348 Lieut.-Colonel C. B. Cornier [Feb. 26, 



Egyptians in the north by Hittites and Amorites, and tlie invasion 

 of the south by the Abiri, in whom Drs. Zimmern and Winckler 

 recognise the Hebrews, the period coinciding with the Old 

 Testament date for Joshua's conquest. 



An inscription of Mineptah, discovered in 1893, speaks of the 

 Israelites as already inhabiting Palestine about 1300 e.g., and agrees 

 with the preceding. Other Egyptian records refer to the conquests 

 of Eameses II. in Galilee and in Syria, when the Hittites retained 

 their independence ; and in the time of Eehoboam, Shishak has left 

 a list of his conquests of 133 towns in Palestine, including the 

 names of many towns noticed in the Bible. 



The Hittite texts found at Hamath, Carchemish and Merash, as 

 well as in Asia Minor, belonged to temples, and accompany sculp- 

 tures of religious origin. They are still imperfectly understood, but 

 the character of the languages, the Mongol origin of the people, and 

 the equality of their civilisation to that of their neighbours, have 

 been established, while their history is recovered from Egyptian and 

 Assyrian notices. The Amorites were a Semitic people akin to the 

 Assyrians, and their language and civilisation are known trom their 

 own records, while they are represented at Karnak with Semitic 

 features. 



The oldest alphabetic text is that of the Moabite stone about 

 900 B.C. found at Dibon, east of the Dead ,Sea, on a pillar of basalt, 

 and recording the victories of King Mesha over the Hebrews, as 

 mentioned in the Bible. Several Bible towns are noticed, with the 

 name of King Omri, and the language, though approaching Hebrew 

 very closely, gives us a Moabite dialect akin to the Syrian, which is 

 preserved in texts at Samalla, in the extreme north of Syria, dating 

 from 800 e.g. The Phoenician inscriptions found at Jaffa, Acre, 

 Tyre, Sidon, Gebal and in Cyprus do not date earlier than 600 e.g., 

 and show us a distinct dialect less like Hebrew than the Moabite. 

 The most important of these early texts is the Siloam incription in 

 the rock-cut aqueduct above the pool, found by a Jewish boy in 1880. 

 It refers only to the cutting of the aqueduct (in the time of 

 Hezekiah), but it gives us the alphabet of the Hebrews and a 

 language the same as that of Isaiah's contemporary writings. It is 

 the only true Hebrew record yet found on monuments, and confirms 

 the Old Testament account of Hezekiah's work. 



The Assyrian records refer to the capture of Damascus by 

 Tiglath Pileser III. in 732 e.g., and of Samaria in 722 e.g., as well as 

 to Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem in 702 e.g. The latter record 

 witnesses also the civilisation of the Hebrews under Hezekiah, whose 

 name occurs as well as those of Jehu, Azariah, Menahem, Ahaz, 

 Pekah and Hosea, who, with Manasseh, gave tribute to Assyrian 

 kings. 



About the Christian era Greek texts occur in Palestine, the most 

 important being that of Herod's Temple at Jerusalem, forbidding 

 strangers to enter, and those of Siah in Bashan, where also Herod 



