SEPTEMBER 25, 1902] 
NATURE 
519 
Dr. Winckler! considers the Musur, which is here men- 
tioned with Melubha as coming to the help of the 
Ekronites, to be the so-called North Arabian country, 
and not Egypt. But Egypt was the natural ally of 
Palestine, and there is no reason to suppose that the 
Musur here mentioned is anything else but Egypt, 
especially as the scene of the battle was Eltekeh, which 
is either in or near Philistia. 
(5) Dr. Winckler finds support for his Arabian Musri ” 
in a Himyaritic text (Glaser, 1155 = Halévy, 535) which 
mentions Msr, Air, ‘ebr nhrn3 and Madi. ’Asr is men- 
tioned elsewhere in the Himyaritic inscriptions (Glaser, 
1083). The former of these inscriptions was assigned by 
Hartmann‘ to the year of the conquest of Egypt by 
Cambyses (525 B.C.), and there is little doubt that this 
dating is correct. ‘/sr undoubtedly refers to Egypt ; 
Madi, of which Dr. Winckler gives no explanation, is, as 
far as we can judge at present, Media; while the identi- 
fication of 457 is as yet uncertain. Hartmann has shown 
that the speculations of Hommel as to the possibility of 
this inscription dating back to the time of the eighteenth 
Egyptian dynasty (c. 1500 B.C.) are without foundation, 
and the same may be said for the theory promulgated by 
Dr. Winckler, according to whom this text gives a hint of 
the wars of the people of Ma‘in (= Melubha) and its 
supposed northern dependency, his imaginary Musri, 
against the Assyrians in Southern Palestine in the eighth 
century B.c.° The explanation of Hartmann is entirely 
sufficient ; and no proof of the existence of an Arabian 
Musri can be found in the Minzean inscriptions. It may 
be noted that Dr. Winckler does not accept the obvious 
meaning of the term ‘ed hrn, “across the river,” Ze. 
in the eyes of the Arabs Persia, an explanation which 
entirely fits in with Hartmann’s chronological theory. 
(6) Dr. Winckler, however, has finally brought forward 
evidence which, on the face of it, seems good. He main- 
tains that the small fragment of Assyrian tablet 
83-1-18, 836 (which mentions Esarhaddon) proves the 
existence of Musri as distinct from Misri, z.e. Egypt. It 
“wird durch seine nebeneinandernennung von Musri und 
Misri d.h. von unserem Musri und Agypten,” he says, 
“ja wol wenigstens die auseinanderhaltung beider lander 
von nun an bewirken,” 
and he has attached such importance to it that he has 
published it in full.° Unfortunately, besides one or two 
other bad blunders? in a small text of six fragmentary 
lines, he has misread the one sign which was of importance 
to his theory. 
In the fourth line Dr. Winckler reads, . . . ma]tu Mu- 
us-ri u matu Mi-is-[ri. . . , thus proving to his own 
satisfaction that Musri and Misri were two distinct 
countries. But the zs in Mi-is-[ri] ends at the break in 
the clay, and even from the very slight traces that remain, 
itis certain that the character is not zs. Taking into 
consideration the common conjunction of the country 
Miluhéa with Musri, so well known to Assyriologists, 
1 Altor. Forsch., i. 27. 
2 Musri, Melua, Ma‘in, p. 20. 
% =‘éber ha-nahar (Winckler) {? hannahar]. 
4 Zeits. fiir Assyr., X., 32- 
5 Musri, Melukha, Ma‘in, 18. 
6 Musri, Melukha, Ma‘in, p. 2. 
7 For pa-na read [DinGiR].ALaD (I. 3), and add a determinative prefix 
to the proper name inl.5. Read ina /ib-6i after Sa in 1. 3. 
NO. 1717, VOL. 66] 
there can be no possible doubt that the sign was originally 
Zuk, and not 7s, and the slight traces that remain (the 
traces of the top of another vertical wedge) make this 
hypothesis a certainty. Thus Dr. Winckler’s attempted 
proof of a mention in Assyrian literature of a Musri side 
by side with Misri (Egypt) falls to the ground. 
Dr. Winckler has therefore furnished no proof what- 
ever of the existence of a North Arabian Musri, and until 
he does so, it is impossible to believe in the existence of 
a Musri other than Egypt and the well-known country in 
Northern Syria. 
Apart from these matters, Dr. Paton has evidently 
spent much time and trouble on his book, and although 
he has been influenced in too great a degree by the 
school of Hommel, his compilation will probably be found 
useful. Both Dr. Paton and Dr. Duff have added an 
excellent index to their books, and if only they had had! 
a wider acquaintance with the languages of Assyria and 
Egypt, they would probably have been able to speak in 
less uncertain tones of the results obtained from the study 
of cuneiform and hieroglyphic texts. en CoD 
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