115 
with their strong stamp of language, laws, religion, science, 
and polity. 
‘'All appearances,” says M. Lenormant “would lead us to regard the 
Turanian race as the first branch of the family of Japhet which went forth into 
the world, and by that premature separation, by an isolated and antagonistic 
existence, took, or rather preserved, a completely distinct physiognomy. ” * 
15. But the first to lay the yoke of despotism on the mingled 
races in Shinarwas a son of Ham, Nimrod, a “son of Cush.” 
The word Kush, “Kusu,” identified (like Ham) with dark- 
ness, occui’s in early Chaldasan inscriptions, and the “ dark 
races ” are recorded as under the rule of Sargina I. f 
16. Abram's childhood must have been familiar with the 
motley mixture of faces, costumes, and dialects of all the great 
races into which our scholars have divided mankind ; and 
among all these races his work was ordained to lie. 
1 7. The principal building at Ur was the temple of the moon- 
god of the same name, which bears on the bricks of its 
lowest stage the dedication of its royal builder Urukh, pro- 
bably before Abraham's time. 
18. Its huge ziggurat, a sacred observatory-tower of three 
stages, upholding the shrine, oblong in form, ascended by 
stairs, rose high above the buildings of the city in its northern 
quarter. 
19. There the royal monthly prognosticators kept the night- 
watches, holding in highest worship the light that rules the 
night ; chanting their hymns, casting their omens, offering 
sacrifices, receiving votaries, as represented on their sovereign- 
pontiff's seal, and within the temple-bounds holding courts 
of justice in his name. 
20. It is a wonderful thing that one of the liturgical hymns 
to the moon-god Ur (or Sin in Semitic) actually used in this 
temple in the earliest times, is still preserved in Accadian and 
Semitic in the British Museum. From M. Lenormant's 
French translation, J I have rendered it very closely in a some- 
what rhythmical cast as follows : — 
Lord ! prince of gods of heaven and earth, whose mandate is exalted ! 
Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! good god, of gods the prince ! 
Father ! god enlightening earth ! Lord ! great god, of gods the prince ! 
* Anc. H. of the East , i. 64. 
+ But see Schrader’s note, Zeitschr. 1874, 21. He translates “ such as 
dwell in the West.” But in other texts dark races are referred to. — Chald. 
Gen., 85-86. H. G. T. 
J Les prem. Civilisations, ii. 158. 
i 2 
