A second point of contact of Egypt and Palestine is in the painting and sculptures of hostile and conquered nations in Egyptian temples and tombs. These were evidently intended to be portraits, and an admirable series of them has been published by Mr. Petrie under a commission from the British Association for the Advancement of Science. By means of these excellent photographs, now before me, we can see for ourselves the physiognomy and form of head of the Amorite, Philistine, Hittite, and many other peoples previously known to us only by name and a few historical facts; and thus with their correspondence, as preserved in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, and their pictures as given by Petrie, we have them before us much as we have the speeches and portraits of our contemporaries in the illustrated newspapers, and can venture to express some opinion as to their ethnic affinities and appearance, and can judge more accurately as to the familiar statements of the Bible respecting them. [76] Lastly, Maspero and Tomkins have, with the aid of the names fixed by the survey of Western Palestine, revised the lists given by Thothmes III., in the temple of Karnak, of the places which this Egyptian Alexander had conquered; and they have thus verified the Hebrew geography of the Books of Joshua and Judges.
[76] Sayce, Races of the Old Testament, Religious Tract Society.
Another unexpected acquisition is the solution of the mystery which has enshrouded that mysterious people known as Hyksos or shepherd kings, who invaded Egypt about the time of the Hebrew patriarchs, and, after keeping the Egyptians in subjection for centuries, were finally expelled by the predecessors of the Amunoph already referred to. They constitute a great feature in early Egyptian history, but disappear mysteriously, leaving no trace but a few sculptured heads, Turanian in aspect and markedly contrasting with those of the native Egyptians. It now appears that a people of Northern Syria and Mesopotamia, known to the Egyptians at a later time as Mitanni, and who were neighbours of and associated with the Northern Hittites, have the features of the Hyksos. It also seems from a letter in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets that they spoke a non-Semitic or Turanian language akin to that of the Hittites. Thus we have traced the shepherd kings to their origin, and, curiously enough, Cushanrish-athaim, who oppressed the Israelites in the days of Othniel, seems to represent a later inroad of the same people.
Such 'restitutions of decayed intelligence' now meet us on every hand as the results of modern exploration, and are enabling us to bridge over the gaps which have separated the geological ages from the prehistoric and historic human periods in those ancient countries where civilisation seems to have originated.
THE NEANTHROPIC DISPERSION AND ALLIED TOPICS
The remarkable record of the early distribution of the sons of Noah ('Toledoth' of the sons of Noah) in Genesis x. may be regarded, relatively to most of the nations it refers to, as a scrap of prehistoric lore of the most intensely interesting character. From the old 'Phaleg' of Bochart to the recent commentaries of Delitzsch and other German scholars, it has received a host of more or less conjectural explanations; and while all agree in extolling its value and importance as a 'Beginning of History,' nothing can be more various than the views taken of it. Only in the light of the recent discoveries and researches already referred to can we arrive at a clear conception of its import; but with these and some common sense we may hope to be more fortunate than the older interpreters. It is necessary, however, to explain here that, for want of a little scientific precision, many modern archæologists still fail in their interpretations. They tell us that the Toledoth are not properly 'ethnological,' but rather 'ethnographical,' and that we are to regard the document as referring, not to the genealogical affiliations of nations, but to their accidental geographical positions at the time of the record.
Now this is precisely what the writer, with a sure scientific instinct, carefully guards against, and explicitly informs us he did not intend. He tells us that he gives the 'generations of the sons of Noah' and their descendants, and at the ends of the three lists relating to these sons, he is careful to say that he has given them 'in their lands, each according to his language, after their families, in their nations,' or the formula is slightly varied into 'after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, in their nations.' Lastly, in the conclusion of the whole table he reiterates, 'These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, after their nations.' All these statements, let it be observed, are acknowledged to be parts of one (Elohistic) document. It is clear, therefore, that the writer intends us to understand that the determining elements of his classification are neither physical characters nor accidents of geographical distribution, but descent and original language—two primary and scientific grounds of classification, and which common sense requires us to adhere to in interpreting the document, whose value will depend on the certainty with which the writer could ascertain facts as to these criteria: criteria which are, of course, less open to the observation of later inquirers, who may find difficulty in ascertaining either descent or original language, and in default of these may be obliged to resort to other grounds of classification.