EVIDENCES OP THE MIGRATION OP ABRAM. 135 



Mr. Boscawen's interesting and instructive paper induces me to put forward 

 some speculations of my own in regard to the early chronology of Babylonia, 

 which, if correct, will make it necessary to modify his dates. The dates he has 

 given on page 98 are derived from Mr. Pinches, the discoverer of the tablets 

 on which the Babylonian dynasties are recorded. The dates, however, are 

 about 160 years too low, as is proved by the Assyrian monuments. Certain 

 kings of Assyria, whose dates are approximately known, were contem- 

 poraries of certain Babylonian kings who can be fitted into Mr. Pinches' 

 dynastic list only by raising his dates about 160 years. ' If this is done, 

 everything fits into its place. With Mr. Pinches' chronology, on the other 

 hand, the Babylonian contemporaries of Tiglath-Pileser I. and his prede- 

 cessors bear names in the dynastic list which have no resemblance to those 

 recorded in the Assyrian inscriptions. By correcting the chronology, the 

 names and periods coincide perfectly. 



The date of Khammu-ragas, consequently, is not B.C. 2120, but B.C. 2280. 

 Now, the dynasty of eleven kings to which he belongs is distinguished by 

 one peculiarity. The first six names are Semitic, then comes the name of 

 Khammu-ragas, which is Kassite, followed by two Semitic ones, and the 

 dynasty ends with three names which are again Kassite, the last of them being 

 a hybrid. This peculiarity gives rise to the suspicion that there was a break in 

 the dynasty, Khammu-ragas being a usurper. On the other hand, one of the 

 dynastic lists expressly calls him a son of Sin-muballidh. In his own 

 Canal- inscription, however, he assigns a difi"erent name to his father, and 

 nothing is more common in Oriental history than for an usurping prince to 

 be attached to his predecessors by means of a fictitious descent. In this 

 way the Egyptians claimed Kambyses as a prince of their own. I therefore 

 believe that the Kassite Khammu-ragas was an intruder, his statement in his 

 Canal inscription excluding even the possibility that he was the son of Sin- 

 muballidh by a Kassite wife. 



Now, if we compare the dynastic list discovered by Mr. Pinches with the 

 list of Babylonian dynasties quoted by Eusebios and the Synkellos from 

 Alexander Polyhistor who derived it from Berossos, it is pretty plain that 

 the dynasty of Sisku, consisting of eleven kings, corresponds with the nameless 

 dynasty of the Greek writers, which also consisted of eleven kings. Conse- 

 quently, the preceding dynasty of Babylon, with which the Babylonian 

 annalist begins liis list, must correspond not only to the Median dynasty of 

 eight kings recorded by Berossos, but also to part of the preceding Khaldi3ean 

 dynasty of Berossos. This will explain the difiiculty that the kings, named 

 by the Synkellos, seem to be ascribed to both the Khaldasan and the Median 

 dynasties, the Synkellos making them Khaldsean and Eusebios Median. 

 Let us now compare the Greek and Babylonian lists, remembering the 

 amount of corruption as regards names, and more especially numbers, which 



