[250] The Rev. Basil H. Cooper believes that the Phrygian was the original Ida, which gradually passed to Crete; and here the Idæi were priests of Cybele. He is disposed to connect with it the Greek Σίδ(ηρο); the German Eisen (and our iron), and the Ida feldt and Asi of the Norse myths (Day, p. 133).]
[251] The name is derived by Bochart from Heb. Lub or Lelub, חיקלוב, chiefs of the Libu or Ribu, as the old Egyptians called the Libyans. Hence the Prom. Lilybæum (Li-Lúb) and the Sinus ad Libyam or Lilybatanus.
[252] We have satisfactory details concerning the Chalybes, who border on Armenia, in the Anabasis (iv. 5, &c.). They dwell two days from Cotyora, the colony planted by Sinope; they are subject to the Mossynœci, and they subsist by iron-working (v. 5). Though few, they are a most warlike people, full of fight. Their armour consists of helmets, greaves, and cuirasses of twisted linen cords, reaching to the groin. They carry spears about fifteen cubits long, ‘having one spike’ (i.e. without ferule); and at their girdles a short faulchion, as large as a Spartan crooked dagger, with which they cut the throats of all whom they can master; and then, lopping off their heads, bear them away (iv. 7). Strabo makes the Chalybes the same as their neighbours the Chaldæi.
[253] The well-known inscription on the tomb of Midas, and another given by Texier (Asie Mineure, ii. 57) show the Phrygian tongue to have been a congener of Greek. Even the Békos of Herodotus (ii. 2) is allied to our ‘bake,’ and Bédu to our ‘water.’ We are greatly in want of further information about Phrygia, and it is to be hoped that Colonel Wilson and Mr. W. M. Ramsay will complete the labours of Texier and Hamilton.
[254] The Aryans of Herodotus, about the Arius river (Heri-rúd), are an undistinguished tribe, a mere satrapy. Strabo’s Aria (xi. 9) is a tract about 250 by 40 miles. In Pliny (vi. 23) Ariana includes only the lands of the Gedrosi (Mekran), the Arachoti (Kandahár), the Arii proper (Herat), and the Parapomisadæ (Kabul). It has been truly said that even if Aryan and Turanian man (first) centred in and emerged from these areas (the table-lands of Asia), the so-called history is entirely based on the philological discoveries of the Sanskritist school.
[255] Therasia and Therassia, now Santorin. Here have been found ruins of prehistoric cities buried by the great central volcano. According to most geologists the latter was exhausted in b.c. 1800–1700.
[256] I have personally noticed this, and described it in Midian Revisited, vol. i. p. 143.
[257] Beckmann (s.v. ‘Tin’) tells us that the metal ‘never occurs in a native state.’ He forgets stream-tin. He also denies that the oldest ‘cassiteron’ and ‘stannum’ were tin; and considers them to mean the German Werk, a regulus of silver and lead. His vasa stannea are vessels covered with tin in the inside. In the fourth century ‘plumbum candidum’ or ‘album’ was superseded by ‘stannum.’ Speaking of electrum, Beckmann asserts that ‘the ancients were not acquainted with the art of separating gold and silver.’ ‘Britain,’ Ynis Prydhain Island, where the god Prydhain was worshipped, or rather ‘Isle of the Brythons,’ has been fancifully derived by the energetic Semitiser from Barrat-et-Tanuk = Land of Tin.
[258] Ezekiel tells us that the Tyrians received tin, as well as other metals, from Tarshish, or Western Tartessus, in the Bay of Gibraltar.
[259] M. Emile Burnouf, ‘L’Age de Bronze,’ Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 1877, also brings tin from Banca. The island is about 150 miles long by 36 broad; it has no mountain backbone, but the peak of Goonong Maras rises some 3,000 feet above the sea-level. Chinese coolies still work the mines of Mintok, and in 1852 the yearly yield was some 50,000 piculs (each = 133⅓ lbs.) at the cost of nine rupees per picul.