Hoffmann (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, xi. p. 210) maintains that the origin of the Aramaic dialects is to be sought in a Bedâwin language allied to that of the Arabs and Sabæans, which underwent intermixture with Canaanitish (or Phœnician) through the settlement of its speakers in a Canaanitish country.
[51]. In Assyrian letters of the Second Empire mention is made of the Nabathean Â-kamaru, the son of Amme’te’, and the Arabian Ami-li’ti, the son of Ameri or Omar (Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters, iii. p. 262; iv. p. 437).
[52]. It is stated in Deut. xxiii. 4 that Balaam was hired from ‘Pethor of Aram Naharaim,’ not only by the Moabites, but by the Ammonites as well (though it is true that in the Hebrew text the word sâkar, ‘hired,’ is in the singular). It may be noted that the mother of Rehoboam, whose name is compounded with that of Am or Ammi (compare Rehab-iah, 1 Chron. xxiii. 17), was an Ammonitess (1 Kings xiv. 21). For a full discussion of the name of ’Ammi or ’Ammu, and the historical conclusions which may be deduced from it, see Hommel, The Ancient Hebrew Tradition, pp. 89 sqq.
[53]. The name of Carchemish is usually written Gargamis in the cuneiform inscriptions (Qarqamish in the Egyptian hieroglyphs), but Tiglath-pileser I. (W. A. I. i. 13, 49) calls it ‘Kar-Gamis’ (the Fortified Wall of Gamis) ‘in the land of the Hittites,’ and from the Hebrew spelling in the Old Testament we may gather that Gamis was identified with the Moabite Chemosh. In Babylonian tablets of the age of Ammi-zadoq mention is made of a wood Karkamisû or ‘Carchemishian’ (Bu. 88-5-12, 163, line 11; 88-5-12, 19, line 8). It may be noted that the name ‘Jerabîs,’ sometimes assigned to the site of Carchemish instead of Jerablûs, is, according to the unanimous testimony of English and American residents in the neighbourhood, erroneous.
[54]. See Records of the Past, new ser., v. p. 45.
[55]. For the identity of the Zuzim with the Babylonian Zavzala, see my note in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, xix. 2, pp. 74, 75.
[58]. We owe the term ‘Eurafrican’ to Dr. Brinton (see his Races and Peoples, 1890, Lecture iv.). For the relationship of the Libyan and the Kelt, see my Address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association, 1887.
[59]. The expression ‘mountain of the Amorites,’ which we meet with in Deut. i. 7, 19, takes us back to Abrahamic times. One of the campaigns of Samsu-iluna, the son and successor of Khammu-rabi or Amraphel, was against ‘the great mountain of the land of the Amorites’ (kharsag gal mad Martu-ki, Bu. 91-5-9, 333; Rev. 19).