66 THE REV. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D. 
the Biblical side with which he has dealt chiefly, and there are one or two 
points in his able paper on which I should like to speak. With regard to 
the pre-eminence of the Hittites in Southern Palestine at the time of Abraham, 
I see nothing in that contrary to. the historical evidence, as far as we are 
able to follow it ; and I think I may be able to add something to prove that 
the migration of Abram and the entry of that patriarch and his family 
into Palestine must have been between the years 2250 and 2100: for if 
we look at the history of Egypt at that period, we find that he went into 
Egypt at the time the Shepherd Kings were ruling in that country. 
“M. Mariette, who did so much in connexion with the work at Zoan, pointed 
out the peculiar character of many of the art-remains found there,—a 
character particularly noticeable in the statues of great personages, and also 
in the figures of lions and sphynxes. The work was totally different 
from the Egyptian work, and this difference was specially noticeable in the 
treatment of the hair. Inthe year 1880, I visited the ruins of the city of 
Carchemish on the banks of the Euphrates, and I there saw some 
sculptures uncovered, which I am sorry to say werenot brought to this country, 
nor do I think they will be for some time to come, under existing 
circumstances ; but they were very peculiar in their artistic workmanship, 
and one of the most remarkable of their peculiarities was to be noticed in 
the figure of a lion, on the back of which were two personages, evidently 
divinities, represented as standing. The treatment of the mane of that lion 
was exactly the same as that of the hair in the Hyksos sphynxes found at 
Zoan. I think there are not wanting many facts to show the presence of 
the Hittites in considerable force in Egypt, at the time of the Hyksos - 
invasion. There is one fact which seems to me very much to strengthen 
this assumption, it is that the wars of vengeance which Thothmes in 
the XVIIIth dynasty, and Rameses in the XIXth carried on, were entirely 
directed against those people. There is, I think, another point which 
meets the principal objection made with regard to the names of the 
persons mentioned in that important chapter in the Book of Genesis being 
Semitic. It is evident, from an examination of the Hittite sculptures, and 
of the sculptures of Egypt illustrating the wars against the Hittites, as well 
as the Assyrian sculptures representing the wars against the same people, 
that the Hittites were not a homogeneous race. They were rather amass of 
tribes confederated together for one common object—opposition to the 
invaders, either from the east or from the south, who swept the fertile plains 
of Northern Syria. Knowing the enterprising character the Semites have 
ever exhibited, we cannot doubt that some members of that family must 
have settled among them ; and if they did settle, we may be almost sure 
they would haye brought into practice that chief characteristic of their 
race, the custom of trading with other people. We know that among the 
earliest traders in Chaldea, as far as the monuments already discovered 
show, were Semites, and with one exception, the earliest Semitic vernacular 
is derived from Chaldean documents, dating from the time to which we 
must assign the migration of Abram. This being so, it ought not to 
