Kerman was named Kusan throughout
the Sassanian period. The same region is now Beloochistan, the country
of the Belooches or Belus, while adjoining it on the east is Cutch, or
Kooch, a term standing to Cush is Belooch stands to Belus. Again, Cissia
or Cossaea is now Khuzistan, or the land of Khuz a name not very remote
from Cush; but perhaps this is only a coincidence.

To the traditions and traces here enumerated must be added, as of primary
importance, the Biblical tradition, which is delivered to us very simply
and plainly in that precious document the "Toldoth Beni Noah," or "Book
of the Generations of the Sons of Noah," which well deserves to be called
"the most authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of
nations." "The sons of Ham," we are told, "were Cush, and Mizraim, and
Phut, and Canaan . . . . And Cush begat Nimrod . . . . And the
beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in
the land of Shinar." Here a primitive Babylonian kingdom is assigned to
a people distinctly said to have been Cushite by blood, and to have stood
in close connection with Mizraim, or the people of Egypt, Phut, or those
of Central Africa, and Canaan, or those of Palestine. It is the simplest
and the best interpretation of this passage to understand it as asserting
that the four races--the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Libyans, and
Canaanites--were ethnically connected, being all descended from Ham; and
further, that the primitive people of Babylon were a subdivision of one
of these races, namely of the Cushites or Ethiopians, connected in some
degree with the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Libyans, but still more
closely with the people which dwelt anciently upon the Upper Nile.

The conclusions thus recommended to us by the consentient primitive
traditions of so many races, have lately received most important and
unexpected confirmation from the results of linguistic research. After
the most remarkable of the Mesopotamian mounds had yielded their
treasures, and supplied the historical student with numerous and copious
documents bearing upon the history of the great Assyrian and Babylonian
empires, it was determined to explore Chaldaea Proper, where mounds of
less pretension, but still of considerable height, marked the sites of a
number of ancient cities. The excavations conducted at these places,
especially at Niffer, Senkereh, Warka, and Mugheir, were eminently
successful. Among their other unexpec