Brinton.] «^^4: [Nov. 4, 1892. 



Such facts lead us to inquire particularly as to what we know from 

 the oldest authors concerning the population of the territory imme- 

 diately west of lower Egypt. On turning to the best and oldest 

 authority, Herodotus, who obtained his information from members 

 of the Greek colony at Cyrene, I was surprised to find that he 

 locates precisely in the region referred to a tribe whose name, as 

 he gives it, is evidently that of the Tur-sha — to wit, the Adur- 

 machides.^ It is possible that machides is a Cyrenaic Greek termi- 

 nation, meaning " warriors;" at any rate we have the stem Adur 

 or Atur, which is precisely what recurs in Etruria. It is undoubt- 

 edly a Libyan word, from the root DR or D R'R, whence the 

 words for mountain, adar or adrar. The Tur-sha were, there- 

 fore, the mountaineers, those dwelling in the range of mountains 

 which rise to form the eastern Libyan plateau. The analogy 

 between adar and adrar on the one hand, and adur and etrur, 

 on the other, is very noticeable. As the Italian Etruscans made 

 little use of the letter d, substituting for it the /, we have the very 

 common Tuscan radical tur or tar, as in the name of the field 

 which the mother of the Arval Brethren on dying left to Romulus, 

 the ager tur ax or tarux,'\ 



* He assigns their position a.s " from the borders of Egypt to Port Plynus," and dis- 

 tinguishes them from the Ammouii of the Oasis of Jupiter Am^mou, the modern El Giwah 

 (Hist., Book iv, cap. 168). The latter to this day speak a well-marked Berber dialect, as 

 is proved by the short vocabulary collected by Bayle St. John. 



t Both orthographies are sanctioned by Miiller, Die Etrusker, Bd. ii, s. 107. 



I 



