146 
civilization of the people was to give an impulse to learning which never died 
out until the fall of the empire. This dynasty was overthrown by the 
Elamite, whose invasion was about 2*280 or 2300 B.C. This dynasty X 
believe to be the Median dynasty of Berossus, the old name of the Elamite 
tribes being Khapirte ; and the whole of these tribes seem to have come 
from the Gordyean mountains. They seem to have passed to the east of 
the Euphrates, and the Babylonians to the west ; and they formed to the 
east three great non-Semitic races. There were the Medes, who lay rather 
more to the east, and did not advance westward until the time of Shal- 
manesar the Third. Below, there were the Elamites proper, aud the Kassi, 
who were closer akin than the Elamites to the non-Semitic tribes of Babylonia. 
These Elamite tribes invaded Babylonia, and conquered all the lower por- 
tion, while the upper portion of Babylonia and the new colony of Assyria 
began to form a separate kingdom, and did so probably about this time 
when the Semitic population of Babylonia were forced to migrate, and 
gave rise to the migration of Abraham. They passed through Assyria, 
which was not of sufficient importance to detain them, and by the old route 
of Kharran (name for road), evidently showing that there was a caravan 
road through this place to Phoenicia aud the west, Kharran appears very 
early in the inscriptions, and we find it a place of great star-worship, which 
lasted down almost to Christian times ; traces of it having been found there 
within the last two centuries. I may say a few words in regard to the old 
name for the land of the west, Martu, or Palestine, the west, to which 
Abraham journeyed. The old name was Martu. This is composed in Aecadian, 
in the same way as is often found in Chinese nouns. The first of these 
is Mar, meaning a “ path.” The second word, ttt, means the “ setting sun,” 
the name of the god Tutu being only another form of it, as the god of 
death. This means, therefore, the path of the setting sun; and if we remember, 
there was an old town of Phoenicia, called Mardotus, which contains the 
essentials of Martu, and this was an old coast town or trading station 
for caravans passing down to Babylonia. One of the important Demi-gods 
in the Phoenician cosmogony was Usous. This, it appears, was the name of a 
suburb of Tyre. When Assur-banipal took tribute of Bahai, Usu was a 
suburb of Tyre, and this was another word for setting sun . This word is also 
explained as evening sun, and the city of Usu would therefore be the city 
of the setting sun, or of the west. And it is probable this also was another 
earlier Babylonian trading station on the coast, whence the Babylonians 
derived the various wares which the Phamicians and others traded in. When 
we look at the quantity of books Mr. Tomkins has consulted, and the 
information he has collected and condensed into less than thirty pages, we 
in^st see that there have been many weeks and months of hard work concen- 
trated here.* 
In his History of Babylonia, the late Mr. George Smith has alluded 
at some length to the subjects mentioned by Mr. Boseawen. This work 
is not yet printed. — Ed. 
