Turning to the third great division of the Iranians viz., the Semites, 

 who migrated to the Valley of the Euphrates, we find a more or less 

 complicated religious system, varying in accordance with the amount 

 of intercommunication which took place between the Semites and the 

 tribes belonging to the Aryan, Mongolian, and Egyptian families. The 

 earliest Semitic settlement was in the district stretching from the 

 Euphrates to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, and their religion was, 

 at first, one of pure animistic polydsemonism, varying enormously in 

 details of drama in the different tribes, but exhibiting in all common 

 characteristics. 



All early Semitic peoples worshipped the sun-god, Shamsh, and all 

 were moon, planet, and star-worshippers to a very large extent ; but, 

 as the race became divided into Northern and Southern Semites, a 

 distinct difference gradually arose between the religious cults of the 

 two branches. The Southern, or Arab, tribes, on account of their 

 more isolated situation, retained the original Semitic mythology, worship- 

 ping the sun as their chief god, Shamsh, the moon as his consort, 

 and the stars and planets as inferior gods and goddesses, the Pleiades 

 being objects of special homage. Shamsh was father of all, and 

 disappeared to the underworld at night to rest in slumber until 

 awakened into activity in the morning as Yachavah, his son, who 

 became one with his father. 



The Northern Semites, on penetrating, at a later period, the borders 

 of Mesopotamia, came in contact with a powerful and advanced civilisa- 

 tion, which had been already established by the Akkadian branch of 

 the Northern Mongolian family, and thus the original Semitic religion 

 became very much modified by the introduction into it of many of 

 the Mongol, as well as some also of the Aryan, myths. 



Very little is known of the Akkadian mythology ; but it is pretty 

 certain that they were, at a very early period, acquainted with the 

 science of astronomy, and that the Chaldeans, their successors, who 

 were a mongrel race, partly Akkadian and partly Semitic, invented the 

 cuneiform writing to take the place of the old Mongolian hieroglyphic 

 characters. From what we know of the religion of the old Mongol 

 Chinese empire prior to 1200 B.C., it was a kind of spirit-worship, the 

 Shang-ti, or supreme spirit, being Thian (Heaven), who, in co-operation 

 with Heu-thu (earth), produced everything. Man, according to this 

 cultus, had two souls, one of which ascended after death to heaven, 

 while the other descended into the earth, both being absorbed respec- 

 tively into Thian and Heu-thu. 



The Akkadians, who were but a branch of the same race as the 

 progenitors of the ancient Chinese, also worshipped spirits, the greatest 

 of whom was Ana (the highest heaven), the next Mulge (the hidden 



