people lived in caves or rude huts, and had domesticated animals (sheep, cow, pig, goat), the bones of which they fashioned into various implements. Physically they are quite distinct from the normal type, also found at Gezer, which was taller, of stronger build, with well-developed skulls, and is akin both to the Sinaitic and Palestinian type illustrated upon Egyptian monuments from c. 3000 B.C., and to the modern native.[1] The study of Oriental ethnology in the light of history is still very incomplete, but the regular trend of events points to a mixture of races from the south (the home of the Semites) and the north. At what period Palestine first became the “Semitic” land, which it has always remained, is uncertain; nor can one decide whether the characteristic megalithic monuments, especially to the east of the Jordan, are due to the first wave which introduced the Semitic (Canaanite) dialect and the place-names. At all events during the last centuries of the third millennium B.C., remarkable for the high state of civilization in Babylonia, Egypt and Crete, Palestine shares in the active life and intercourse of the age; and while its fertile fields are visited by Egypt, Babylonia (under Gimil-Sin, Gudea and Sargon) claims some supremacy over the west as far as the Mediterranean.
A more definite stage is reached in the period of the Hyksos (c. 1700), the invaders of Egypt, whose Asiatic origin is suggested inter alia by the proper-names which include “Jacob” and “Anath” as deities.[2] After their expulsion it is very significant to find that Egypt forthwith enters upon a series of campaigns in Palestine and Egyptian suzerainty. Syria as far as the Euphrates, and its successes over a district whose political fate was bound up with Assyria and Asia Minor laid the foundation of a policy which became traditional. Apart from rather disconnected details which belong properly to the history of Babylonia and Egypt, it is not until about the 16th century B.C. that Palestine appears in the clear light of history, and henceforth its course can be traced with some sort of continuity. Of fundamental importance are the Amarna cuneiform tablets discovered in 1887, containing some of the political correspondence between Western Asia and Egypt for a few years of the reigns of Amenophis III. and IV. (c. 1414–1360).[3] The first Babylonian dynasty, now well known for its Khammurabi, belonged to the past, but the cuneiform script and language are still used among the Hittites of Asia Minor (centring at Boghaz-keui) and the kings of Syria and Palestine. Egypt itself was now passing from its greatness, and the Hittites (q.v.)—the term is open to some criticism—were its rivals for the possession of the intervening lands. Peoples (apparently Iranian) of Hittite connexion from the powerful state of Mitanni (Northern Syria and Mesopotamia) had already left their mark as far south as Jerusalem, as may be inferred from the personal names,[4] and to the intercourse with (apparently) Aegean culture revealed by excavation, the letters add references to mercenaries and bands from Meluḥḥa (viz. Arabia), Mesopotamia and the Levant. The diminutive cities of this cosmopolitan Palestine were ruled by kings, not necessarily of the native stock; some were appointed—and even anointed—by the Egyptian king, and the small extent of these city-states is obvious from the references to the kings of such near-lying sites as Jerusalem, Gezer, Ashkelon and Lachish. Torn by mutual jealousy and intrigue, and forming little confederations among themselves, they were united by their common recognition of the Egyptian suzerain, their court of appeal, or in some short-lived attempt to withstand him. Apart from Jerusalem and a few towns on the coast, the real weight lay to the north, and especially in the state of Amor.[5] It is an age of internal disorganization and of heavy pressure by land and by sea from Northern Syria and Asia Minor. The land seethes with excitement, and Palestine, wavering between allegiance to Egypt and intrigues with the great movements at its north, is unable to take any independent line of action. The letters vividly describe the approach of the enemy, and, in appealing to Egypt, abound in protestations of loyalty, complaints of the disloyalty of other kings and excuses for the writers’ suspicious conduct. Of exceptional interest are the letters from Jerusalem describing the hostility of the maritime coast and the disturbances of the Ḥabiru (“allies”), a name which, though often equated with that of the Hebrews, may have no ethnological or historical significance.[6] But Egypt was unable to help the loyalists, even ancient Mitanni lost its political independence, and the supremacy of the Hittites was assured. The history of the age illustrated by the Amarna letters is continued in the tablets found at Boghaz-keui, the capital of the old Hittite Empire.[7] Subsequent Egyptian evidence records that Seti I. (c. 1320) of the XIXth Dynasty led an expedition into Palestine, but struggles with the Hittites continued until Rameses II. (c. 1300) concluded with them an elaborate treaty which left him little more than Palestine. Even this province was with difficulty maintained: the disturbances in the Levant and in Asia Minor (which belong to Aegean and Hittite history) and the revival of Assyria were reshaping the political history of Western Asia.
Under Rameses III. (c. 1200–1169) we may recognize another age of disorganization in Palestine, in the movements with which the Philistines (q.v.) were concerned. Nevertheless, Egypt seems to have enjoyed a fresh spell of extended supremacy, and Rameses apparently succeeded in recovering Palestine and some part of Syria. But it was the close of a lengthy period during which Egypt had endeavoured to keep Palestine detached from Asia, and Palestine had realized the significance of a powerful empire at its south-western border. Somewhat later Tiglath-Pileser (c. 1100) pushed the limits of Assyrian suzerainty westwards over the lands formerly held by the great Hittite Empire. It is at this age, when the external evidence becomes extremely fragmentary, that new political movements were inaugurated and new confederations of states sprang into existence. Palestine had been politically part of Egypt or of the Hittite Empire; we now reach the stage where it becomes more closely identified with Israelite history.
Palestine had not as yet been absorbed by any of the great powers with whose history and culture it had been so closely bound up for so many centuries. In the “Amarna” age the little kings had a certain measure of independence, provided they guarded the royal caravan routes, paid tribute, refrained from conspiracy, and generally The Amarna period. supported their suzerain and his agents. However profound the influence of Babylonia may have been, excavation has discovered comparatively few specific traces of it. Although cuneiform was used, the Palestinian letters show that the native language, as in the case of earlier proper-names, was most nearly akin to the later “Canaanite” (Hebrew, Moabite and Phoenician). In view of the relations subsisting among Palestine, Mitanni and the Hittites, it is evident that Babylonian
- ↑ For fuller treatment of the data see R. A. S. Macalister’s complete memoir of the Gezer excavations.
- ↑ Reference may be made to Ed. Meyer’s admirable survey of Oriental history down to this age, Gesch. d. Altertums (Berlin, 1909), also to J. H. Breasted, Hist. of Egypt (London, 1906), bks. i.-iv.; and L. W. King, Hist. of Bab. and Ass. vol. i. (London, 1910). Some knowledge of the culture, religion, history and interrelations over the area of which Palestine formed part is indispensable for any careful study of the ages upon which we now enter.
- ↑ See the admirable edition by J. A. Knudtzon, with full notes by O. Weber (Leipzig, 1907–1910). For their bearing on Palestine, see especially P. Dhorme, Rev. biblique (1908), pp. 500–519; (1909), pp. 50–73, 368–385.
- ↑ Dhorme, op. cit. (1909), pp. 60 sqq.; H. R. Hall, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. (1909), xxxi. 233 seq.; Weber, op. cit., p. 1088 seq.; cf. A. H. Sayce, Arch. of Cuneiform Inscr. (1907), pp. 193 sqq.
- ↑ Amor (Ass. Amurru, Bibl. Amorite), lay north of Lebanon and behind Phoenicia; but the term fluctuates (Weber, op. cit., 1132 sqq.). See art. Amorites, and A. T. Clay, Amurru (Philadelphia, 1909).
- ↑ See H. Winckler, Altor. Forschung. (1902), iii. 22; W. M. Müller in I. Benzinger, Heb. Archäol. (1907), p. 445; B. Eerdmans, Alttest. Stud. (1908), ii. 61 sqq.; Dhorme, op. cit. (1909), pp. 677 sqq. The movement of the Ḥabiru cannot be isolated from that represented in other letters (where the enemy are not described by this term), and their steps do not agree with those of the invading Israelites in the book of Joshua (q.v.).
- ↑ H. Winckler, Mitteil. d. deutschen Orient-Gesell. z. Berlin (1907) No. 35; cf. J. Garstang, Land of Hittites (London, 1910), 326 sqq.
