iv. THE RACES OF PALESTINE.—Among the earliest inhabitants are noticed the Zuzim or Zam- zummim, the Emim, and the Anakim. These words seem to be non-Semitic, and the latter may mean ‘tall,’ as a Mongol word. The Canaanites are re- garded by the author of Gn 10°+ as not Semitic, and there is monumental evidence (Tel el-Amarna Letters, No. 10 Berlin Collection) that the Syrian Hittites spoke a non-Semitic language (perliaps Mongolic) in the 15th cent. B.c. In this enumera- tion, however, the Amorites (? ‘ highlanders’) are included; and from the same monumental source it seems clear that they spoke an East Aramaic language like Assyrian. They had driven out the Moabites at the time of the Exodus, and covered Eastern Palestine, as well as the Western moun-
* The fallow deer, roebuck, gazelle, wild goat, wild ox, wild sheep are mentioned only in Dt 145 (see Driver's note), and not in the parallel passage, Lv 11.
ἀ Gn 10 is treated in this art. as an ‘ethnological table’ (but
see Dillm. ad loc., and Sayce, 7CM 119 δ...
646 PALESTINE
tains and the Lebanon.* The Hittites, according to Gn 23, extended to Hebron in an early age, but they were driven out of Central Palestine before the Exodus by Thothmes U1. (Brugsch, Hist. Egyp. i. 825). The Philistines, said to appear on monuments B.C, 1200, and whose Dagon was worshipped at Ashkelon in the 15th cent. B.c., are thought to have been of Cretan origin (Gn 10+), but the remaining tribes bear Semitic names, such as Canaanites (?‘lowlanders’ of Sharon and the Jordan Valley), Perizzites or ‘ villagers’ (?), Kenites or ‘spear- men’ (?), Kenizzites or ‘ hunters’ (ἢ), Kadmonites or ‘easterns.’ The same cannot be said, however, of the Amalekites, who seem to have lived even in Central Palestine (Jg 12", though they are usually spoken of as a tribe in the desert S. of Pales- tine), or of the Girgashites—perhaps near Gergesa. The Hivites in Shechem and near Hermon (but see art. HivirEs) may be ‘villagers,’ and the Rephaim ‘giants’ little Δ ΣΕ ΠΝ from the Anakim, whose last survivors were found near Gath (28 21™) in Philistia, whence the crip Avvim, living in enclosures, were expelled by the Philistines (Dt 2). The population thus seems onion to have instal three distinct stocks, though many of the above names may be descriptive. The Hittites and Amorites alone are monumentally known—the first a hairless race with slanting eyes and pigtails, apparently Mongols ;+ and the latter a darker people, bearded and black-haired, with aquiline Sem. features. The Heb. groups, including Ammonites, Moabites, and the half-breed Ishmael- ites and Edomites, were distinguished by language from the aborigines. Hebrew, Moabite, Pheenician, and the Aram. of Syria (as known from B.C. 900 to 200) are kindred dialects, widely differing from the Eastern Aram. of Assyria and the Babylonian of the Tel el-Amarna letters. The Can. glosses in the latter show, however, thatthe then (c.1450B.c.)inhabitants of Pal. spoke a language akin to Hebrew. See also the many Sem. names quoted below (p.647*). Inthe 3rd cent. B.C. the Phoenician power and language ex- tended over Sharon as far as Joppa, and about the same time the Greeks began to form a new element of i rasan The Romans were never numerous in
*alestine, but during their rule a new Arab element from Yemen entered’ Bashan, and after Omar’s con- quest the old Aram. tribes (including Nabateans and Palmyrenes) became mingled with Arab tribes from the Hajas, whose names still denote districts in the mountains of Western Palestine, while the Bedawin nomads trace their descent also to Arabia in the present day. European elements were added before the crusades, and in the 12th cent. colonists from all parts of Europe were numerous, a Italians and Franks.
Yew Euro and Jewish colonies are now still ἘΠΕΊΠΕΡ; and further elements of population have been due to the transplanting of AvArieas tribes into Palestine by the Assyrians ; to the inroads of the Turks, Mongols, and Turcomans, who have left small tribes behind them in Sharon and Esdraelon; and to the recent importation of Circassians into Bashan, and Bosnians into Sharon. The evidence of language shows that the present peasantry are * On the ‘Amorites’ see also Driver in Hogarth’s Authority — rchceology (Index s. ‘ Amorites’), and in Comm. on Deut. a The order of words in this verse is thought to have suffered dislocation (see Dillm. ad loc., or Sayce, HCM 136; andctf. for the supposed Cretan origin of the Philistines, Am 97 and Dt 2).
Σ Jensen supposes that the Hittites were the ancestors of the modern (Aryan) Armenians (cf. his Hittiter u. Armenier, and a series of papers on ‘The Hittite Inscriptions’ by him and Hommel (who opposes Jensen) in the Expos. Times, 1898-99). The recently discovered texts found by Chantre in Cappa- docia (see translations in The Times of 10th and 24th October 1899) appear to the present writer to show that the Hittite
language was Mongolian. The whole subject is considered a in Conder’s The Hittites and their Language, 1898,
PALESTINE
mainly of Aramaic extraction; they have beer hardly touched by the European element except at Nazareth and Bethlehem: there has, however, been some Greek influence from an early period ; and they use a few Persian and Turkish words ; but their language is an Arabic dialect, though differing considerably from that of the pure Ara or Bedawin nomads, found in the Jordan Valley, the southern deserts, and the eastern plateau, and preserving, in vocabulary, in pronunciation, and In mar, many archaic features of the older Syriac and Aramaic. In the Philistine plain the peasants approach the Egyptians in dress and in appearance, but the general type is very different from that of the Arabs, and 18 similar to that of the Assyrians on the monuments. A very ancient Can. element may be suspected to have survived, modified by a strong infusion of true Arab blood, in the 7th and even as early as the 2nd cent. A.D. The modern Jewish element, which is con- stantly increasing, is entirely foreign, recruited earliest from Spain and Africa, and recently from Russia, Poland, and other European countries. The Turks and Kurds are present only as a ruling class, but Greek blood is no doubt found among the native Christians of the Greek sects, and Italian among Latin Christians. The tall, handsome Druzes of Hermon and Bashan seem, by language, to be partly of Persian origin ; and the Metawileh of Upper Galilee (among whom blue eyes are not uncommon) are also Persian immigrants of the Shi'ah or Persian Moslem creed. Some of the oldest Jerusalem families, however, trace their descent to the pure Arabs who came with Omar. There is no known evidence of the survival of Norman blood derived from crusaders ; and the language which they used has not affected the speech of Syrians, In the OT we have early reference to Aram. speech (Gn 31, Is 36") as distinct from Heb., and to the later mixed language of the Jews in Ashdod (Neh 13). The evidence of inscriptions seems to show that, about the Christian era, a very strong Greek element existed in Bashan, where in one case we have an Aram.-Gr. bilingual of the time of Herod the Great. The dialects spoken between B.C. 900 and 200 are moreover attested, by texts and coins, to have been cognate to ancient Heb. ; and the Greek boundary-stone of Herod’s temple attests the presence of Greeks, even in Jerusalem, about the time of Christ.