282 RAWLINSON ON SOUTHERN PERSIA. [Feb. 9, 1857. 



been dug up in the immediate vicinity, belonging to the Cusbite or 

 Ethiopian race, wbo also beld the neighbouring province of Khuz- 

 istan, and whose bricks are commonly found at Susa. Upon these 

 bricks are found the legends of Sutur Nakhunta^ contemporary with 

 Sargon of Assyria, and Kudixr Nakhunta and Tirhakeh, contemporary 

 with Sennacherib. There are so many points of connexion at this 

 period between the Ethiopians of Africa and the -Ethiopians of 

 Asia, that is, between Meroe and Susa (such as the identity of the 

 traditions referring to the two countries, the double Memnon, double 

 Cepheus, &c.), that I think it by no means impossible the Tirhakeh 

 of the Erythraean Sea, whose bricks are found at Rishir and Susa, 

 may be the very king of that name, who is mentioned in the Bible 

 and in the cuneiform annals of Sennacherib, as having invaded 

 Syria from Egypt, and having fought with Sennacherib, while that 

 monarch was engaged in his famous campaign against Hezekiah of 

 Judaea. At any rate, the kings had the same names ; they belong 

 to the same period of history, and ruled over divisions of the same 

 race. And if the geographical distance of Meroe from Susa and Eishir 

 be thought to be fatal to the identification of the two Tirhakehs, I 

 would quote the nearly parallel case of the Imaum of Muscat, who 

 at the present day holds Kishm in the Persian Gulf, and Zanzibar 

 on the coast of Africa. 



" Under the Achaemenians we are unable to ascertain the name 

 of Eishir. The metropolitan city of this period, in the vicinity, 

 was Taoke, or Dalakee, where there was a royal palace of the Per- 

 sian kings, mentioned by Strabo, Arrian, and Ptolemy; and the 

 port of this city was at the mouth of the Granis, either at Bunder- 

 Eig, or at what is now called Eohilla Point, extensive ruins being 

 found at both of these spots at the present day. ( Yacut notices these 

 ruins south of Genava, and applies to them the name of Shiniz, 

 which, however, generally denotes a place at the mouth of the 

 Tab.) 



" Under the Sassanians, in about a.d. 230, Ardeshir Babegan re- 

 built the two cities of Taoke, or Toug, and Eishir, and called the 

 one ' Earn Ardeshir ' and the other ' Eiv Ardeshir' — that is, ' the r6st 

 of Ardeshir,' and ' the delight of Ardeshir.' Eiv Ardeshir became 

 corrupted into Eishir, which has applied to the ruins of the city 

 ever since. 



" During the third and fourth centuries, Eiv Ardeshir was the seat 

 of the Christian metropolitan of Persia ; and Johannes of Eishir, 

 who sat at the Nicene Council in 325, is said to have had ecclesias- 

 tical jurisdiction over all the churches both of Persia and of India. 



*' At the time of the Prophet, Shahrek, the Marzaban or ' Lord of 



