UNTIL recently, the date at which the art of writing may have been introduced among the Semitic races was a much disputed question. Many held that no written monuments could have existed before Moses. There was certainly no proof that the art was practised in the time of the patriarchs; such a composition as the song of Lamech, with its proverb-like brevity, might well have been handed down by oral tradition; and there is no mention of writing in the Book of Genesis. The important question whether a written character was already in use among the Semitic peoples in the time of Joseph or Abraham, and whether Moses, supposing him to be the author of Genesis, could have made use of documents earlier than his own time, was one that found no answer. It was discovered, indeed, early in this century that the Egyptians had employed their hieroglyphics from a remote period; but these could never have been adopted by a Semitic people; and there was no reason to suppose that the Phoenicians had invented their alphabet until a date subsequent to Moses.

Heinrich Ewald, whose " History of Israel" was first published in 1843, the year which gave birth to

the new science of Assyriology through Botta's first discoveries at Khorsabad, thus expresses himself:*

"The question stands briefly thus: Was there a system of writing already current in the time of Joseph or Abraham, or at least in the days of Moses? We are entirely without evidence to decide this question.

"The narratives of the patriarchal ages bear no trace of a certain tradition of the use of writing in that ancient period.

"It cannot be proved that any written documents came down from the patriarchal times to later ages."

Now, however, the question may receive a positive answer. Recent discoveries among the most ancient remains of Chaldæa have proved that the art of writing was practised at a period long anterior to the time of Abraham, in the very country from which the patriarch himself is said to have proceeded. It is now generally accepted that the city of Ur, on the west bank of the Euphrates, half-way between Babylon and the Persian Gulf, and represented by the ruins which the modern Arabs call Mukeyyer, was that Ur of the Chaldees where Abraham was born; and inscriptions on clay have been found there which must be ascribed to a date long before B.C. 2000. But the question whether Ur of the Chaldees was a city, or, as the Septuagint takes it, simply the territory of the Chaldæans, makes little difference here, since the cuneiform inscriptions agree with Strabo in showing that the Chaldæans inhabited the southern region of Mesopotamia in which Mukeyyer is situated. The inscriptions found at Ur itself have at present been few in number, and belong to a limited * Ewald, "Geschichte des Volkes Israel" (1843), Vol. i., pp. 63 and 66.

period. If the great temple of the moon-god, founded in the very beginning of history, and maintained down to the latest times of the Babylonian monarchy, could be fully excavated, or if the city, round the walls of which lies a circle of tombs, could be ransacked for its hidden archæological treasures, the results would, no doubt, reward the hardest labour; but at present we must

MUKEYYER, IDENTIFIED BY SIR H. RAWLINSON WITH UR OF THE CHALDEES.

look for our chief source of information about the early civilization of Chaldæa, in the time of Abraham and before his date, to another site, that of a city which was at a certain period subject to the powerful kings of Ur, in the neighbourhood of which it lies. This site is that of the city of Lagash, represented by the mounds of Tello, fifteen hours north of Mukeyyer, and twelve hours east of Warka, the ancient Erech.*

It was a belief of ancient writers that Abraham was a learned man, especially versed in the science of astronomy, which he imparted to the Egyptians during his visit to their country; and this opinion seems to have been partly based on a passage in the Babylonian history of Berosus, now unfortunately lost. Modern writers have considered that it was a false ascription to an uncultivated age of the high cultivation which distinguished the Babylonians in the days of Darius or Alexander. But in the face of the new discoveries, we must now admit that even in the time of Abraham the Chaldæans had reached a high degree of culture, and very probably had already obtained much of that knowledge of the stars which their constant observations on the plains of the Euphrates enabled them to acquire. We must remind ourselves that, according to the Babylonian tradition, the coast of the Persian Gulf was the cradle of civilization; it was there that the mythical Oannes appeared, and

"gave men the knowledge of letters and sciences, and arts of all kinds; and taught them to build cities, and to found temples, and to enact laws, and to measure the ground; and showed them how to sow seeds and gather in the fruits; and in general instructed them in all matters that tend to civilize human life." *

Let us now see what the last ten years have brought to light of the most ancient civilization of Southern Babylonia, or Chaldæa, the country from which Abraham set forth on his journey to Canaan.

Until ten years ago hardly anything was known of * Berosus in Eusebius, Chron. Arm., p. 8, and Syncellus, p. 28, B.

the early history of Babylonia. The excavations at Khorsabad, Nimroud, Kouyunjik, and other places, had brought to light inscriptions which enabled us to re-construct the history of Assyria in the most authentic manner, from contemporary monuments belonging to a period of nearly a thousand years; and the sculptures, architectural remains, and objects of all sorts, gave us a very fair idea of the manners and customs of the ancient empire. But comparatively little had been found among the even more ancient remains of Babylonia or Chaldæa. The site of Eridu at Abu Shahrein, that of Larsa at Senkereh, that of Erech at Warka, and that of Ur at Mukeyyer, had been proved to contain architectural remains of the highest interest, and had yielded some inscriptions of the greatest value; but the imperfect excavations had brought to light no important works of sculpture, and had not been sufficiently methodical or complete to show how many treasures are really concealed beneath those mounds with which the plains of Chaldæa are strewn. At last, in 1878, Mr. Hormuzd Rassam discovered the remains of the Temple of the Sun at Abu Habba, the ancient Sippara, so famous for its school of astronomers and its library of clay tablets; here he found many valuable records, and above all a mass of legal deeds and commercial contracts on clay, belonging to the period from Nabopolassar to Darius Hystaspis (B.c. 620 -485).

At about the same time that Mr. Rassam was exploring Abu-Habbah, the French vice-consul at