[61] The confusion of chronology, due to the hasty identification of this prince with Ahab of Israel, has led scholars of late to replace Sirlai in the Lebanon.
[62] The Turkic princes used armorial bearings before they came into use in Europe.
[63] Native Syrians state that the Metâwileh (who are of Persian origin) are usually blue-eyed. They inhabit Upper Galilee and the hills east of Sidon.
[64] The so-called “Hittite” system. The monuments in this character as yet found in situ occur in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Northern Syria. The most southerly sculpture of the kind yet known was discovered in a mound near Damascus excavated by Sir C. W. Wilson. The earliest found examples were five stones at Hamath, one of which Buckhardt saw. Other examples were discovered at Aleppo, and by George Smith at Carchemish. The system as at present known includes about 130 signs, some fifty of which are very frequently repeated. There is no doubt that these read (like the early Akkadian texts) in lines with syllables arranged in columns. Some of the emblems resemble those found in the earliest examples of other Asiatic systems (Egyptian, Akkadian, and Old Chinese), and by analogy it is probable that each emblem represents a word—noun, verb, or other grammatical form. My reasons for supposing the language to be a Turkic or Mongolic dialect are simple. 1st, The names of Hittites and Hittite cities known to us appear to be in such a dialect; 2nd, the short bilingual agrees with this view; and 3rd, the commonest signs (of which we know the sound through later hieratic forms) can be shown to represent common Mongolic words, such as pronouns and case-endings, &c. Many other suggestions have been made for comparing with Hebrew, Georgian, Armenian, and Egyptian, but in no case has it been shown that these languages supply a key to the sounds or to the bilingual. Take, for instance, the Hittite royal title Tarku. It exists only in the Turanian languages—Turkic Tarkan, Mongol Dargo, Cossack Turughna, Etruscan Tarchu and Tarquin, all meaning “a chief.” The number of words which I have so compared now amounts to a hundred in all, and I believe it places the character of the language on a sound and scientific basis.—See Journal Anthropological Institute, August 1889.
[65] Proverbes et Dictons du Peuple Arabe, vol. i. Saida. Carlo Landberg. Leyden, 1883.
[66] As an example of the inexactitude of Josephus’ measurements, I may instance the length which he gives for the Samaria colonnade (Ant., XV. viii. 5). He gives 20 furlongs or 12,000 feet, the real length being 5500 feet. Again, he says that the harbour at Cæsarea equalled the Piræus (Ant., XV. ix. 6). The Piræus was twenty times as large as the Cæsarea harbour. He makes the third wall of Jerusalem 8000 yards long, yet he gives the total circuit of the city as 6600 yards long in the same account (Wars, V. iv. 3). He places Gabaoth Saule four miles from Jerusalem in one passage (Wars, V. ii. 1), and nearly double that distance in another (Wars, II. xix. 1), the real distance being 5½ miles. It has long been known that the chronological calculations of Josephus do not agree together, either through his own inaccuracy or through the corruptions of copyists (see the foundation of the Temple in the eighteenth year of Herod, Ant., XV. xi. 1; or in the fifteenth, Wars, I. xxi. 1), and the comparisons which Josephus gives between Jewish and Greek weights in eight different passages do not agree in any one instance. The historian wrote in Rome in 75 and 93 A.D. Such is the accuracy of the author whom a critic like Dr. Robertson Smith is disposed to quote against the results of actual measurements of walls and rock, which are exact within the decimal of a foot. The general statements of Josephus are very valuable, but his measurements are quite unreliable.