CONGRES INTERNATIONAL D'HISTOIRE DES RELIGIONS. 39 
offspring” or “son,” the Tammuz of the Bible, and the 
Adonis of Greek mythology. With regard to the latter 
statement, I have nothing to say against it, and as for the 
former, it certainly seems to me to be very reasonable, 
though Professor Sayce, I believe, does not agree with it. 
At the next sitting came my own communication, upon 
the religion of the Babylonians 2,000 years before Christ. 
This was a paper based upon the proper names of men found 
in the numerous inscriptions of the time of the first dynasty 
of Babylon (that towhich Hammurabi or Amraphel belonged), 
and was therefore similar to one that I read in April, 1894, 
before the Victoria Institute, which, however, referred to a 
period about 1,500 years later. In this paper concerning 
the earlier period, I was able to make a reference to one of 
the points set down for discussion in the programme of the 
Congress, and to show that the Babylonians of that period 
not only believed in a life beyond the grave, but that they 
also thought that, after they had departed this life, they 
went to dwell with the deity whom they had worshipped on 
the earth, just as the Chaldean Noah, Pir-napistim, in the 
Babylonian story of the Flood, announced it as bemg his 
intention to do. The identification of the gods with each 
other was likewise touched upon, together with the deifica- 
tion of cities, rivers, etc. The discussion which took place 
showed that the scholars present were interested in the 
subject. _ An attempt to identify the goddess Istar with the 
sun-god Samaé fell to the ground, and the scholar proposing 
it had to give way to convincing argument. 
After a thesis by M. Dussaud, * History and Religion of the 
Nosairis,” a Mussulman sect which flourished in the twelfth 
century and which still exists upon the Syrian coast, Dr. Gar- 
naud read a paper in which he spoke at great le 1eth upon 
prophesying and ventriloquism. ‘That the prophets of the 
Old Testament were at the same time ventriloquists was 
strongly opposed by MM. Israel Levy and Klein, whilst Dr. 
Oppert made the jocular remark that the prophet s did not 
speak “du ventre,” but from the mouth. 
At the fourth session of the Egypto-Semitic Section Mr. 
Schmidt, of Cornell University, read a communication upon 
the evolution of religious life before Mohammed, which I did 
not, unfortunately, hear. He was followed by M. Philippe 
Berger, the well-known Phoenician scholar, upon the 
conquest of Palestine accordmg to the Tel-el-Amarma 
tablets. He was of opinion that these documents tended 
