he history of the other
also. And each year is adding to our knowledge; new monuments are being
excavated, new inscriptions being read, and the revelations of to-day
are surpassed by those of to-morrow. We have already learnt much, but it
is only a commencement; Egypt is only now beginning to be scientifically
explored, a few only of the multitudinous libraries of Babylonia have
been brought to light, and the soil of Assyria has been little more than
touched. Elsewhere, in Elam, in Mesopotamia, in Asia Minor, in Palestine
itself, everything still remains to be done. The harvest truly is
plentiful, but the labourers are few.

We have, however, learnt some needful lessons. The historian has been
warned against arguing from the imperfection of his own knowledge, and
rejecting an ancient narrative merely because it seems unsupported by
other testimony. He has been warned, too, against making his own
prepossessions and assumptions the test of historical truth, of laying
down that a reported fact could not have happened because it runs
counter to what he assumes to have been the state of society in some
particular age. Above all, the lesson of modesty has been impressed upon
him, modesty in regard to the extent of his own knowledge and the
fallibility of his own conclusions. It does not follow that what we
imagine ought to have happened has happened in reality; on the contrary,
the course of Oriental history has usually been very different from that
dreamed of by the European scholar in the quietude of his study. If
Oriental archaeology has taught us nothing else, it has at least taught
us how little we know.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. THE ISRAELITES

II. CANAAN

III. THE NATIONS OF THE SOUTH-EAST

IV. THE NATIONS OF THE NORTH-EAST

V. EGYPT

VI. BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

VII. CONCLUSION

APPENDICES

CHAPTER I

THE ISRAELITES

Israel traced its origin to Babylonia. It was from "Ur of the Chaldees"
that Abraham "the Hebrew" had come, the rock out of which it was hewn.
Here on the western bank of the Euphrates was the earliest home of the
Hebrews, of whom the Israelites claimed to be a part.

But they were not the only nation of the ancient Oriental world which
derived its ancestry from Abraham. He was the father not only of the
Israelites, but of the inhabitants of northern and central Arabia as
well. The Ishmaelites who were settled in the north of the Arabian
peninsula, the descendants of