THE PREHISTORIC EAST 165 



before the Exodus, except the remarkable letters 

 recently unearthed at Tel-el-Amarna, in Egypt. In 

 Egypt we have very early records of the dwellers on 

 the Nile, but of the Arabian and African peoples, 

 whom they called Pun and Kesh, and the Asiatic 

 peoples, whom they knew as Cheta and Hyksos, we 

 have till lately known little more than their names 

 and the representations of them on Egyptian monu- 

 ments. In both countries there may be unsounded 

 depths of unwritten history before the first Egyptian 

 dynasty, and before the Abrahamic clan crossed the 

 Jordan. 



What, then, in Egypt and Palestine may be re- 

 garded as prehistoric? I would answer (i) The 

 geographical and other conditions of these countries 

 immediately before the advent of man. (2) The 

 evidence which they afford of the existence, habits, 

 and history of man in periods altogether antecedent 

 to any written history, except such notes as we have 

 in the Bible and elsewhere as to the so-called ante- 

 diluvian world. (3) The facts gleaned by archaeo- 

 logical evidence as to tribes known to us by no 

 records of their own, but only by occasional notices 

 in the history or monuments of other peoples. In 

 Egypt and Palestine such peoples as the Hyksos, the 

 Anakim, the Amalekites, the Hittites, and Amorites 

 are of this kind, though contemporary with historic 

 peoples. 



Prehistoric annals may thus, in these countries, 

 embrace a wide scope, and may introduce us to un- 



