84 HORMUZD RASSAMj ESQ., ON BIBLICAL LANDS, THEIR 



writei'S agree with me that it is about where I have placed it. 

 Abraham the son of Nahor was born there, and went thence to 

 the land of Canaan. 



Mr. Theo. Gr. Pinches, M.R. A. S. — As to the question of Chasdim 

 being spelt with an s, as we pronounce it and spell it, instead of 

 Ghaldim, the reason seems to be this : that in Assyrian, before 

 a dental the s is changed into I. This is a very common thing 

 in Assyrian. I believe that Ur of the Ghaldees should be in 

 Babylonia. There is just the possibility that Chasdim may not be 

 the same as the Kaldu of the Assyrian monuments. If that be so, 

 we must seek for Ur of the Chaldees elsewhere, and in that case the 

 explanation Assyriologists have given would not be the coi'rect one. 

 This IS a question that has only occurred to me at the last moment ; 

 I have not thought over it, or examined it in all its possible compli- 

 cations, but I think Mr. Rassam's point of view, which is an old 

 one, is worthy of consideration. I should like to know what con- 

 nection (etymologically) Orfa has with Ur, supposing it to be Ur of 

 the Chaldees. Mr. Rassam has very truly said that there is more 

 than one place bearing the same name, and we have, as he points 

 out, more than one Alexandria. 



I do not believe, myself, that Mugheir is Ur of the Chaldee.«!. 

 That i have already said before this Society, one of my reasons 

 being that Ur of the Chaldees is a city. Abraham would not, in 

 all probability, have lived in a city, or so near that it would be 

 possible to say that he lived in one. 



The full Akkadian name of Ur or Mugheir is TJriioa, and I 

 should like to see in the Hebrew form, some trace of that termi- 

 nation -iwa. Then there is another thing. The portion of the 

 country known as the land of the Chaldees, viz. Akkad, of which 

 the city of Akkad was the capital, was called by the Akkadians 

 TJri, and that could, with much greater justice, be described as 

 Ur of the Chaldees — part of the country itself, and naturally a 

 place where, in those days, possibly flocks might be pastured. 

 It embi-aced the district where Bagdad now stands, and is a little 

 nearer to the spot where Abraham ought to have been. 



Mr. P. F. Wood. — At the fifth page of the paper does the 

 Author mean to say that spices do not come from Ai'abia ?* 



* Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, p. 210, says : " The products 

 mentioned in the Bible as coming from Arabia, seem to refer in many 

 instances to merchandise of Ethiopia and India carried to Palestine by 



