness of the soil.' Khem is singularly like the Greek xaμai. Ham (Kham), the Hebrew name of the patriarch, signifies also 'soot,' and is like the Arabic hem, hami, hot;' and the Hebrew hôm (or khôm), signifying brown' or 'black,' as in Gen. xxx. 32, 40, is also 'burnt up.'" M. Lenormant also bears testimony to the connection here indicated by the name. "The population of Egypt, as well as that of Phoenicia, belonged to the race of Cham, and came from Asia by way of the Syrian desert, to establish itself in the Valley of the Nile." 1 " 2 “It is capable of actual proof," says Bunsen, "that our present knowledge is sufficient, not to point out a few isolated resemblances, but that there is a pervading analogy between the Egyptian and Semitico-Aryan word stems and roots both in their points of identity and diversity.' "Either all the axioms and results which have thus far been verified by philology are false, or the Egyptian language has an affinity with the Asiatic languages, and especially with the Semitic. . . . Kham himself came from the original country of the Semites, from Chaldæa, before the language had grown into historical Khamitism." And, "The Egyptian language proves, both grammatically and lexicographically, the original identity of the Semitic and the Aryan." Dr. Brugsch observes, "The primitive roots and the essential elements of the Egyptian grammar point to such an intimate connection with the Indo-Germanic and Semitic languages, that it is almost impossible to mistake the close relations which formerly prevailed between the Egyptians and the races called the IndoGermanic and Semitic." 'Whatever relations of kindred 1 Les Premières Civilizations, vol. i. p. 178. may be found to exist in general between these great races of mankind, thus much may be regarded as certain, that the cradle of the Egyptian people must be sought in the interior of the Asiatic quarter of the globe." Lepsius, adds the same writer, "has proved, in the most convincing manner, this Asiatic home of the Egyptians in agreement with the Biblical accounts in the lists of nations.” 1 Sir H. Rawlinson: "Without pretending to trace up these early Babylonians to their original ethnic source, there are reasons of some weight for supposing them to have passed from Ethiopia to the valley of the Euphrates shortly before the opening of the historic period:-(i.) The system of writing which they brought with them has the closest affinity with that of Egypt; in many cases there is an absolute identity between the two alphabets. . . . (iv.) All the traditions of Babylonia and Assyria point to a connection in very early times between Ethiopia, Southern Arabia, and the cities on the Lower Euphrates. . . . The building of Hur [Abraham's birthplace], again, is the earliest historical event of which the Babylonians seem to have any cognisance; but the inscriptions seem to refer to a tradition of the primeval leader, by whom the Cushites were first settled in the Euphrates, and one of the names of this leader is connected with Ethiopia in a way that can hardly be accidental." 2 "In regard to the language of the primitive Babylonians, although in its grammatical structure it resembles dialects of the Turanian family, the vocabulary is rather Cushite or Ethiopian, belonging, in fact, to that stock of tongues which in the sequel were everywhere more or less mixed up with the Semitic language," &c. Upon high and independent authority, therefore, we have it that Hamites, Semites, and Aryans spoke dialects that were akin to one another; and that the three races hailed originally from Asia. Were I to hazard a scheme of movements that would tally with these statements, I should 1 History of Egypt under the Pharaohs. By Brugsch Bey, vol. i. say the connection was broken, or rather interrupted, by Hamitic and Cushite migrations into Canaan and Egypt; that it was renewed in Babylonia after the return of Cushite tribes from Ethiopia; and again renewed in Canaan and on the banks of the Nile by the people of Abraham and of Israel. Of the later intercourse between the Egyptians and the Hebrews we have the Mosaic account. Before their arrival in Canaan, the Shemites had no authentic history. They had dim reminiscences of ancient migrations and of eponym patriarchs and heroes. They had cherished the names of countries and peoples from which they had for ages been separated. But it is to the crumbling stones, the shattered tablets, and the cuneiform characters of Babylonia, that we must look for all we are ever likely to know of what the Hebrews themselves were profoundly ignorant. Fortunately these mines of information have yielded treasures that were never dreamt of; and yet we have barely done more than discover where the treasure lies. Further on you will find a short notice of these discoveries. For the moment we must follow the argument still in hand. Ur of the Chaldees is the spot towards which our inquiries have a natural tendency to return. Ur stands on the threshold of Semitic history; and, as we have just been told, the Babylonians associated it with their oldest traditions. If we would know what were the immediate surroundings of Abraham and of his ancestors, with the view of testing the originality of the patriarch's religious opinions, we must know something about Ur, and something about the Chaldees or, as we ought perhaps to call them, the Akkadians. Well, we do know what their language was; and thus learn something of their descent. We know the names of many of their kings; and so know something of their history and something of their chronology. We are possessed of many of their oldest legends, and of the picture-writings and monuments which adorned their temples. From these we get glimpses of antecedents which even to them were prehistoric; and we learn with certitude what was their mythology and what their religion. In spite of much actual knowledge, our ignorance leaves a wide field for guess-work; and whenever we venture upon dates, or attempt to fix the chronological order of events, the results must be accepted with the utmost caution. To strike an average amongst many ingenious conjectures, and to take the epoch of the most ancient cuneiform remains as a point of time from which to explore. both backwards and forwards, one may say that, at that period, the biblical "Land of Shinar" was occupied by the people of Sumir; and that Ur or Hur was the capital of the Akkadian people, who were their kith and kin. The Akkadians, so far as we know, were nothing less than the inventors of the cuneiform system of writing, At all events, it is to the capitals of the Akkadian kingdom-Ur, Erech, Larsa, and Nipur-that the oldest cuneiform inscriptions, wherever found, refer. The Akkadians were members of the Turanian or Tâtar stock, and spoke a language allied to that of the modern Turks. Whether they were identical with the Chaldees we know not. The word "Chaldee" does not occur in the oldest inscriptions. Possibly the Chaldees may have been a Hamite or Cushite people whom the hardy Akkadian highlanders, on their descent from Armenia, dispossessed of the fat lands of Babylonia. We are told (Gen. x.) that Cush, who was the son of Ham, begat Nimrod. "And the beginning of his [Nimrod's] kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." If Nimrod is the Izdubar to whom a mass of the oldest arrow-headed legends refer, and whose city was Erech, it seems highly probable that the Cushite descendants of Nimrod were the people. whom the Akkadians first ousted; and with whom they eventually amalgamated. Where or at what stage of things the Zoroastrian Medes conquered the country, is more than I can tell. According to Berosus, the Median invasion of Babylon took place in 2234 B.C. Then followed a dozen or so of kings, of a race unspecified; and next to these the Chaldean dynasty, dated 1975 B.C. Professor Sayce suggests that the siege of Erech recorded in the Izdubar Epic "was the work of those foreign invaders whom the Babylonian historian has termed Median." 1 Such an hypothesis scatters that historian's figures to the winds. For the siege of Erech had already passed into the mythical stage when the earliest tablets were inscribed. And these tablets cannot be much later than 3000 B.C. Sir H. Rawlinson offers the following scheme as "a plausible arrangement:" "About the year 2234 the Cushite inhabitants of Southern Babylonia may be supposed to have first risen into importance. Delivered from the yoke of the Zoroastrian Medes, who were of a strictly Turanian, or at any rate, of a mixed Scytho-Aryan race, they raised a native dynasty to the throne, instituting an empire of which the capitals were at Mugheir, at Warka, at Senkereh, and at Niffer; and introducing the worship of the heavenly bodies, in contradistinction to the elemental worship of the Magian Medes."2 This arrangement, however, is completely rescinded by a note a few pages further "The real difficulty then seems to be to decide at what period the Accad immigration in Babylonia took place; if it was in very remote antiquity-and the occurrence of the name of Accad in Genesis among the cities of Nimrod is strongly in favour of such a supposition—then these Scythic immigrants may very well be held to represent the Zoroastrian Medes of Berosus, who preceded the Chaldeans." This, again, has to face the difficulty of reconciling the two religions. We know that at Ur, the moon-god Sin, or Acu (whence indeed the name Accad), was worshipped. At Erech, Anu the Sky-God; at Nipur, Bel or lord of the lower world; at Eridu, Hea, lord of the deep, were respectively the chief deities. But these on. 1 The Chaldean Account of Genesis. By George Smith and A. H. Sayce. 2 Herod., Essay vi. |