HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION 73 



gone too far who have a,->serLed that writing was not generally 

 known in the time of Moses. 



In connection with the Tel-el-Amarna tablets it ought to be 

 mentioned that a remarkable discovery was made in 1892 at Tel-el- 

 Hesy, the site of the ancient I^achish in Canaan. A document was 

 found there of precisely the same character as the Tel-el-Amarna 

 tablets. The remarkable thing was that the name of Zimrida, the 

 Prince of lyachish, was written on it, and this name was already 

 known from the tablets dug out of Tel-el-Amarna itself. Sayce's 

 words are interesting : ^ 



" The discovery of this document is one of the most remark- 

 able ever made in archaeological research. Cuneiform tablets are 

 found in the mounds of an ancient city in Egypt which prove to be 

 letters from the governors of Palestine in the fifteenth century be- 

 fore our era, and among them is a letter of the governor of Lachish. 

 Hardly have the letters been published and examined before the 

 excavations of a distant mound in Palestine which the arch^olog- 

 ical insight of Dr. Petrie had identified with the site of lyachish 

 bring to light a cuneiform tablet of the same age and nature on 

 which the name of the same governor is mentioned more than once. 

 It is a veritable archaeological romance." 



As to archaeology in Palestine itself, although a great deal of 

 research has been made, the results have affected New Testament 

 study rather than Old. Though archaeologists are quite hopeful 

 that before long their efforts will be rewarded, at the present time 

 it is acknowledged no names of any very great antiquity have yet 

 been discovered. The one tablet referred to above written in cunei- 

 form characters is the only Palestinian document yet discovered 

 that bears on our present subject, but it is to be ol)served that even 

 before the discovery of this document at Tel-el-Hesy, Sayce and 

 others had been of opinion that in the mounds of Palestine archive 

 chambers might one day be discovered yielding information that 

 would throw Tel-el-Amarna into the shade. A few words from 

 Dr. F. J. Bliss, who discovered the cuneiform tablet at Tel-el- 

 Hesy, shows the situation in Palestine: " In the various towns 



