[300]. Caphtor is written Kptar in hieroglyphics at Kom-Ombo (on the wall of the southern corridor of the temple), where it heads a list of geographical names, and is followed by those of Persia and Susa (Sayce: The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, 3rd edition, p. 173). The name of the Zakkal, formerly read Zakkar or Zakkur, and identified with the Teukrians, has been pointed out by Professor Hommel in a Babylonian inscription of the fifteenth century B.C. (W. A. I. iv. 34, No. 2, ll. 2, 6). Here it is called the city of Zaqqalu, and we may gather from a papyrus in the possession of M. Golénischeff that it was situated on the coast of Canaan not far from Dor.
[301]. A reminiscence of the event is probably preserved in Justin, xviii. 3, where we read that in the year before the fall of Troy, ‘the king of the Ascalonians’ destroyed Sidon, whose inhabitants fled in their ships and founded Tyre. The date would harmonise with that of the reign of Ramses III. Lydian history related that Askalos, the son of Hymenæos, and brother of Tantalos, had been sent by the Lydian king Akiamos in command of an army to the south of Palestine, and had there founded Askalon (Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀσκάλων), and according to Xanthos the Lydian historian, the goddess Derketô was drowned in the lake of Askalon by the Lydian Mopsos (Athen. Deipn. viii. 37, p. 346). In these legends we have a tradition of the fact that the Philistines and their allies came from the coast of Asia Minor and the Greek Seas.
[302]. Josh. xiii. 2, 3; Judg. iii. 1-3. The statement in Judg. i. 18 was true only theoretically; it was not true in fact until the reign of David.
[303]. Stephanus Byzantinus s.v. Ἰόνιον, where it is also said that Gaza was termed Ionê. According to Kastôr the thalassocratia or ‘sea-rule’ of Minôs lasted until B.C. 1180, when it passed into the hands of the Lydians. By the latter may be meant the expedition sent to the south of Palestine by the Lydian king Akiamos.
[304]. Sayce, Races of the Old Testament, pp. 126, 127, and pl. i.
[305]. Deut. ii. 23. Avim is merely a descriptive title signifying ‘the people of the ruins.’
[306]. See my Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, pp. 325-327. It is possible that some of the Semitic deities had been adopted by the Philistines before they left Krete, if indeed they came from that island. At all events it has been supposed that certain Canaanitish divinities were adored there, more especially Ashtoreth, under the title of Diktynna. The presence of Semites in the island seems indicated by the name of the river Iardanos or Jordan.
[307]. In the age of Deborah, however, it would seem that the seaport of Joppa was still in the possession of the Danites (Judg. v. 17). But cp. Josh. xix. 46.
[308]. Winckler and Abel, Mittheilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen, iii. 143. 37, 43. Anatum or Anat, the son of Sin-abu-su, is also a witness to the sale of some property in a deed dated in the reign of the Babylonian king Samsu-iluna, the son of Khammurabi or Amraphel, and published by Mr. Pinches, Inscribed Babylonian Tablets in the Collection of Sir H. Peek, iii. p. 61.
[309]. See Judg. i. 27. Beth-shean, the Scythopolis of classical geography, is the modern Beisân.