1896.] ^05 [Morris. 



On Oenesis xi. 1-0 as a Poetic Fragment. 

 By J. Chesion Morris, M.D 



(Read before the American PhilosopMcal Society, December 4, ISDG.) 



It was with great interest and pleasure that I listened to Dr. Hil- 

 precht's account of his explorations and discoveries recently at Nippur, 

 and to his lucid statement of his views as to the Sumerian and Accadian 

 races and their civilization, and of what he has learned of their history. 

 Especially I regard as important what he had to say of "the land of 

 Shinar " or Sungir. On March 6, 1891, I communicated to the Society 

 some notes on Hebrew Phonetics, accompanied with a transliteration in 

 accordance with them of Genesis x, rendering "Shinar" by "Xnor, " 

 V. 10 — and am still disposed to adhere to the clue which ,1 think may 

 thus be found to the further elucidation of the history and possibly of 

 the migrations of the ancient peoples. When we read of the building 

 of Babel in the land of Shinar (Genesis xi) by a people that "had 

 bricks for stones and slime (bitumen) had they for mortar," we may 

 well think of a race inhabiting an extensive plain or prairie such as that 

 lying between the Euphrates and Tigris, and building in a different 

 manner from that familiar to the collator of the account, who was proba- 

 bly of a different race — perhaps one of the Semites. His religion too was 

 different, for he speaks of a conference among the gods whom he wor- 

 shipped, ending with "let us go down and overthrow the tower." A 

 little examination of this account will, I think, show that it is in the 

 form of a Hebrew poem, as is also that of the creation in Genesis i. If 

 so, this account may be that of a victory by a Semite race ascribed to 

 the act of their protecting deity, and the subjugation and dispersion of 

 these lowland people.* Did they, or some of them, migrate to Egypt 

 and found an empire there — building with bricks as they had done in 

 Shinar? Were they the, people whose remains were recently described 

 at a meeting of this Society by Mrs. Stevenson as having been discov- 

 ered by Prof. Petrie ? And eventually having been driven thence by 

 the Hamites whom they had temporarily displaced, did they again 

 migrate to the southwest and inhabit the country which to-day we call 

 Senaar ? In the Septuagint this is the transliteration given of 1J?Jty. 

 Nor is this inconsistent with the softening which must occur in peoples 

 of other races of the guttural-nasal vowel ngain. 



I may remark that in the cabinet of the Society are four wooden locks 

 made by the negroes of St. Domingo a hundred years ago. On showing 

 these some time ago to Dr. Hilprecht he remarked to me, " Why those 

 are just such as every Arab sheik has to-day on his treasure-chest or 

 ■on the door of his house in the valley of the Euphrates." I had no 



* For migrations of the brick-builders see McCausland's Builders of Babel, London, 1871. 



