ON THE CANAANITES. 30 
who employs them lived and wrote before the time of the 
Captivity. 
As regards Hebrew inscriptions, we have at present only 
one; and of this it was my good fortune to send the first 
accurate copy home to England. This is the celebrated 
Siloam inscription, accidentally discovered in 1881. It con- 
tains no history and no personal names, but it is nevertheless 
evidence of the civilisation of Jerusalem as early as the time 
of Hezekiah ; evidence of the language then used by the He- 
brews ; evidence that it was possible in the eighth century B.C. 
for the Hebrew prophets and historians to write in an alphabet 
exactly the same (as to sounds) as that in which the Old 
Testament is written, and in the same pure Hebrew tongue. 
It is also evidence (though this cannot here be explained in 
detail) that the Hebrews had long been accustomed to use 
this alphabet, and could write in Solomon’s time, and perhaps 
as early as 1500 B.C. 
But the subject now to be considered is even more inte- 
resting. It is the investigation of the language and customs 
of Palestine before the time of the Hebrew invasion under 
Joshua. It is the attempt to call back to life the mixed tribes 
of Canaan among whom Abraham wandered, and whose cities 
the spies from the desert found to be “ walled up to heaven”; 
who had idols and idol-altars, which Israel destroyed, and 
who are represented in the Old Testament as belonging to 
another race, not Semitic, but akin to some of the inhabitants 
of Chaldea and Phcenicia. « 
The materials for this study are very authentic, and, though 
fragmentary, they are contemporary, and, rightly understood, 
they are conclusive. They consist—first, in the names of 
towus in Palestine and Syria; second, in the names of Syrian 
chiefs with whom the Egyptians came in contact; third, in 
the names of Syrian chiefs encountered by the Assyrians ; : 
fourth, in the hieroglyphic texts of Syria and Asia Minor; 
fifth, in the non-Semitic element in Phoenicia; sixth, in the 
engraved signets and amulets of Phoenicia and Asia Minor, as 
compared with those of Chaldea. All these materials yield 
important results, but, only when they are treated by a com- 
parative method, and on the basis of the supposition,—which 
is clearly pointed out in Genesis,—that there was in Palestine 
from the earliest period a non-Semitic as well as a Semitic 
population,—that is to say, a population speaking a language, 
possessing a physiognomy, a religion, and customs quite dis- 
tinct from those of the group of nations called Semitic, by 
which we understand the Hebrews, the Arabs, and the Assyrians, 
D2 
