In the ancient Egyptian inscriptions Ethiopia above Egypt is termed Keesh or Kesh, and this territory prob- ably corresponds perfectly to the African Cush of the Bible (Wilkinson, Anc.Eg.i, 404, abridgment). The Cushites, however, had clearly a wider extension, like tlie Ethiopians of the Greeks, but apparently with a more definite ethnic relation. The settlements of the sons and descendants of Cush mentioned in Gen. x, may be traced from Merod to Babylon, and probably on to Nineveh. Thus the Cushites appear to have spread along tracts extending from the higher Nile to the Euphrates and Tigris. Philological and ethnolog- ical data lead to the same conclusion. There are strong reasons for deriving the non-Shemitic primitive language of Babylonia, variously called by scholars Cushite and Scythic, ttom an ante-Shemitic dialegt of Ethiopia, and for supposing two streams of migration fh>m Africa into Asia in very remote i>eriods ; the one of Nigritians through the present Malayan region, the other and later one of Cu^ites, ** from Ethiopia prop- erly so called, through Arabia, Babylonia, and Penia, to Western India" (Poole, Genesis oftheEarlk, p. 214 sq.). Sur H. Bawlinson has brought forward remarka- ble evidence tending to trace the early Babylonians to Ethiopia, particuhirly the simUarity of their mode of writing to the Egyptian, and the indication in the tra- ditions of Babylonia and Ass3rria of **a connection in very early times between Ethiopia, Southern Arabia
CUSH
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and the cities on the Lower Eaphrates/* the Cnshite name of Nimrod himself as a deified hero being the same as that by which MeroC is called in the Assyrian inscriptions (Rawlinson's Herod, i, 853 n.). History affords many traces of this relation of Babylonia, Ara- bia, and Ethiopia. Zerah the Cnshite (A^V. '* Ethi- opian"), who was defeated by Asa, was most probably a king of Egypt, certainly the leader of an Egyptian army ; the dynasty then ruling (the 22d) bears names that have caused it to be supposed to have had a Bab- ylonian or Assyrian origin, as Sheehonk, Shishak, Sheshak; Namuret, Nimrod ; Tekrat,Teklut,Tighith. The early spread of the Mizraites Ulustrates that of the Cushites [see Caphtob] ; it may be considered as a part of one great system of migrations. On these grounds we suppose that these Hamite races, very soon after their arrival in Africa, began to spread to the east, to the north, and to the west ; the Cushites estab- lishhig settlements along the southern Arabian coast, on the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf and in Baby- lonia, and thence onward to the Indus, and probably northward to Nineveh; and the Mizraites spreading along the south and east shores of the Mediterranean, on part of the north shore, and in the great islands. These must have been seafaring peoples, not wholly unlike the modem Malays, who have similarly spread on the shores of the Indian Ocean. They may be al- ways traced where very massive architectural remains are seen, where the native language is partly Turanian and partly Shemitic, and where the native religion is partly cosmic or high-nature worship, and partly fe- tichbm or low-nature worship. These indications do not fail in any settlement of Cushites or Mizraites with which we are well acquainted. See Ethkoloot.
But that part of this vast region of Cush which seems chiefly intended in these and most other pas- sages of Scripture is the tract of country in Upper Nubia which became famous in antiquity as the fcing- dom ofEthiopiOy or the state of MeroS. The Ethiopian nations generally ranked low in the scale of civiliza- tion; ** nevertheless," says Heeren, ** there did exist a better cultivated, and, to a certain degree, a civ- ilized Ethiopian people, who dwelt in cities; who erected temples and other edifices ; who, though with- out letters, had hieroglyphics ; who had government and laws ; and the fame of whose progress in knowl- edge and the social arts spread in the earliest ages over a considerable part of the earth." Mero6 Prop- er lay between the river Astaboras (now the Atbara or Tacazz6) on the east, and the Nile on the west. Though not completely enclosed with rivers, it was called an island, because, as Pliny observes, the vari- ous streams which flowed around it were all considered as branches of the Nile, so that to it the above de- scription of a " country of rivers^' was peculiarly ap- propriate. Its surface exceeded that of Sicily more than a half, and it corresponded pretty nearly to the present province of Atbara, between 18° and 18° N. lat. In modem times it formed a great part of the kingdom of Sennaar, and the southern portion belongs to Abyssinia. Upon the island of Merod lay a city of the same name, the metropolis of the kingdom, the site of which has been discovered near a place called Assur, about twenty miles north of the town of Shen- dy,-under 17° N. lat. The splendid mins of temples, pyramids, and other edifices found here and through- out the district have been described by Caillaud, Gau, R&ppell, Belzoni, Waddington, Hoskins, and other ravellers, and attest the high degree of civilization and art among the ancient Ethiopians. See Mero^.
Josephus, in his account of the expedition of Moses when commander of the Egyptian army against the Ethiopians, says that the latter ''at length retired to Saba, a royal city of Ethiopia which Cambyses after- wards called Merofi, after the name of his own sister" (j4 nf . ii, 10, 2). The same origin of the name is given both by Strabo and Diodoras Siculus, but see Man-