236 HAUPT— MANNA, NECTAR, AND AMBROSIA. 



what is this ? for they did not know what it was. Man-Jiu, however, 

 is Aramaic, not Hebrew. The Syriac Bible has manau^=-mana-hu 

 in Exod. i6, 15. In Syriac we find m^n or mon, and mana, what, 

 but the Hebrew pronoun for zvhat? is ma. The popular etymology 

 given in Exod. 16, 15 must be a late gloss. AV has What is this? 

 in the margin, also It is a portion. In the text AV renders : It is 

 manna. RV has in the text JVJiat is this? and It is manna in the 

 margin. 



Tamarisk-manna is alluded to by Herodotus (7, 31). He says in 

 his account of Xerxes's march to Sardes during his expedition against 

 Greece (about 481) that the Callatebian craftsmen prepared honey 

 from tamarisks and from wheat (Gr. andrcs dcmioergoi mcli ck 

 myrikes te kal pyrou poieiisi). In the OT the term honey denotes 

 also various inspissated fruit-juices or syrups, especially grape-syrup 

 (Gr. hepsema, siraion, Arab. dibs). Callatebus was a town in Lydia 

 S.W. of Sardes, probably near the Lydian Philadelphia, the present 

 Alashehr, 83 m. E. of Smyrna. This Philadelphia was called Little 

 Athens on account of its festivals and temples. It was captured in 

 1402 by Timur (or Tamerlane) who built a wall of the corpses of 

 his prisoners. The tamarisk-honey is tamarisk-manna, and the honey 

 prepared from wheat may have been glucose made from wheaten 

 starch (Plin. 18, 76) by the action of dilute sulphuric acid. This 

 acid, which is perhaps the most important of all chemicals, was, it 

 may be supposed, known to the ancients (cf. Plin. 35, 175), while 

 hydrochloric acid was first obtained about the end of the Thirty 

 Years' War (1648). Sulphuric acid is found uncombined in natural 

 waters of certain volcanic districts. The Lydian Philadelphia was 

 subject to frequent earthquakes. The Mseander valley and the Gulf 

 of Smyrna are notorious seismic foci (EB" 2, 757''). The Maeander 

 valley is noted for its hot springs. The Lydians were credited with 

 several inventions, e.g. dice and coined money. They were also cele- 

 brated for their music and gymnastic exercises. The Lydian empire 

 was the industrial power of the ancient world. 



