tinued to write a name in the old Sumerian way
instead of spelling it phonetically, the result being that we do not
know how it was pronounced in their own language. The name of the
Chaldaean Noab, for instance, is written with two characters which
ideographically signify "the sun" or "day of life," and of the first of
which the Sumerian values were _ut, babar, khis, tarn,_ and _par_,
while the second had the value of _zi_. Were it not that the Chaldaean
historian Berossos writes the name Xisuthros, we should have no clue to
its Semitic pronunciation.

Professor Maspero's learning and indefatigable industry are well known
to me, but I confess I was not prepared for the exhaustive acquaintance
he shows with Assyriological literature. Nothing seems to have escaped
his notice. Papers and books just published, and half forgotten articles
in obscure periodicals which appeared years ago, have all alike been
used and quoted by him. Naturally, however, there are some points on
which I should be inclined to differ from the conclusions he draws,
or to which he has been led by other Assyriologists. Without being an
Assyriologist himself, it was impossible for him to be acquainted with
that portion of the evidence on certain disputed questions which is only
to be found in still unpublished or untranslated inscriptions.

There are two points which seem to me of sufficient importance
to justify my expression of dissent from his views. These are the
geographical situation of the land of Magan, and the historical
character of the annals of Sargon of Accad. The evidence about Magan is
very clear. Magan is usually associated with the country of Melukhkha,
"the salt" desert, and in _every_ text in which its geographical
position is indicated it is placed in the immediate vicinity of Egypt.
Thus Assur-bani-pal, after stating that he had "gone to the lands of
Magan and Melukhkha," goes on to say that he "directed his road to
Egypt and Kush," and then describes the first of his Egyptian campaigns.
Similar testimony is borne by Esar-haddon. The latter king tells us that
after quitting Egypt he directed his road to the land of Melukhkha, a
desert region in which there were no rivers, and which extended "to the
city of Rapikh" (the modern Raphia) "at the edge of the wadi of Egypt"
(the present Wadi El-Arish). After this he received camels from the king
of the Arabs, and made his way to the land and city of Magan. The Tel
el-Amarna tablets enab