[599] H. V. Hilprecht, The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, Series D, Vol. v. 1. 1910.
[600] See The Times, June 24, 1914.
[601] "Babylonia and Elam Four Thousand Years Ago," in Knowledge, May 1, 1896, p. 116 sq. and elsewhere.
[602] The term "Elam" is said to have the same meaning as "Akkad" (i.e. Highland) in contradistinction to "Sumer" (Lowland). It should be noted that neither Akkad nor Sumer occurs in the oldest texts, where Akkad is called Kish from the name of its capital, and Sumer Kiengi (Kengi), probably a general name meaning "the land." Kish has been identified with the Kush of Gen. x., one of the best abused words in Palethnology. For this identification, however, there is some ground, seeing that Kush is mentioned in the closest connection with "Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar" (Mesopotamia) v. 10.
[603] J. de Morgan, Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, 1899-1906.
[604] S. Laing, Human Origins, p. 74.
[605] And it has remained so ever since, the present Lur and Bakhtiari inhabitants of Susiana speaking, not the standard Neo-Persian, but dialects of the ruder Kurdish branch of the Iranian family, as if they had been Aryanised from Media, the capital of which was Ekbatana. We have here, perhaps, a clue to the origin of the Medes themselves, who were certainly the above-mentioned Mandas of Nabonidus, their capital being also the same Ekbatana. Now Sayce (Academy, Sept. 7, 1895, p. 189) identified the Kimmerians with these Manda nomads, whose king Tukdammé (Tugdammé) was the Lygdanis of Strabo (I. 3, 16), who led a horde of Kimmerians into Lydia and captured Sardis. We know from Esarhaddon's inscriptions that by the Assyrians these Kimmerians were called Manda, their prince Teupsa (Teispe) being described as "of the people of the Manda." An oracle given to Esar-haddon begins: "The Kimmerian in the mountains has set fire in the land of Ellip," i.e. the land where Ekbatana was afterwards founded, which is now shown to have already been occupied by the Kimmerian or Manda hordes. It follows that Kimmerians, Mandas, Medes with their modern Kurd and Bakhtiari representatives, were all one people, who were almost certainly of Aryan speech, if not actually of proto-Aryan stock. "The Kurds are the descendants of Aryan invaders and have maintained their type and their language for more than 3300 years," F. v. Luschan, "The Early Inhabitants of Western Asia," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XLI. 1911, p. 230. For a classification of Kurds see Mark Sykes, "The Kurdish Tribes of the Ottoman Empire," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XXXVIII. 1908, p. 451. Cf. also D. G. Hogarth, The Nearer East, 1902.
[606] C. H. W. Johns, Ancient Babylonia, 1913, p. 27.
[607] Cf. H. Zimmern, article "Babylonians and Assyrians," Ency. Religion and Ethics, 1909.
[608] G. Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 733.