Chapter II: Syria at the Beginning of the Egyptian Conquest (2)

If the slopes of the valley rose too precipitously for cultivation, stone dykes were employed to collect the falling earth, and thus to transform the sides of the hills into a series of terraces rising one above the other. Here the vines, planted in lines or in trellises, blended their clusters with the fruits of the orchard-trees. It was, indeed, a land of milk and honey, and its topographical nomenclature in the Egyptian geographical lists reflects as in a mirror the agricultural pursuits of its ancient inhabitants: one village, for instance, is called Aubila, the meadow; while others bear such names as Ganutu, the gardens; Magraphut, the mounds; and Karman, the vineyard. The further we proceed towards the north, we find, with a diminishing aridity, the hillsides covered with richer crops, and the valleys decked out with a more luxuriant and warmly coloured vegetation. Shechem lies in an actual amphitheatre of verdure, which is irrigated by countless unfailing streams; rushing brooks babble on every side, and the vapour given off by them morning and evening covers the entire landscape with a luminous haze, where the outline of each object becomes blurred, and quivers in a manner to which we are accustomed in our Western lands.* Towns grew and multiplied upon this rich and loamy soil, but as these lay outside the usual track of the invading hosts--which preferred to follow the more rugged but shorter route leading straight to Carmel across the plain--the records of the conquerors only casually mention a few of them, such as Bîtshaîlu, Birkana, and Dutîna.**

* Shechem is not mentioned in the Egyptian geographical
lists, but Max Müller thinks he has discovered it in the
name of the mountain of Sikima which figures in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1.

** Bîtshaîlu, identified by Chabas with Bethshan, and with
Shiloh by Mariette and Maspero, is more probably Bethel,
written Bît-sha-îlu, either with _sh_, the old relative
pronoun of the Phoenician, or with the Assyrian _sha_; on
the latter supposition one must suppose, as Sayce does, that
the compiler of the Egyptian lists had before him sources of
information in the cuneiform character. Birkana appears to
be the modern Brukin, and Dutîna is certainly Dothain, now
Tell-Dothân.

Beyond Ono reddish-coloured sandy clay took the place of the dark and compact loam: oaks began to appear, sparsely at first, but afterwards forming vast forests, which the peasants of our own days have thinned and reduced to a considerable extent. The stunted trunks of these trees are knotted and twisted, and the tallest of them do not exceed some thirty feet in height, while many of them may be regarded as nothing more imposing than large bushes.* Muddy rivers, infested with crocodiles, flowed slowly through the shady woods, spreading out their waters here and there in pestilential swamps. On reaching the seaboard, their exit was impeded by the sands which they brought down with them, and the banks which were thus formed caused the waters to accumulate in lagoons extending behind the dunes. For miles the road led through thickets, interrupted here and there by marshy places and clumps of thorny shrubs. Bands of Shaûsû were accustomed to make this route dangerous, and even the bravest heroes shrank from venturing alone along this route. Towards Aluna the way began to ascend Mount Carmel by a narrow and giddy track cut in the rocky side of the precipice.**

* The forest was well known to the geographers of the Græco-
Roman period, and was still in existence at the time of the
Crusades.

** This defile is described at length in the _Anastasi
Papyrus_, No. 1, and the terms used by the writer are in
themselves sufficient evidence of the terror with which the
place inspired the Egyptians. The annals of Thûtmosis III.
are equally explicit as to the difficulties which an army
had to encounter here. I have placed this defile near the
point which is now called Umm-el-Fahm, and this site seems
to me to agree better with the account of the expedition of
Thûtmosis III. than that of Arraneh proposed by Conder.

Beyond the Mount, it led by a rapid descent into a plain covered with corn and verdure, and extending in a width of some thirty miles, by a series of undulations, to the foot of Tabor, where it came to an end. Two side ranges running almost parallel--little Hermon and Glilboa--disposed in a line from east to west, and united by an almost imperceptibly rising ground, serve rather to connect the plain of Megiddo with the valley of the Jordan than to separate them. A single river, the Kishon, cuts the route diagonally--or, to speak more correctly, a single river-bed, which is almost waterless for nine months of the year, and becomes swollen only during the winter rains with the numerous torrents bursting from the hillsides. As the flood approaches the sea it becomes of more manageable proportions, and finally distributes its waters among the desolate lagoons formed behind the sand-banks of the open and wind-swept bay, towered over by the sacred summit of Carmel.*

* In the lists of Thûtmosis III. we find under No. 48 the
town of Rosh-Qodshu, the Sacred Cape, which was evidently
situated at the end of the mountain range, or probably on
the site of Haifah; the name itself suggests the veneration
with which Carmel was invested from the earliest times.

No corner of the world has been the scene of more sanguinary engagements, or has witnessed century after century so many armies crossing its borders and coming into conflict with one another. Every military leader who, after leaving Africa, was able to seize Gaza and Ascalon, became at once master of Southern Syria. He might, it is true, experience some local resistance, and come into conflict with bands or isolated outposts of the enemy, but as a rule he had no need to anticipate a battle before he reached the banks of the Kishon.

Drawn by Boudier, from a pencil sketch by Lortet.

Here, behind a screen of woods and mountain, the enemy would concentrate his forces and prepare resolutely to meet the attack. If the invader succeeded in overcoming resistance at this point, the country lay open to him as far as the Orontes; nay, often even to the Euphrates. The position was too important for its defence to have been neglected. A range of forts, Ibleâm, Taanach, and Megiddo,* drawn like a barrier across the line of advance, protected its southern face, and beyond these a series of strongholds and villages followed one another at intervals in the bends of the valleys or on the heights, such as Shunem, Kasuna, Anaharath, the two Aphuls, Cana, and other places which we find mentioned on the triumphal lists, but of which, up to the present, the sites have not been fixed.

* Megiddo, the Legio of the Roman period, has been
identified since Robinsons time with Khurbet-Lejûn, and
more especially with the little mound known by the name of
Tell-el-Mutesallim. Conder proposed to place its site more
to the east, in the valley of the Jordan, at Khurbet-el-
Mujeddah.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Lortet.

From this point the conqueror had a choice of three routes. One ran in an oblique direction to the west, and struck the Mediterranean near Acre, leaving on the left the promontory of Carmel, with the sacred town, Rosh-Qodshu, planted on its slope.

Acre was the first port where a fleet could find safe anchorage after leaving the mouths of the Nile, and whoever was able to make himself master of it had in his hands the key of Syria, for it stood in the same commanding position with regard to the coast as that held by Megiddo in respect of the interior. Its houses were built closely together on a spit of rock which projected boldly into the sea, while fringes of reefs formed for it a kind of natural breakwater, behind which ships could find a safe harbourage from the attacks of pirates or the perils of bad weather. From this point the hills come so near the shore that one is sometimes obliged to wade along the beach to avoid a projecting spur, and sometimes to climb a zig-zag path in order to cross a headland. In more than one place the rock has been hollowed into a series of rough steps, giving it the appearance of a vast ladder.* Below this precipitous path the waves dash with fury, and when the wind sets towards the land every thud causes the rocky wall to tremble, and detaches fragments from its surface. The majority of the towns, such as Aksapu (Ecdippa), Mashal, Lubina, Ushu-Shakhan, lay back from the sea on the mountain ridges, out of the reach of pirates; several, however, were built on the shore, under the shelter of some promontory, and the inhabitants of these derived a miserable subsistence from fishing and the chase. Beyond the Tyrian Ladder Phoenician territory began. The country was served throughout its entire length, from town to town, by the coast road, which turning at length to the right, and passing through the defile formed by the Nahr-el-Kebîr, entered the region of the middle Orontes.

* Hence the name Tyrian Ladder, which is applied to one of
these passes, either Ras-en-Nakurah or Ras-el-Abiad.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.

The second of the roads leading from Megiddo described an almost symmetrical curve eastwards, crossing the Jordan at Beth-shan, then the Jab-bok, and finally reaching Damascus after having skirted at some distance the last of the basaltic ramparts of the Haurân. Here extended a vast but badly watered pasture-land, which attracted the Bedouin from every side, and scattered over it were a number of walled towns, such as Hamath, Magato, Ashtaroth, and Ono-Eepha.*

* Proof that the Egyptians knew this route, followed even to
this day in certain circumstances, is furnished by the lists
of Thûtmosis III., in which the principal stations which it
comprises are enumerated among the towns given up after the
victory of Megiddo. Dimasqu was identified with Damascus by
E. de Rougé, and Astarotu with Ashtarôth-Qarnaim. Hamatu is
probably Hamath of the Gadarenes; Magato, the Maged of the
Maccabees, is possibly the present Mukatta; and Ono-Repha,
Raphôn, Raphana, Arpha of Decapolis, is the modern Er-Rafeh.

Probably Damascus was already at this period the dominant authority over the region watered by these two rivers, as well as over the villages nestling in the gorges of Hermon,--Abila, Helbôn of the vineyards, and Tabrûd,--but it had not yet acquired its renown for riches and power. Protected by the Anti-Lebanon range from its turbulent neighbours, it led a sort of vegetative existence apart from invading hosts, forgotten and hushed to sleep, as it were, in the shade of its gardens.

The third road from Megiddo took the shortest way possible. After crossing the Kishon almost at right angles to its course, it ascended by a series of steep inclines to arid plains, fringed or intersected by green and flourishing valleys, which afforded sites for numerous towns,--Pahira, Merom near Lake Huleh, Qart-Nizanu, Beerotu, and Lauîsa, situated in the marshy district at the head-waters of the Jordan.* From this point forward the land begins to fall, and taking a hollow shape, is known as Coele-Syria, with its luxuriant vegetation spread between the two ranges of the Lebanon. It was inhabited then, as at the time of the Babylonian conquest, by the Amorites, who probably included Damascus also in their domain.**

* Pahira is probably Safed; Qart-Nizanu, the flowery city,
the Kartha of Zabulon; and Bcerôt, the Berotha of Josephus,
near Merom. Maroma and Lauîsa, Laisa, have been identified
with Merom and Laish.

** The identification of the country of Amâuru with that of
the Amorites was admitted from the first. The only doubt was
as to the locality occupied by these Amorites: the mention
of Qodshu on the Orontes, in the country of the Amurru,
showed that Coele-Syria was the region in question. In the
Tel el-Amarna tablets the name Amurru is applied also to the
country east of the Phoenician coast, and we have seen that
there is reason to believe that it was used by the
Babylonians to denote all Syria. If the name given by the
cuneiform inscriptions to Damascus and its neighbourhood,
Gar-Imirîshu, Imirîshu, Imirîsh, really means the
Fortress of the Amorites, we should have in this fact a
proof that this people were in actual possession of the
Damascene Syria. This must have been taken from them by the
Hittites towards the XXth century before our era, according
to Hommel; about the end of the XVIIIth dynasty, according
to Lenormant. If, on the other hand, the Assyrians read the
name Sha-imiri-shu, with the signification, the town of
its asses, it is simply a play upon words, and has no
bearing upon the primitive meaning of the name.

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

Their capital, the sacred Qodshu, was situated on the left bank of the Orontes, about five miles from the lake which for a long time bore its name, Bahr-el-Kades.* It crowned one of those barren oblong eminences which are so frequently met with in Syria. A muddy stream, the Tannur, flowed, at some distance away, around its base, and, emptying itself into the Orontes at a point a little to the north, formed a natural defence for the town on the west. Its encompassing walls, slightly elliptic in form, were strengthened by towers, and surrounded by two concentric ditches which kept the sapper at a distance.

* The name Qodshu-Kadesh was for a long time read Uatesh,
Badesh, Atesh, and, owing to a confusion with Qodi, Ati, or
Atet. The town was identified by Champollion with Bactria,
then transferred to Mesopotamia by Bosollini, in the land of
Omira, which, according to Pliny, was close to the Taurus,
not far from the Khabur or from the province of Aleppo:
Osburn tried to connect it with Hadashah (_Josh_. xv. 21),
an Amorite town in the southern part of the tribe of Judah;
while Hincks placed it in Edessa. The reading Kedesh,
Kadesh, Qodshu, the result of the observations of Lepsius,
has finally prevailed. Brugsch connected this name with that
of Bahr el-Kades, a designation attached in the Middle Ages
to the lake through which the Orontes flows, and placed the
town on its shores or on a small island on the lake. Thomson
pointed out Tell Neby-Mendeh, the ancient Laodicea of the
Lebanon, as satisfying the requirements of the site. Conder
developed this idea, and showed that all the conditions
prescribed by the Egyptian texts in regard to Qodshu find
here, and here alone, their application. The description
given in the text is based on Conders observations.

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

A dyke running across the Orontes above the town caused the waters to rise and to overflow in a northern direction, so as to form a shallow lake, which acted as an additional protection from the enemy. Qodshu was thus a kind of artificial island, connected with the surrounding country by two flying bridges, which could be opened or shut at pleasure. Once the bridges were raised and the gates closed, the boldest enemy had no resource left but to arm himself with patience and settle down to a lengthened siege. The invader, fresh from a victory at Megiddo, and following up his good fortune in a forward movement, had to reckon upon further and serious resistance at this point, and to prepare himself for a second conflict. The Amorite chiefs and their allies had the advantage of a level and firm ground for the evolutions of their chariots during the attack, while, if they were beaten, the citadel afforded them a secure rallying-place, whence, having gathered their shattered troops, they could regain their respective countries, or enter, with the help of a few devoted men, upon a species of guerilla warfare in which they excelled.

The road from Damascus led to a point south of Quodshu, while that from Phonicia came right up to the town itself or to its immediate neighbourhood. The dyke of Bahr el-Kades served to keep the plain in a dry condition, and thus secured for numerous towns, among which Hamath stood out pre-eminently, a prosperous existence. Beyond Hamath, and to the left, between the Orontes and the sea, lay the commercial kingdom of Alasia, protected from the invader by bleak mountains.*

* The site of Alasia, Alashia, was determined from the Tel
el-Amarna tablets by Maspero. Niebuhr had placed it to the
west of Cilicia, opposite the island of Eleousa mentioned by
Strabo. Conder connected it with the scriptural Elishah, and
W. Max Millier confounds it with Asi or Cyprus.

On the right, between the Orontes and the Balikh, extended the land of rivers, Naharaim. Towns had grown up here thickly,--on the sides of the torrents from the Amanos, along the banks of rivers, near springs or wells--wherever, in fact, the presence of water made culture possible. The fragments of the Egyptian chronicles which have come down to us number these towns by the hundred,* and yet of how many more must the records have perished with the crumbling Theban walls upon which the Pharaohs had their names incised! Khalabu was the Aleppo of our own day,** and grouped around it lay Turmanuna, Tunipa, Zarabu, Nîi, Durbaniti, Nirabu, Sarmata,*** and a score of others which depended upon it, or upon one of its rivals. The boundaries of this portion of the Lower Lotanû have come down to us in a singularly indefinite form, and they must also, moreover, have been subject to continual modifications from the results of tribal conflicts.

* Two hundred and thirty names belonging to Naharaim are
still legible on the lists of Thûtmosis III., and a hundred
others have been effaced from the monument.

** Khalabu was identified by Chabas with Khalybôn, the
modern Aleppo, and his opinion has been adopted by most
Egyptologists.

*** Tunipa has been found in Tennib, Tinnab, by Noldoke;
Zarabu in Zarbi, and Sarmata in Sarmeda, by Tomkins;
Durbaniti in Deîr el-Banât, the Castrum Puellarum of the
chroniclers of the Crusades; Nirabu in Nirab, and Tirabu in
Tereb, now el-Athrib. Nirab is mentioned by Nicholas of
Damascus. Nîi, long confounded with Nineveh, was identified
by Lenormant with Ninus Vetus, Membidj, and by Max Millier
with Balis on the Euphrates: I am inclined to make it Kefer-
Naya, between Aleppo and Turmanin.

We are at a loss to know whether the various principalities were accustomed to submit to the leadership of a single individual, or whether we are to relegate to the region of popular fancy that Lord of Naharaim of whom the Egyptian scribes made such a hero in their fantastic narratives.*

* In the Story of the Predestined Prince the heroine is
daughter of the Prince of Naharaim, who seems to exercise
authority over all the chiefs of the country; as the
manuscript does not date back further than the XXth dynasty,
we are justified in supposing that the Egyptian writer had a
knowledge of the Hittite domination, during which the King
of the Khâti was actually the ruler of all Naharaim.

Carchemish represented in this region the position occupied by Megiddo in relation to Kharû, and by Qodshu among the Amorites; that is to say, it was the citadel and sanctuary of the surrounding country. Whoever could make himself master of it would have the whole country at his feet.

It lay upon the Euphrates, the winding of the river protecting it on its southern and south-eastern sides, while around its northern front ran a deep stream, its defence being further completed by a double ditch across the intervening region. Like Qodshu, it was thus situated in the midst of an artificial island beyond the reach of the battering-ram or the sapper. The encompassing wall, which tended to describe an ellipse, hardly measured two miles in circumference; but the suburbs extending, in the midst of villas and gardens, along the river-banks furnished in time of peace an abode for the surplus population. The wall still rises some five and twenty to thirty feet above the plain. Two mounds divided by a ravine command its north-western side, their summits being occupied by the ruins of two fine buildings--a temple and a palace.* Carchemish was the last stage in a conquerors march coming from the south.

* Karkamisha, Gargamish, was from the beginning associated
with the Carchemish of the Bible; but as the latter was
wrongly identified with Circesium, it was naturally located
at the confluence of the Khabur with the Euphrates. Hincks
fixed the site at Rum-Kaleh. G. Rawlinson referred it
cursorily to Hierapolis-Mabog, which position Maspero
endeavoured to confirm. Finzi, and after him G. Smith,
thought to find the site at Jerabis, the ancient Europos,
and excavations carried on there by the English have brought
to light in this place Hittite monuments which go back in
part to the Assyrian epoch. This identification is now
generally accepted, although there is still no direct proof
attainable, and competent judges continue to prefer the site
of Membij. I fall in with the current view, but with all
reserve.

Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from a cut in the _Graphic_.

For an invader approaching from the east or north it formed his first station. He had before him, in fact, a choice of the three chief fords for crossing the Euphrates. That of Thapsacus, at the bend of the river where it turns eastward to the Arabian plain, lay too far to the south, and it could be reached only after a march through a parched and desolate region where the army would run the risk of perishing from thirst.

Drawn by faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

For an invader proceeding from Asia Minor, or intending to make his way through the defiles of the Taurus, Samosata offered a convenient fording-place; but this route would compel the general, who had Naharaim or the kingdoms of Chaldæa in view, to make a long detour, and although the Assyrians used it at a later period, at the time of their expeditions to the valleys of the Halys, the Egyptians do not seem ever to have travelled by this road. Carchemish, the place of the third ford, was about equally distant from Thapsacus and Samosata, and lay in a rich and fertile province, which was so well watered that a drought or a famine would not be likely to enter into the expectations of its inhabitants. Hither pilgrims, merchants, soldiers, and all the wandering denizens of the world were accustomed to direct their steps, and the habit once established was perpetuated for centuries. On the left bank of the river, and almost opposite Carchemish, lay the region of Mitânni,* which was already occupied by a people of a different race, who used a language cognate, it would seem, with the imperfectly classified dialects spoken by the tribes of the Upper Tigris and Upper Euphrates.** Harran bordered on Mitânni, and beyond Harran one may recognise, in the vaguely defined Singar, Assur, Arrapkha, and Babel, states that arose out of the dismemberment of the ancient Chaldæan Empire.***

* Mitânni is mentioned on several Egyptian monuments; but
its importance was not recognised until after the discovery
of the Tel el-Amarna tablets and of its situation. The fact
that a letter from the Prince of Mitânni is stated in a
Hieratic docket to have come from Naharaim has been used as
a proof that the countries were identical; I have shown that
the docket proves only that Mitânni formed a part of
Naharaim. It extended over the province of Edessa and
Harran, stretching out towards the sources of the Tigris.
Niebuhr places it on the southern slope of the Masios, in
Mygdonia; Th. Reinach connects it with the Matiôni, and asks
whether this was not the region occupied by this people
before their emigration towards the Caspian.

** Several of the Tel el-Amarna tablets are couched in this
language.

*** These names were recognised from the first in the
inscriptions of Thûtmosis III. and in those of other
Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.

The Carchemish route was, of course, well known to caravans, but armed bodies had rarely occasion to make use of it. It was a far cry from Memphis to Carchemish, and for the Egyptians this town continued to be a limit which they never passed, except incidentally, when they had to chastise some turbulent tribe, or to give some ill-guarded town to the flames.*

* A certain number of towns mentioned in the lists of
Thûtmosis III. were situated beyond the Euphrates, and they
belonged some to Mitânni and some to the regions further
away.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

It would be a difficult task to define with any approach to accuracy the distribution of the Canaanites, Amorites, and Aramæans, and to indicate the precise points where they came into contact with their rivals of non-Semitic stock. Frontiers between races and languages can never be very easily determined, and this is especially true of the peoples of Syria. They are so broken up and mixed in this region, that even in neighbourhoods where one predominant tribe is concentrated, it is easy to find at every step representatives of all the others. Four or five townships, singled out at random from the middle of a province, would often be found to belong to as many different races, and their respective inhabitants, while living within a distance of a mile or two, would be as great strangers to each other as if they were separated by the breadth of a continent.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

It would appear that the breaking up of these populations had not been carried so far in ancient as in modern times, but the confusion must already have been great if we are to judge from the number of different sites where we encounter evidences of people of the same language and blood. The bulk of the Khâti had not yet departed from the Taurus region, but some stray bands of them, carried away by the movement which led to the invasion of the Hyksôs, had settled around Hebron, where the rugged nature of the country served to protect them from their neighbours.*

* In very early times they are described as dwelling near
Hebron or in the mountains of Judah. Since we have learned
from the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments that the Khâti
dwelt in Northern Syria, the majority of commentators have
been indisposed to admit the existence of southern Hittites;
this name, it is alleged, having been introduced into the
Biblical around text through a misconception of the original
documents, where the term Hittite was the equivalent of
Canaanite.

The Amorites* had their head-quarters Qodshul in Coele-Syria, but one section of them had taken up a position on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias in Galilee, others had established themselves within a short distance of Jaffa** on the Mediterranean, while others had settled in the neighbourhood of the southern Hittites in such numbers that their name in the Hebrew Scriptures was at times employed to designate the western mountainous region about the Dead Sea and the valley of the Jordan. Their presence was also indicated on the table-lands bordering the desert of Damascus, in the districts frequented by Bedouin of the tribe of Terah, Ammon and Moab, on the rivers Yarmuk and Jabbok, and at Edrei and Heshbon.***

* Ed. Meyer has established the fact that the term Amorite,
as well as the parallel word Canaanite, was the designation
of the inhabitants of Palestine before the arrival of the
Hebrews: the former belonged to the prevailing tradition in
the kingdom of Israel, the latter to that which was current
in Judah. This view confirms the conclusion which may be
drawn from the Egyptian monuments as to the power of
expansion and the diffusion of the people.

** These were the Amorites which the tribe of Dan at a later
period could not dislodge from the lands which had been
allotted to them.

*** This was afterwards the domain of Sihon, King of the
Amorites, and that of Og.

The fuller, indeed, our knowledge is of the condition of Syria at the time of the Egyptian conquest, the more we are forced to recognise the mixture of races therein, and their almost infinite subdivisions. The mutual jealousies, however, of these elements of various origin were not so inveterate as to put an obstacle in the way, I will not say of political alliances, but of daily intercourse and frequent contracts. Owing to intermarriages between the tribes, and the continual crossing of the results of such unions, peculiar characteristics were at length eliminated, and a uniform type of face was the result. From north to south one special form of countenance, that which we usually call Semitic, prevailed among them.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.

The Syrian and Egyptian monuments furnish us everywhere, under different ethnical names, with representations of a broad-shouldered people of high stature, slender-figured in youth, but with a fatal tendency to obesity in old age. Their heads are large, somewhat narrow, and artificially flattened or deformed, like those of several modern tribes in the Lebanon. Their high cheek-bones stand out from their hollow cheeks, and their blue or black eyes are buried under their enormous eyebrows. The lower part of the face is square and somewhat heavy, but it is often concealed by a thick and curly beard. The forehead is rather low and retreating, while the nose has a distinctly aquiline curve. The type is not on the whole so fine as the Egyptian, but it is not so heavy as that of the Chaldæans in the time of Gudea. The Theban artists have represented it in their battle-scenes, and while individualising every soldier or Asiatic prisoner with a happy knack so as to avoid monotony, they have with much intelligence impressed upon all of them the marks of a common parentage.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original wooden object.

One feels that the artists must have recognised them as belonging to one common family. They associated with their efforts after true and exact representation a certain caustic humour, which impelled them often to substitute for a portrait a more or less jocose caricature of their adversaries. On the walls of the Pylons, and in places where the majesty of a god restrained them from departing too openly from their official gravity, they contented themselves with exaggerating from panel to panel the contortions and pitiable expressions of the captive chiefs as they followed behind the triumphal chariot of the Pharaoh on his return from his Syrian campaigns.*

* An illustration of this will be found in the line of
prisoners, brought by Seti I. from his great Asiatic
campaign, which is depicted on the outer face of the north
wall of the hypostyle at Karnak.

Where religious scruples offered no obstacle they abandoned themselves to the inspiration of the moment, and gave themselves freely up to caricature. It is an Amorite or Canaanite--that thick-lipped, flat-nosed slave, with his brutal lower jaw and smooth conical skull--who serves for the handle of a spoon in the museum of the Louvre. The stupefied air with which he trudges under his burden is rendered in the most natural manner, and the flattening to which his forehead had been subjected in infancy is unfeelingly accentuated. The model which served for this object must have been intentionally brutalised and disfigured in order to excite the laughter of Pharaohs subjects.*

* Dr. Regnault thinks that the head was artificially
deformed in infancy: the bandage necessary to effect it must
have been applied very low on the forehead in front, and to
the whole occiput behind. If this is the case, the instance
is not an isolated one, for a deformation of a similar
character is found in the case of the numerous Semites
represented on the tomb of Rakhmiri: a similar practice
still obtains in certain parts of modern Syria.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.

The idea of uniformity with which we are impressed when examining the faces of these people is confirmed and extended when we come to study their costumes. Men and women--we may say all Syrians according to their condition of life--had a choice between only two or three modes of dress, which, whatever the locality, or whatever the period, seemed never to change. On closer examination slight shades of difference in cut and arrangement may, however, be detected, and it may be affirmed that fashion ran even in ancient Syria through as many capricious evolutions as with ourselves; but these variations, which were evident to the eyes of the people of the time, are not sufficiently striking to enable us to classify the people, or to fix their date. The peasants and the lower class of citizens required no other clothing than a loin-cloth similar to that of the Egyptians,* or a shirt of a yellow or white colour, extending below the knees, and furnished with short sleeves. The opening for the neck was cruciform, and the hem was usually ornamented with coloured needlework or embroidery. The burghers and nobles wore over this a long strip of cloth, which, after passing closely round the hips and chest, was brought up and spread over the shoulders as a sort of cloak. This was not made of the light material used in Egypt, which offered no protection from cold or rain, but was composed of a thick, rough wool, like that employed in Chaldæa, and was commonly adorned with stripes or bands of colour, in addition to spots and other conspicuous designs.

* The Asiatic loin-cloth differs from the Egyptian in having
pendent cords; the Syrian fellahin still wear it when at
work.

Rich and fashionable folk substituted for this cloth two large shawls--one red and the other blue--in which they dexterously arrayed themselves so as to alternate the colours: a belt of soft leather gathered the folds around the figure. Red morocco buskins, a soft cap, a handkerchief, a _kejfîyeh_ confined by a fillet, and sometimes a wig after the Egyptian fashion, completed the dress.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a figure on the tomb of Ramses III.

Beards were almost universal among the men, but the moustache was of rare occurrence. In many of the figures represented on the monuments we find that the head was carefully shaved, while in others the hair was allowed to grow, arranged in curls, frizzed and shining with oil or sweet-smelling pomade, sometimes thrown back behind the ears and falling on the neck in bunches or curly masses, sometimes drawn out in stiff spikes so as to serve as a projecting cover over the face.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion.

The women usually tired their hair in three great masses, of which the thickest was allowed to fall freely down the back; while the other two formed a kind of framework for the face, the ends descending on each side as far as the breast. Some of the women arranged their hair after the Egyptian manner, in a series of numerous small tresses, brought together at the ends so as to form a kind of plat, and terminating in a flower made of metal or enamelled terracotta. A network of glass ornaments, arranged on a semicircle of beads, or on a background of embroidered stuff, was frequently used as a covering for the top of the head.*

* Examples of Syrian feminine costume are somewhat rare on
the Egyptian monuments. In the scenes of the capturing of
towns we see a few. Here the women are represented on the
walls imploring the mercy of the besieger. Other figures are
those of prisoners being led captive into Egypt.

The shirt had no sleeves, and the fringed garment which covered it left half of the arm exposed. Children of tender years had their heads shaved, as a head-dress, and rejoiced in no more clothing than the little ones among the Egyptians. With the exception of bracelets, anklets, rings on the fingers, and occasionally necklaces and earrings, the Syrians, both men and women, wore little jewellery. The Chaldæa women furnished them with models of fashion to which they accommodated themselves in the choice of stuffs, colours, cut of their mantles or petticoats, arrangement of the hair, and the use of cosmetics for the eyes and cheeks. In spite of distance, the modes of Babylon reigned supreme. The Syrians would have continued to expose their right shoulder to the weather as long as it pleased the people of the Lower Euphrates to do the same; but as soon as the fashion changed in the latter region, and it became customary to cover the shoulder, and to wrap the upper part of the person in two or three thicknesses of heavy wool, they at once accommodated themselves to the new mode, although it served to restrain the free motion of the body. Among the upper classes, at least, domestic arrangements were modelled upon the fashions observed in the palaces of the nobles of Car-chemish or Assur: the same articles of toilet, the same ranks of servants and scribes, the same luxurious habits, and the same use of perfumes were to be found among both.*

* An example of the fashion of leaving the shoulder bare is
found even in the XXth dynasty. The Tel el-Amarna tablets
prove that, as far as the scribes were concerned, the
customs and training of Syria and Chaldæa were identical.
The Syrian princes are there represented as employing the
cuneiform character in their correspondence, being
accompanied by scribes brought up after the Chaldæan manner.
We shall see later on that the king of the Khati, who
represented in the time of Ramses II. the type of an
accomplished Syrian, had attendants similar to those of the
Chaldæan kings.

From all that we can gather, in short, from the silence as well as from the misunderstandings of the Egyptian chroniclers, Syria stands before us as a fruitful and civilized country, of which one might be thankful to be a native, in spite of continual wars and frequent revolutions.

The religion of the Syrians was subject to the same influences as their customs; we are, as yet, far from being able to draw a complete picture of their theology, but such knowledge as we do possess recalls the same names and the same elements as are found in the religious systems of Chaldæa. The myths, it is true, are still vague and misty, at least to our modern ideas: the general characteristics of the principal divinities alone stand out, and seem fairly well defined. As with the other Semitic races, the deity in a general sense, the primordial type of the godhead, was called _El_ or _Ilû_, and his feminine counterpart _Ilât_, but we find comparatively few cities in which these nearly abstract beings enjoyed the veneration of the faithful.* The gods of Syria, like those of Egypt and of the countries watered by the Euphrates, were feudal princes distributed over the surface of the earth, their number corresponding with that of the independent states. Each nation, each tribe, each city, worshipped its own lord--_Adoni_** --or its master--_Baal_*** --and each of these was designated by a special title to distinguish him from neighbouring _Baalîm_, or masters.

* The frequent occurrence of the term _Ilû_ or _El_ in names
of towns in Southern Syria seems to indicate pretty
conclusively that the inhabitants of these countries used
this term by preference to designate their supreme god.
Similarly we meet with it in Aramaic names, and later on
among the Nabathseans; it predominates at Byblos and Berytus
in Phoenicia and among the Aramaic peoples of North Syria;
in the Samalla country, for instance, during the VIIIth
century B.C.

** The extension of this term to Syrian countries is proved
in the Israelitish epoch by Canaanitish names, such as
Adonizedek and Adonibezek, or Jewish names such as Adonijah,
Adonikam, Adoniram-Adoram.

*** Movers tried to prove that there was one particular god
named Baal, and his ideas, popularised in Prance by M. de
Vogiié, prevailed for some time: since then scholars have
gone back to the view of Münter and of the writers at the
beginning of this century, who regarded the term Baal as a
common epithet applicable to all gods.

The Baal who ruled at Zebub was styled Master of Zebub, or Baal-Zebub;* and the Baal of Hermon, who was an ally of Gad, goddess of fortune, was sometimes called Baal-Hermon, or Master of Hermon, sometimes Baal-G-ad, or Master of Gad; ** the Baal of Shechem, at the time of the Israelite invasion, was Master of the Covenant--Baal-Berîth--doubtless in memory of some agreement which he had concluded with his worshippers in regard to the conditions of their allegiance.***

* Baal-Zebub was worshipped at Ekxon during the Philistine
supremacy.

** The mountain of Baal-Hermon is the mountain of Baniâs,
where the Jordan has one of its sources, and the town of
Baal-Hermon is Baniâs itself. The variant Baal-Gad occurs
several times in the Biblical books.

*** Baal-Berith, like Baal-Zebub, only occurs, so far as we
know at present, in the Hebrew Scriptures, where, by the
way, the first element, Baal, is changed to El, El-Berith.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from coloured sketches by Prisse
dAvennes.

The prevalent conception of the essence and attributes of these deities was not the same in all their sanctuaries, but the more exalted among them were regarded as personifying the sky in the daytime or at night, the atmosphere, the light,* or the sun, Shamash, as creator and prime mover of the universe; and each declared himself to be king--_melek_--over the other gods.** Bashuf represented the lightning and the thunderbolt;*** Shalmân, Hadad, and his double Bimmôn held sway over the air like the Babylonian.

* This appears under the name _Or_ or _Ur_ in the Samalla
inscriptions of the VIIIth century B.C.; it is, so far, a
unique instance among the Semites.

** We find the term applied in the Bible to the national god
of the Ammonites, under the forms _Moloch, Molech, Mikôm,
Milkâm_, and especially with the article, _Ham-molek_; the
real name hidden beneath this epithet was probably _Amnôn or
Ammân_, and, strictly speaking, the God Moloch only exists
in the imagination of scholars. The epithet was used among
the Oanaanites in the name Melchizedek, a similar form to
Adonizedek, Abimelech, Ahimelech; it was in current use
among the Phoenicians, in reference to the god of Tyre,
Melek-Karta or Melkarth, and in many proper names, such as
Melekiathon, Baalmelek, Bodmalek, etc., not to mention the
god Milichus worshipped in Spain, who was really none other
than Melkarth.

*** Resheph has been vocalised _Rashuf_ in deference to the
Egyptian orthography Rashupu. It was a name common to a
whole family of lightning and storm-gods, and M. de Rougé
pointed out long ago the passage in the Great Inscription of
Ramses III. at Medinet-Habu, in which the soldiers who man
the chariots are compared to the Rashupu; the Rabbinic
Hebrew still employs this plural form in the sense of
demons. The Phoenician inscriptions contain references to
several local Rashufs; the way in which this god is coupled
with the goddess Qodshu on the Egyptian stelæ leads me to
think that, at the epoch now under consideration, he was
specially worshipped by the Amorites, just as his equivalent
Hadad was by the inhabitants of Damascus, neighbours of the
Amorites, and perhaps themselves Amorites.

Rammânu;* Dagon, patron god of fishermen and husbandmen, seems to have watched over the fruitfulness of the sea and the land.** We are beginning to learn the names of the races whom they specially protected: Rashuf the Amorites, Hadad and Rimmon the Aramæans of Damascus, Dagon the peoples of the coast between Ashkelon and the forest of Carmel. Rashûf is the only one whose appearance is known to us. He possessed the restless temperament usually attributed to the thunder-gods, and was, accordingly, pictured as a soldier armed with javelin and mace, bow and buckler; a gazelles head with pointed horns surmounts his helmet, and sometimes, it may be, serves him as a cap.

* Hadad and Rimmon are represented in Assyrio-Chaldæan by
one and the same ideogram, which may be read either Dadda-
Hadad or Eammânu. The identity of the expressions employed
shows how close the connection between the two divinities
must have been, even if they were not similar in all
respects; from the Hebrew writings we know of the temple of
Rimmon at Damascus (_2 Kings_ v. 18) and that one of the
kings of that city was called Tabrimmôn = llimmon is good
(_1 Kings_ xv. 18), while Hadad gave his name to no less
than ten kings of the same city. Even as late as the Græco-
Roman epoch, kingship over the other gods was still
attributed both to Rimmon and to Hadad, but this latter was
identified with the sun.

** The documents which we possess in regard to Dagon date
from the Hebrew epoch, and represent him as worshipped by
the Philistines. We know, however, from the Tel el-Amarna
tablets, of a Dagantakala, a name which proves the presence
of the god among the Canaanites long before the Philistine
invasion, and we find two Beth-Dagons--one in the plain of
Judah, the other in the tribe of Asher; Philo of Byblos
makes Dagon a Phoenician deity, and declares him to be the
genius of fecundity, master of grain and of labour. The
representation of his statue which appears on the Græco-
Roman coins of Abydos, reminds us of the fish-god of
Chaldæa.

Each god had for his complement a goddess, who was proclaimed mistress of the city, _Baalat_, or queen, _Milkat_, of heaven, just as the god himself was recognised as master or king. * As a rule, the goddess was contented with the generic name of Astartê; but to this was often added some epithet, which lent her a distinct personality, and prevented her from being confounded with the Astartês of neighbouring cities, her companions or rivals.**

* Among goddesses to whom the title Baalat was referred,
we have the goddess of Byblos, Baalat-Gebal, also the
goddess of Berytus, Baalat-Berîth, or Beyrut. The epithet
queen of heaven is applied to the Phoenician Astartê by
Hebrew (_Jer._ vii. 18, xliv. 18-29) and classic writers.
The Egyptians, when they adopted these Oanaanitish
goddesses, preserved the title, and called each of them
_nibît pit,_ lady of heaven. In the Phoenician inscriptions
their names are frequently preceded by the word _Rabbat:
rabbat Baalat-Gebal_, (my) lady Baalat-Gebal.

** The Hebrew writers frequently refer to the Canaanite
goddesses by the general title the Ashtarôth or Astartês,
and a town in Northern Syria bore the significant name of
Istarâti = the Ishtars, the Ashtarôth, a name which finds
a parallel in Anathôth = the Anats, a title assumed by a
town of the tribe of Benjamin; similarly, the Assyrio-
Chaldæans called their goddesses by the plural of Ishtar.
The inscription on an Egyptian amulet in the Louvre tells us
of a personage of the XXth dynasty, who, from his name,
Rabrabîna, must have been of Syrian origin, and who styled
himself Prophet of the Astartês, Honnutir Astiratu.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a copy of an original in chased
gold.

Thus she would be styled the good Astartê, Ashtoreth Naamah, or the horned Astartê, Ashtoreth Qarnaîm, because of the lunar crescent which appears on her forehead, as a sort of head-dress.* She was the goddess of good luck, and was called Gad;** she was Anat,*** or Asîti,**** the chaste and the warlike.

* The two-horned Astartê gave her name to a city beyond the
Jordan, of which she was, probably, the eponymous goddess:
(Gen xiv. 5) she would seem to be represented on the curious
monument called by the Arabs the stone of Job, which was
discovered by M. Schumacher in the centre of the Hauran. It
was an analogous goddess whom the Egyptians sometimes
identified with their Hâthor, and whom they represented as
crowned with a crescent.

** Gad, the goddess of fortune, is mainly known to us in
connection with the Aramæans; we find mention made of her by
the Hebrew writers, and geographical names, such as Baal-Gad
and Migdol-Gad, prove that she must have been worshipped at
a very early date in the Canaanite countries.

*** Anat, or Anaîti, or Aniti, has been found in a
Phoenician inscription, which enables us to reconstruct the
history of the goddess. Her worship was largely practised
among the Canaanites, as is proved by the existence in the
Hebrew epoch of several towns, such as Beth-Anath, Beth-
Anoth, Anathôth; at least one of which, Bît-Anîti, is
mentioned in the Egyptian geographical lists. The appearance
of Anat-Anîti is known to us, as she is represented in
Egyptian dress on several stelæ of the XIXth and XXth
dynasties. Her name, like that of Astartê, had become a
generic term, in the plural form Anathôth, for a whole group
of goddesses.

**** Asîti is represented at Radesieh, on a stele of the
time of Seti I.; she enters into the composition of a
compound name, _Asîtiiàkhûrû_ (perhaps the goddess of Asiti
is enflamed with anger ), which we find on a monument in
the Vienna Museum. W. Max Müller makes her out to have been
a divinity of the desert, and the place in which the picture
representing her was found would seem to justify this
hypothesis; the Egyptians connected her, as well as the
other Astartês, with Sit-Typhon, owing to her cruel and
warlike character.

The statues sometimes represent her as a sphinx with a womans head, but more often as a woman standing on a lion passant, either nude, or encircled round the hips by merely a girdle, her hands filled with flowers or with serpents, her features framed in a mass of heavy tresses--a faithful type of the priestesses who devoted themselves to her service, the _Qedeshôt_. She was the goddess of love in its animal, or rather in its purely physical, aspect, and in this capacity was styled Qaddishat the Holy, like the hetairæ of her family; Qodshu, the Amorite capital, was consecrated to her service, and she was there associated with Rashuf, the thunder-god.*

* Qaddishat is know to us from the Egyptian monuments
referred to above. The name was sometimes written Qodshû,
like that of the town: E. de Bougé argued from this that
Qaddishat must have been the eponymous divinity of Qodshû,
and that her real name was Kashit or Kesh; he recalls,
however, the _rôle_ played by the Qedeshoth, and admits that
the Holy here means the prostitute.

But she often comes before us as a warlike Amazon, brandishing a club, lance, or shield, mounted on horseback like a soldier, and wandering through the desert in quest of her prey.* This dual temperament rendered her a goddess of uncertain attributes and of violent contrasts; at times reserved and chaste, at other times shameless and dissolute, but always cruel, always barren, for the countless multitude of her excesses for ever shut her out from motherhood: she conceives without ceasing, but never brings forth children.** The Baalim and Astartês frequented by choice the tops of mountains, such as Lebanon, Carmel, Hermon, or Kasios:*** they dwelt near springs, or hid themselves in the depths of forests.**** They revealed themselves to mortals through the heavenly bodies, and in all the phenomena of nature: the sun was a Baal, the moon was Astartê, and the whole host of heaven was composed of more or less powerful genii, as we find in Chaldæa.

* A fragment of a popular tale preserved in the British
Museum, and mentioned by Birch, seems to show us Astartê in
her character of war-goddess, and the sword of Astartê is
mentioned by Chabas. A bas-relief at Edfû represents her
standing upright in her chariot, drawn by horses, and
trampling her enemies underfoot: she is there identified
with Sokhît the warlike, destroyer of men.

** This conception of the Syrian goddesses had already
become firmly established at the period with which we are
dealing, for an Egyptian magical formula defines Anîti and
Astartê as the great goddesses who conceiving do not bring
forth young, for the Horuses have sealed them and Sit hath
established them.

*** The Baal of Lebanon is mentioned in an archaic
Phoenician inscription, and the name Holy Cape (_Rosh-
Qodshu_), borne in the time of Thûtmosis III. either by
Haifa or by a neighbouring town, proves that Carmel was held
sacred as far back as the Egyptian epoch. Baal-Hermon has
already been mentioned.

**** The source of the Jordan, near Baniâs, was the seat of
a Baal whom the Greeks identified with Pan. This was
probably the Baal-Gad who often lent his name to the
neighbouring town of Baal-Hermon: many of the rivers of
Phoenicia were called after the divinities worshipped in the
nearest city, e.g. the Adonis, the Bêlos, the Asclepios, the
Damûras.

They required that offerings and prayers should be brought to them at the high places,* but they were also pleased--and especially the goddesses--to lodge in trees; tree-trunks, sometimes leafy, sometimes bare and branchless (_ashêrah_), long continued to be living emblems of the local Astartês among the peoples of Southern Syria. Side by side with these plant-gods we find everywhere, in the inmost recesses of the temples, at cross-roads, and in the open fields, blocks of stone hewn into pillars, isolated boulders, or natural rocks, sometimes of meteoric origin, which were recognised by certain mysterious marks to be the house of the god, the Betyli or Beth-els in which he enclosed a part of his intelligence and vital force.