THE EASTERN ORIGIN OF THE CELTS. 75 



a dictionary of proper names may see for himself, that I felt justified 

 in connecting tentatively the Babylonian monarch with a grandson 

 of Gilead bearing an identical name, especially as he is called the son 

 of Peresh, which bears no very distant resemblance to Buryas.^ I 

 do not say that he was the same person, although I think it more 

 than probable. Happily the coincidence led to a knowledge of facts 

 which by no means depend upon it for their weight. 



The sons of Grilead were Peresh and Sheresh. The elder of these 

 had two sons, Ulam and Rakem ; and Ulam had a son Bedan. 

 Peresh, the horseman, is not an Israelite name, and at once, in form 

 and etymology, directs us to Persia. Bakem, however, has Celtic 

 connections. The word means striped, woven of variously-coloured 

 threads, and accords with the Celtic hreac, hryhan, which have the 

 same signification. The prefixed h is what I have so far called the 

 Coptic article, but as I have no ground for believing that the Gilead- 

 ites were ever in Egypt, it is better to regard it as an early prefix 

 common to many ianguages.9 That I am doing no violence to 

 etymology in introducing such a prefix in this place, will appear 

 when I anticipate by mentioning that the Hyrcanii of Persia were 

 called Barcanii or Paricanii. Ulam and Bedan are of uncertain 

 etymology in Hebrew, but are significant enough in Celtic. 



Independently of Gilead and the Celtic relations already indi- 

 cated, the name Peresh is sufiiciently near to the Bible name for 

 Persia to call for a comparison. I need hardly say that the word 

 is itself Persian as well as Semitic, and retains, in that language, 

 the meaning "horseman," while it designates the Persians proper.. 

 Pezron, in his " Antiquities of Nations, " is the only writer whom I 

 have found suggesting a connection of Persians with Celts, although 

 many have united the former people with the Germans.'" Susiana, 

 nearest to Chaldea, is regarded as an early abode of the Persians, 

 and its Elymais as the Elam by which the Scrij^tures at times desig- 

 nated Persia." Elymais, however, I maintain to have been Ulam 

 originally, inasmuch as in it we find the Ulai river, which is the 



8 1 Chron. vii. 16. 



9 The Coptic Element in Languages of the Indo-European Family, Canadian Journal, Vol. 

 xiii. Nos. 4 and 5. 



10 The Antiquities of Nations, more particularly of the Celtse or Gauls, by M. Pezron, London, 

 1706. 



11 Persia, in Scripture, is called Elam . and Paras. The former name is that of a descendant 

 of Shem. 



