From The Contemporary Review. ANCIENT PALESTINE AND MODERN

EXPLORATION.

LINE by line and touch by touch the picture of ancient Palestine is being drawn, and in proportion as it grows in finish and begins to stand out on the canvas, public attention is the more attracted to it.

sions may be reached. The Egyptologist and the Assyriologist may perhaps be unwilling to allow the Syriologist, as he may be called, an equal footing with themselves. Their own discoveries have, perhaps, been more numerous, more important historically, and founded on more difficult and arduous study than those of the explorers of Palestine and of Syria. The results of Palestine exploration are Yet there can be no doubt that this will in harmony with the true scientific spirit, not be the view of the general public, and, because, on the one hand, they are based indeed, the fact is confessed in the manon actual and special information, col-ner of appeal to that public adopted by lected without reference to any theory and the students of Assyrian and Egyptian free from suspicion of any tendency; and, antiquities. To Englishmen generally on the other, because they depend on that the results of these researches are intercomparative method whereby all our greatesting, not so much in themselves as in est results in science have been gained. reference to the light thereby thrown on The main object has been to provide am- the study of the Bible and of Hebrew ple, accurate, and recent information as to antiquities in general. It is most importhe country, its architecture, topography, tant for the student of Syrian antiquities fauna, flora, and geology, and as to the to be fully aware of the work which is social peculiarities (race, dress, customs, being done in these other departments of manners, language, and employments) of research. Nor can he feel that he thorthe various dwellers in that Holy Land of oughly understands the Jews of the Talthe Hebrew and the Christian, which is mudic period till he has penetrated to the theatre of the events recorded in the their land of exile has become familiar Old and New Testaments. But it is not with the ideas of Medes and Persians, merely by visiting and measuring ruins, with Zendic literature, and even with photographing peasants, executing sur-Esthonian folk-lore, not less than with the veys, and collecting specimens and in- pre-Islamite Arabs of the Hejaz, and with scriptions that results of general interest the mixed Greco-Turkish populations of are to be obtained. The explorer must Cyprus and Asia Minor. be a student as well; he must be in cordial It is for this reason that hasty journeys, communication with all other students undertaken by travellers not familiar with with whom he may be able to communi- the real problems to be solved in Syria, cate; he must know what others have have as yet led only to very meagre redone and are doing, and what he may sults. Here and there a lucky find may fairly expect to find in the places he visits fall to the share of one whose knowledge - where to look, in short, and what to is hardly sufficient to enable him to ap seek. The results for which such a stu-preciate its value; but if the study of dent hopes are not always those which Palestine antiquities is to attain to the the public expects; but if the Palestine level of true science, it can only be through explorers have not brought back the ark the combined efforts of properly instructed from Jerusalem, the golden calves from explorers working in harmony with their Bethel, Ahab's ivory palace, or Samson's fellow-laborers and students of the East. coffin, their claims to the public confi. dence are not thereby weakened; for it is by that which they have not discovered, quite as much as by that which they have, that real students will judge the value of the work which they offer for general use But, still more, it is by a comparative system only that really important conclu

During the last four years there has been considerable activity in the work of exploration and in the study of Syrian antiquities, and the results now begin very evidently to affect the critical examination of the Scriptures and the primary instruction of our schools. The work has not been confined to the action of the

vance in our knowledge of epigraphy which will assist future students of this great subject to assign due value to their discoveries, while the Harkavy manuscripts of the prophets may well be expected to yield new critical results, especially if they should prove to be older than the earliest existing manuscripts as yet known of the Hebrew Scriptures; and the discovery of the valuable tractate called "Teaching of the Apostles," in Turkey, shows that even in early Christian literature new and important discoveries may yet be possible.

Palestine Exploration Fund, although | publication of Dr. Isaac Taylor's "History this society has been the centre round of the Alphabet" marks an important adwhich it is grouped. Individual efforts have largely contributed to the increase of our knowledge, and the members of the Biblical Archæological Society have also not been idle. As regards the work of the first-named society, we have received since 1881 seven stout quarto volumes full of plans, sketches, and detailed descriptions. Five of these relate to the survey of western Palestine, one contains a valuable account of the fauna and flora of the Holy Land, by Canon Tristram; and the last is devoted to an account of twenty years of exploration in Jerusalem, with papers in addition on the history of the city and on its existing monuments. The great work thus completed forms the basis of a true scentific study of Palestine antiquities; but the most valuable results are perhaps still in the future, when this mass of information has been well sifted and summarized. In addition to this work, we have the survey of eastern Palestine, inaugurated in 1881, which has already yielded important results as yet lying hidden in manuscript plans and notes which the society should strive to produce as soon as possible; for though the district examined was small, the amount of information collected was larger and more interesting than any which they have as yet published relating to western Palestine. Accounts of the exploration of the Hebron Haram by the officers accompanying the royal princes in 1882, and the reconnaissance of Sinai and southern Palestine, with a view to the settlement of geological questions, under-episodes to be perfectly correct from an taken by Professor Hull for the society in 1883, are also among the more recent publications of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

In individual discoveries the general reader may feel little interest. There are some who do not care where Succoth was, and think it of little importance in what character the kings of Judah wrote their inscriptions. Yet such general readers do feel a constantly growing interest in the general question as to the results of all those inquiries which bear on the Bible literature. There are questions con. nected with the Bible on which exploration throws no light, and aspects with which the antiquarian has little to do. The naïve question, which the explorer has often to answer, "Do your discoveries go to prove that the Bible is true?" betokens a somewhat vague habit of thought and speech, and is one which cannot properly be answered in a single word. cannot but be felt, however, that explora. tion has resulted in disposing of many crude objections to the Bible narrative. It has explained very many difficulties, it has shown some curious expressions and

It

Oriental point of view. It has given a true coloring to our understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, and has shown that the historic facts of such books as The Biblical Archæological Society has Kings or Chronicles with the geography turned its attention to the so-called Hit- of Joshua and of the New Testament are tite question, which promises results of genuine and reliable, and that they can be great interest in the future; and the Egyp-checked by incidental notices in the histian Exploration Fund has employed M. tory of Assyria or of Egypt, in monuments Naville, the well-known Swiss antiquarian, to dig in the Delta, with the interesting result that he has identified Pithom, thus casting important light on the Exodus route. In addition to these labors, the

yet legible in Syria or Moab, in the ruins and ancient nomenclature still remaining in the Holy Land. From a purely human standpoint, which regards the Scriptures as ancient literature, exploration has be

yond doubt done great service in destroy-ninety-two feet lower than the Mediterraing error, and in showing how hasty and nean level. The naturalist who would crude are many of the views and objec-explain how the delicate sun-birds, who tions of theorists who have written against the Bible. Huge libraries of controversy have been swept away when the spade of the excavator has dug up the truth.

Let us glance, then, at the picture of ancient Palestine which has been thus recovered; and first let us consider what the country resembled in the early ages when it rose from the sea as dry land. Professor Hull, after visiting the East, and after studying the conclusions of Lartet and other writers who had previously treated of Palestine geology, draws the following sketch of the pre-human history of the country:

now inhabit this tropical valley, came to find a home separated by great tracts of uncongenial desert from their fellows in Africa, would add an important detail to this picture of gradually changing climate, which converted a glacial Palestine into the sub-tropical region of our own times.

But while thus glancing at the geolog. ical history of Palestine, we must be careful not to confuse geological and historical time. Professor Hull is of opinion that the Jordan valley lakes were separated from the Gulf of Akabah already as early as Miocene times, and this view is fully confirmed by the observations of previous explorers. The watershed which divides the Dead Sea from the Red Sea was shown, by observations taken during the professor's tour, to rise to a level of about six hundred feet above the Mediterranean, and this observation was of value in two ways: first, as showing the chimer. ical nature of the scheme which lately found favor with many, of making a Jordan Valley Canal to connect the Gulf of Akabah with the Mediterranean; and secondly, as showing clearly that the views already held by competent writers were correct, and that the Dead Sea already existed in Abraham's time in much the same condition as at present. Josephus believed that the cities of the plain were still to be found in his own times at the bottom of the Dead Sea; but such an idea, though it still commends itself to the fancy of some writers, has been conclusively proved by geological examination to be destitute of foundation in fact.

The whole of Palestine, and the greater part of the Sinaitic peninsula, was up heaved, Professor Hull tells us, from the sea, during the Miocene period. The chalk, the nummulitic limestone, and other beds which now form the chains of Lebanon and the backbone of the Holy Land, were before this time the floor of the ocean. When these chains were elevated, the great crack or fault, to which all geologists who have visited these regions attribute the formation of the deep Jordan valley, was the result of the shearing of the strata, which left the wall of Moab standing up, while the slopes on the west of the valley slid down beneath the sea level. A pluvial period followed, when glaciers covered the mountains, and a chain of great lakes extended from Hermon to the Dead Sea, the existence of which has now been long demonstrated by various observations. The climate resembled that of Great Britain as now existing, with an abundant rainfall; but Great changes have, nevertheless, octhe volcanoes of Bashan and the volcanic curred even within historic times, in the lakes found in western Galilee in 1872 regions under consideration. F. Delitzsch were then in active movement, continuing has carefully collected the evidence which as late as the Post-Pliocene period. Grad-shows that the length of the Euphrates ually, as the climatic conditions changed, and Tigris has increased about one hunthe lakes of the Jordan valley, and those found by Sir C. Wilson and Professor Hull in Sinai, dried up, until in our own times they have dwindled down to the smaller sheets of the Merom and Tiberias Lakes, with the present Dead Sea, the surface of which is twelve hundred and

dred miles since the dawn of history, the head of the Persian Gulf having been filled by the mud brought down by these and other rivers from the plateaux of Kurdistan and of Persia. In the same way the Egyptian Delta has been steadily growing since Memphis was founded

probably in a bay of the Mediterranean pig-tails, and indeed approached the Taruntil its ruins are now more than a hun-tars in appearance; and it may in the end dred miles inland; and it has been shown, by aid of the observations taken by engineers, since the making of the Suez Canal, that the Isthmus of Suez is now much broader than it was in the time of Moses. At the date of the Exodus, Kantarah, now | fifty miles inland, was probably on the shores of the Mediterranean, while the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah formed the head of the Gulf of Suez. The choking of the Nile mouth, now called Wady Tumeilât, and the gradual rise of the shores of the Red Sea, account for the change, which is important in connection with the story of the crossing of the Red Sea. Professor Hull seemed inclined at one time to suggest that Africa was an island, and the Isthmus of Suez nonexistent in the days of Moses, but further consideration has induced him to follow the opinion of previous writers, in supposing an isthmus reaching from Ismailiah (probably to Kantarah), which appears to have been formed earlier than the earliest historic period of which we have any record.

be found that they were a branch of the old Accadian race which peopled Chaldea, whose language has been shown by Lenor. mant and others to be akin to the Finnish. The suggestion that the curious Syrian hieroglyphs found at Hamath and Aleppo, and further north at Carchemish, and in various parts of Asia Minor, are of Hittite origin, was first hazarded by Dr. Wright, and was independently advocated by Professor Sayce in 1880. These hieroglyphs are still unread, and it cannot be too distinctly stated that until we know in what language they are written and what they really contain, we cannot say with confidence with whom they origi nated. The reading of the Syrian hieroglyphics is one of the great problems of Oriental scholarship still awaiting its Champollion or its George Smith, and however probable the suggestion may be that these monuments are due to the Hittites, who without doubt dwelt in Syria, in Mesopotamia, and in Asia Minor, the attempts as yet made to treat the question of their interpretation are hardly to be considered safer than those made to read Egyptian or Cypriote before the key was discovered to its real meaning. The civilization of the Hittites appears, however, to have been closely connected with that of Egypt, and, so numerous are the signs common to the supposed Hittite and Egyp tian hieroglyphs, that we can hardly think the coincidence to be accidental, and, when the key at length is found, we may expect to obtain great assistance in read. ing these new texts from our knowledge of Egyptian signs on the one hand, and of the language of the Accadians on the other. Meantime, we cannot be too cautious in the conclusions we draw from the very meagre materials as yet in our possession with respect to the Hittites.

From the Miocene to the pre-historic period is a great step in time, but one which we have few means of bridging over. The earliest tribes of which we have any notice in Syrian history are those which Abraham found in possession of the land. It might, perhaps, appear hopeless to expect that any contemporary records concerning these tribes should exist outside the pages of the Old Testament. Yet for the last twenty years the Eyptologists have been in possession of facts which prove the contrary, although it is only within the last few years, through the energy of Professor Sayce and other students, that the British public in general has become aware of the fact. We may mention the Hittites, the Phoenicians, and the Amorites, as the earliest inhabitants An interesting and valuable work called of Syria and Palestine of whose existence" The Empire of the Hittites" has just we have monumental evidence extant. For the last twenty years Egyptologists have been aware of the importance of the Hittites as a dominant race in northern Syria. Chabas was among the first to point out that they spoke a language apparently not Semitic. They had also scribes, and, consequently, were able to write, and their civilization and political importance were such as to place them on an equal footing with the Egyptians in the fourteenth century B.C. From pictures of this period we know that the Hittites were a light-colored, hairless race, who wore

been published by Dr. Wright. In it the reader will find summarized all the information already collected which is diffused through the works of De Rougé, Chabas, G. Smith, Brugsch, Mariette, and in the later publications of Professor Sayce and Mr. Rylands. Dr. Wright does not refer to the early papers of Chabas on the subject, published in 1866, but most of the results of this scholar's work were adopted by Dr. Brugsch. To the plates already published by the Biblical Archaeological Society Dr. Wright adds a long text by Professor Ramsay, and several other valu

able drawings; and he has, moreover, est Syrian races. The survey of Moab written a most graphic account of his ex-resulted in the examination of various pedition to Hamath in 1872, when he succeeded, where all before had failed, in getting a true copy of the famous inscribed stones here found by Burckhardt early in the century.

great centres of rude stone monuments erected by an illiterate race at an early period; and a study of the distribution of these remains and of the incidental notices of menhirs, stone circles and stone altars, To Dr. Wright's book two chapters are of the Canaanites, in the Old Testament, added by Professor Sayce concerning the seems clearly to indicate that the Syrian reading of the texts. The conclusion that dolmens, circles, and menhirs were orig. the hieroglyphs found in Syria and Asia inally erected by the nations which Israel Minor by Burckhardt, G. Smith, Professor conquered and dispossessed. The inRamsay, Dr. Gwyther, Professor Sayce, junctions of the author of Deuteronomy, and others, and even as far north as the put in force by the later kings of Judah, Halys, as far west as Smyrna, and on the included the destruction of these monu. east round Aleppo, are of Hittite origin, ments; and we find that while in the is accepted by Dr. Isaac Taylor and by region beyond Jordan, where the kings of several safe authorities; but — with defer- | Judah were powerless, the dolmens yet ence be it said it is not yet proven, how remain intact, they have entirely disap ever probable. The discovery that the peared in those districts which were visboots of the figures which really repre-ited by the iconoclastic Josiah and the sent Hittites at Karnak are turned up like priests of Jehovah. Thus, while among the boots of the figures on the monuments the Hittites we have evidence of early with Syrian hieroglyphs is the latest and civilization in Syria, we have evidence perhaps most valuable item of evidence also of the existence of other tribes whose as yet collected by Professor Sayce; but rites must have closely resembled those as a rule the figures approach much more of the Druids in our own lands, including closely to the Semitic work of Phoeni- human sacrifice, which, as can be conclucians and Babylonians than to the repre- sively proved, remained a common custom sentation of beardless, pig-tailed warriors throughout Syria,to a late historic period. given by Rosselini from the great bas- It is very remarkable, as a writer in the reliefs of the battle of Kadesh at Karnak Edinburgh Review 'points out, that one of (which have by-the-by not found a place in the great dolmen centres is close to the Dr. Wright's otherwise exhaustive work), probable site of the Mizpah where Jephand it is well known that Syria in the thah lived, and where he sacrificed his fourteenth century B.C. had a mixed pop-daughter, in fulfilment of his rash vow, ulation, Semitic and non-Semitic; while an episode which has its parallel in Greece the local deities, Set, Kadesh, and Ashtoreth, mentioned in connection with the The study of Phoenician archæology is Hittites, were all Semitic. It is evident, yet another most important department then, that until the language in which the of Syriology. The work of Gesenius, inscriptions of Syria are written has been Movers, Renan, and others in this direc really determined, and found to be, like tion, still remains to be completed. Hiththat of the Hittites, non-Semitic, we are erto we have suffered, first, from the zeal as yet not able to say with certainty that of those who saw in Phoenicia the origin the texts are Hittite or Turanian. The of all European civilization; and, secondopinion of great authorities at present ly, from misconceptions due to seeing the favors this supposition, which is prima facts through the medium of Greek misfacie probable this is the utmost that representations. Much also in Phoenicia can be safely said; but meantime the is of very late date, belonging to a pecareful collection of authentic information|riod of decadence under classic influence. -though it might be supplemented by This was the age of many Phoenician further details from Rosselini and Chabas, antiquities discovered by Renan; and the and though it should be clearly understood that the Kheta or Hittites were known to the Egyptologists twenty years ago, and have not been newly discovered within the last few years-renders Dr. Wright's work a valuable contribution to Oriental archæology.

The Hittites and their hieroglyphs are not, however, the only relics of the earli

in the story of Iphigeneia.

religion of the Phœnicians must be judged by better information than that contained in the perverted accounts of Philo of Byblos. New light is, however, being continually shed on the civilization and history of this most interesting race. From Egypt we obtain details as early almost as the time of Moses; and in Phoenician seals and gems we discover that curious