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The Early History of Syria and Palestine THE GIFT OF MAY TREAT MORRISON IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDER F MORRISON Gbe Semitic Series THE EARLY HISTORY OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE By LEWIS BAYLES PATON : SERIES OF HAND-BOOKS IN SEM1T1CS EDITED BY JAMES ALEXANDER CRAIG PROFESSOR OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES AND HELLENISTIC GREEK, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Recent scientific research has stimulated an increasing interest in Semitic studies among scholars, students, and the serious read- ing public generally. It has provided us with a picture of a hitherto unknown civilization, and a history of one of the great branches of the human family. The object of the present Series is to state its results in popu- larly scientific form. Each work is complete in itself, and the Series, taken as a whole, neglects no phase of the general subject. Each contributor is a specialist in the subject assigned him, and has been chosen from the body of eminent Semitic scholars both in Europe and in this country. The Series will be composed of the following volumes I. Hebrews. History and Government. By Professor J. F. McCurdy, University of Toronto, Canada. II. Hebrews. Ethics arid Religion. By Professor Archibald Duff, Airedale College, Bradford, England. [/« Press. III. Hebrews. The Social Lije. By the Rev. Edward Day, Springfield, Mass. [No7i> Ready. IV. Babylonians and Assyrians, with introductory chapter on the Sumerians. History to the Fall of Babylon. V. Babylonians and Assyrians. Religion. By Professor J. A. Craig, University of Michigan. VI. Babylonians and Assyrians. Life and Customs. By Professor A. H. Sayce, University of Oxford, England. \Noiv Ready. VII. Babylonians and Assyrians. Excavations and Account of Decipherment of Inscriptions. By Professor A. V. Hilprecht, University of Pennsylvania. VIII. Syria and Palestine. Early History. By Professor Lewis Bayles Paton, Hartford Theological Seminary. [Now Ready. IX. Development of Islamic Theology, Jurisprudence, and Theory of State. By Professor D. B. Mac- donald, Hartford Theological Seminary. The following volumes are to be included in the Series, and others may be added : X. Phoenicia. History and Government, including Colonies, Trade, and Religion. XI. Arabia, Discoveries in, and History and Religion until Mohammed. XII. Arabic Literature and Science since Mohammed. XIII. The Influence of Semitic Art and Mythology on Western Nations. ZTbe Semitic Series THE EARLY HISTORY OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE BY LEWIS BAYLES PATON, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS AND CRITICISM IN HARTFORD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY WITH MAPS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1901 Copyright, 1901, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1901 TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK DS 12 I P&JJL CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE Scope op the History ix. Chronological Tables ....... xiii xx CD_ Bibliography jr CHAPTER I The Earliest Inhabitants 1 CHAPTER II The Old Babylonian Supremacy 14 o 2 CHAPTER III ** The Amoritic Migration 25 to CHAPTER IV The Rule of the City of Babylon . .47 5 CHAPTER V The Canaanitic Migration 63 CHAPTER VI The Egyptian Supremacy 74 431897 VI CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAGE The Hittite and the Aramaean Migration . 103 CHAPTER VIII The Rise of the Aramjean Nations .... 122 CHAPTER IX The Period of the Hebrew Judges .... 157 CHAPTER X The Period of the Early Hebrew Kings . 176 CHAPTER XI Th2 Advance of Assyria 199 CHAPTER XII The Assyrian Supremacy 229 CHAPTER XIII The New Babylonian Supremacy 271 Index 283 MAPS PACING PAGE Syria and Palestine Before 2000 b.c. '2,0 Syria and Palestine in the Egyptian Inscrdptions . 78 Syria and Palestine in the Tell-el-Amarna Letters 97 Syria and Palestine in the Old Testament . 157 Syria and Palestine in the Assyrian Inscriptions . 200 THE EARLY HISTORY OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE INTRODUCTION In ancient Babylonian usage Suri, from which our name Syria is derived, meant Northern Mesopotamia and the adjacent districts of the Armenian and Taurus mountain chains. In Greek and Roman times it was limited eastward and northward and was extended southward, so that it came to denote the region between the Taurus, the Euphrates, the Syr- ian Desert, Egypt, and the Mediterranean. This ap- plication of the name has become traditional, but it does not commend itself to the historian of the ancient Orient. From time immemorial the northern half of this region has been peopled by different races from the southern half, and politically the two divisions have been independent until comparatively recently. For these reasons it is advisable to limit the name Syria to the territory between the Taurus and Mount Hermon, and to apply to the remaining portion of the East Mediterranean coast the name of Palestine. This name is due to a late Greek exten- sion of the meaning of. Philistia ; we have, however, no ancient designation that covers the region so precisely. Oriental history divides naturally into three main ; x INTKODUCTION periods : the first, that of the development of the Semitic nationalities; the second, of the supremacy of the Indo-Germanic Persians, Greeks, and Romans the third, of the rise of Islam. The purpose of this volume is to tell the story of the West Semitic peoples during the first of these periods, that is, from the earliest times down to the establishment of the Persian empire. Within the last few years impor- tant archa3ological finds have been made in Syria and Palestine. On account of their central position they were in constant contact with Bab}lonia, As- syria, Egypt, and Arabia ; and consequently, all dis- coveries in the Orient throw light upon their early history. In this book I have endeavoured to gather up the results of the most recent explorations, and combining them with the facts already known from the Bible and from other ancient sources, to present them in a clear and popular form. New discoveries are constantly being made, so that before this work leaves the press some of its conclusions will per- haps be already antiquated; nevertheless I trust that in the main it will be found to represent fairly the present stage of archaeological and historical science. The length of the period covered, and the limita- tion imposed upon the size of *the volume, have often made it necessary merely to state conclusions with- out giving the reasons on which they are based. Full citation of the authorities to whom I am under obli- [INTRODUCTION xi gationhas also been impossible. On pages xx-xxxvi I have given a list of the more important general discussions, and in the foot-notes I have indicated the chief treatises upon particular points. The his- tories of Israel and of the Phoenicians are to be treat- ed in other volumes of the Semitic Series; I have, therefore, touched upon them only so far as was nec- essary to give completeness and connection to the history as a whole. For the chronology of Babylonian and Assyrian history I have followed the conclusions of Lehmann, 1 whose discussion is the most thorough-going and self- consistent that has yet appeared. For the Egyptian kings from the XVIIIth dynasty onward I have adopted the dates of Lehmann and of Steindorff. ~ 1 Zwei Havptprobleme der aUorientalischen Chronologie, Leip- zig, 1898. Lehmann's results have found the acceptance of Eduard Meyer, Litterarisches Centralblatt, 1899, No. 4 ; Rosch, Jahresbericht fiir Geschichtswissenschaft, 1898, i. 17; Prasek, Ber- liner philologische Wochenschrift, 1898, No. 42 ; Fossy, Revue Archeologique, 1899, p. 363 ff. ; Tiele, Zeitschrift fur Assyriolo- gie, 1900, p. 390 ff. Other historians, however, such as Hilprecht, Rost, Radau, Rogers, and Oppert, dissent strongly from Lehmann's accepting the isolated statement of Nabuna'id conclusions ; and, years before his time, place the that Naram-Sin reigned 3,200 ( ! ) first Babylonian kings 1,000 years earlier than the dates adopted in this work. E.g., Radau, Early Babylonian History, p. 30, as- signs Enshagkushanna to before 4500 B.C., Ur-Nina to 4300 B.C., and Sargon I. to 3800 (instead of 3400, 3200, and 2770, the dates that I have preferred in this book). The question of the chro- nology is by no means settled, and is not likely to be until more de- cisive facts are discovered. 2 Die Blidezeit des Pharaonenreiclis, Leipzig, 1900. INTRODUCTION x ii For the period before the Hyksos occupation I have followed Borchardt l in his conclusion that the heliacal rising of Sirius recorded in the Papyrus Bernhardt as occurring in the seventh year of User- tesen III. fell between the years 1876-72 B.C., and from this fixed point I have calculated the dates of the earlier dynasties. In the Chronology of Israel- itish history I am most indebted to the investigations of Buhl. 8 A fuller discussion of the problems of the chronology will be found in my article on " Ke- cent Investigations in Ancient Oriental Chronology," Biblical World, July, 1901. On pp. xiii-xix I have embodied my conclusions in a chronological table of the early Oriental kings. In the first column stands the nation that during the period in question held the supremacy. The transcription of proper names has been at- tended with many difficulties. With considerable reluctance I have finally decided, in view of the pop- ular character of this book, not to follow the modern scientific method of transcribing Semitic names, but to represent n and its equivalents by kh, ID by sh, and not to try to distinguish between t: and n or between for and to. In the transcription of Egyptian names, the student's convenience, I have followed the system of Petrie in his History of Egypt. 1 Zeitschrift fur dgyptische Sprache, 1899, 2. 2 " Chronologie der Kunige von Israel und Juda," Deutsche Zeitschrift fiir Geschichtswissenschaft. xii 44-76. 171. ? EARLY ORIENTAL KINGS xm CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE— I.
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