part of packed earth about 6 feet 6 inches at the base and sloping toward the top. This bank of earth was protected by a covering of small stones about 8 inches in depth. This rampart never could have been of much value in warfare, and was, perhaps, meant as a protection against incursions of wild animals.

In the hillsides around Gezer there are many caves which were probably human habitations during this period, but as they have been open during many centuries, traces of their early occupation have long since been destroyed. At Beit Jibrin, six or eight hours to the south of Gezer, there are also many caves in the rock, numbers of which are artificial. At various periods these have been employed as residences. It is altogether probable that the use of some of them goes back to the time of the cave-dwellers of Gezer.

Mr. Macalister has suggested a connection between these cavedwellers of Gezer and the Biblical Horites,' since Horite means "cave-dweller." In the Bible the Horites are said to have dwelt to the east of the Jordan, and more especially in Edom (Gen. 14:6; 36:20, 21, 29; Deut. 2:12, 22). It seems probable that the reason why the Bible places them all beyond Jordan is that the cave-dwellers had disappeared from western Palestine centuries before the Hebrews came, while to the east of the Jordan they lingered on until displaced by those who were more nearly contemporary with the Hebrews. On the west of the Jordan megalithic monuments were probably once numerous, since traces of them still survive in Galilee and Judæa,2 but later divergent civilizations have removed most of them. In the time of Amos one of these "gilgals" was used by the Hebrews as a place of worship, of which the prophet did not approve.3

It seems probable that there was a settlement of these cavedwellers at Jerusalem. The excavations of Capt. Parker brought to light an extensive system of caves around the Virgin's Fountain, Ain Sitti Miriam, as the Arabs call it, which is the Biblical Gihon.* These caves are far below the present surface of the ground. It was found, too, that there would be no spring at this point at all, if some early men had not walled up the natural channel in the rock down which the water originally ran. These men, judging by the fragments of pottery and the depth of the débris, belonged

1 R. A. S. Macalister, Bible Side-lights from the Mound of Gezer, London, 1906, Chapter II. 2 See P. E. Mader in Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, Vol. XXXVII, 1914, pp. 20-44. See Amos 4:4; 5: 5.

See Dr. Masterman, in Biblical World, XXXIX, 301, f.

to about the same period as the cave-dwellers of Gezer. They apparently settled at this point because of the water, and one of the caves may have been a sanctuary to their god. A new vista is thus added to the history of that city, which was later the scene of so much Biblical life.

From various archæological considerations Mr. Macalister estimated that the diminutive cave-dwelling men lived at Gezer for about 500 years, from 3000 to 2500 B. C., when they were displaced by a Semitic people.

3. The Amorites.-We are accustomed to call this Semitic people Amorites, and it is probable that this is right. About 2800 B. C., under a great king named Sargon,1 a city of Babylonia called Uru, or Amurru,' and Agade conquered all of Babylonia. The dynasty founded by Sargon was Semitic and ruled Babylonia for 197 years. Even before Sargon conquered Babylonia, Lugalzaggisi, King of Erech, had penetrated to the Mediterranean coast. Sargon and two of his successors, Naram-Sin and Shargali-sharri, carried their conquests to the Mediterranean lands. A seal of the last-mentioned king was found in Cyprus. It is probable that the coming of the Amorites began in the north with the conquests of these kings. To the east of the Lebanon the Princeton expedition found stone structures similar to Babylonian Ziggurats, which they attribute to the Amorites, and hold to indicate the prevalence of Babylonian influence in this region. It is probable that the Amorites slowly worked southward, occupying different cities as they went. Mr. Macalister's estimate that they reached Gezer about 2500 B. C. is not, therefore, unreasonable, though they may have arrived there a century earlier than that. This was the beginning of that long intercourse with Babylonia which resulted in the employment of the Babylonian language and script for the purpose of expressing written thought in Palestine long after the Egyptians had conquered the country. This intercourse was the more natural because the Semites who came to Palestine were of the same race as those who were dominant in Babylonia.

Meantime, the Egyptians had begun to take notice of Palestine. Uni, an officer of Pepi I of the sixth Egyptian dynasty, relates that he crossed the sea in ships to the back of the height of the ridge

1 See the legend concerning him translated in Part II, p. 310, f.

*See Clay, Amurru, Philadelphia, 1909, pp. 102, 103.

'See Recueil de travaux relatifs à phil. et à arch. espt. et assyr., XXXIV, 105–108.

north of the "sand-dwellers" and punished the inhabitants.1 This refers to the coast of Palestine in the neighborhood of the Philistine cities or Gezer. The time was between 2600 and 2570 B. C. Egypt was at this time only anxious to make her own borders secure; she had no desire to occupy this Asiatic land.

Again, between 2300 and 2200 B. C., a fresh migration of Semites, apparently also of the Amorite branch, invaded Babylonia and in time made the city of Babylon the head of a great empire. This race furnished the first dynasty of Babylon, which ruled from 2210 to 1924 B. c. Its greatest king, Hammurapi, who gave to Babylonia a code of laws in the vernacular language,3 conquered the "west land," which means the Mediterranean coast. It was probably under his successor, Shamsu-iluna, but certainly under one of the kings of this period, that a man in Sippar, in leasing a wagon for a year, stipulated that it should not be driven to the Mediterranean coast, because, apparently, travel between that coast and northern Babylonia was so frequent. In this same period there lived in Babylonia an Abraham, the records of some of whose business documents have come down to us.5 We also find there men who bore the names Yagubilu (Jacobel) and Yashubilu (Josephel), and one who was called simply Yagub, or Jacob. Palestinian evidence from a later time leads us to believe that men bearing all these names migrated during this period to Palestine and gave their names to cities which they either built or occupied."

It

Egyptians also came to Palestine during this period. The tale of Sinuhe relates the adventures of a man who fled to Palestine in the year 1970 B. C., and who reached the land of Kedem, or the East, which apparently lay to the east of the Jordan. is referred to several times in the old Testament. (See Gen. 29 : 1; Judges 6:3, 33; 7: 12; 8: 10; Job 1:3, etc.) Sinuhe there entered the service of an Amorite chieftain, Ammienshi, married his eldest daughter, became ruler of a portion of his land, and lived there for many years. He finally returned to Egypt and wrote an account of his adventures. This region was also called by Sinuhe

1 See Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt, Vol. I, Chicago, 1906, § 315.

2 See Chapter II, p. 59.

3 Translated in Part II, p. 313, f.

4 See Part II, p. 293.

5 See Part II, p. 290, ff.

6 See Part II. p. 299, ff.

7 See Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt, I, p. 233, f.

8 See Barton, Commentary on Job, New York, 1911, pp. 5-7, and Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt, I, p. 238, note a.

and other Egyptians Upper Retenu, a name which they also applied to all the higher parts of Syria and Palestine. Retenu is philologically equivalent to Lotan (Gen. 36: 20, 22, 29; 1 Chron. 1:38, 39) and Lot (Gen. 11:27; 12: 4, etc.). When Sinuhe arrived in Kedem he found other Egyptians already there. Ammienshi was well acquainted with Egyptians. There was apparently considerable trade with Egypt at this time. Men from Palestine often went there for this purpose. Such traders are pictured on an Egyptian tomb of this period. Trade with Egypt is also shown to have existed by the discovery of Egyptian scarabs of the time of the Middle Kingdom in the excavation of Gezer, Jericho, Taanach, and Megiddo. As Egypt was nearer and commerce with it easier, its art affected the art of Palestine during this period more than did the art of Babylon, although the people were akin to the Babylonians. In the reign of Sesostris III, 1887-1849 B. c., the Egyptian king sent an expedition into Palestine, and captured a place, called in Egyptian Sekmem, which is thought by some to be a misspelling of Shechem. This expedition probably stimulated Egyptian influence in the country, though the Egyptians established no permanent control over the land at this time,

When the Amorites occupied Palestinian cities they at once erected fortifications. The inmost of the three walls of Gezer is their work. It was a wall about 13 feet in thickness, in which were towers 41 feet long and 24 feet thick and about 90 feet apart. It contained at least two gates.2 At Megiddo the city was surrounded by a wall, parts of which were made of brick,3 while at Jericho the older of the walls of the central citadel dates from this time.*

4. The Canaanites.-Between 1800 and 1750 B. C. a migration occurred which greatly disturbed all western Asia. There moved into Babylonia from the east a people called Kassites. They conquered Babylonia and established a dynasty which reigned for 576 years. Coincident with this movement into Babylonia there was a migration across the whole of Asia to the westward, which caused an invasion of Egypt and the establishment of the Hyksos dynasties there. As pointed out previously, it is possible that

1 See Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt, § 630, and Barton in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. XXVIII, p. 29.

2 Macalister. Excavation of Gezer, I, 238-243 and 253.

* Tell el-Mutesellim, Tafeln, vii-xi.

4 See Chapter IV. p. 96.

5 See Chapter II, p. 59, f.

6 See Chapter I, p. 28.

7 See Chapter III, p. 75, f.

this movement, in so far as the leadership of the invasion of Egypt was concerned, was Hittite. In any event, however, many Semites were involved in it, as the Semitic names in the Egyptian Delta at this time prove. It is customary to assume that it was in connection with this migration that the Canaanites came into Palestine. This cannot, in the present state of our knowledge, be clearly proved, but such evidence as we have points in this direction. There began at this time a new period of culture at Gezer, which is quite distinguishable from that which had preceded. This indicates the coming of new influences. Moreover, there was apparently an augmentation of the population of Palestine at this time. New cities were founded at Tell el-Hesy and Tell es-Safi,' and elsewhere. We thus feel sure that there was an increase of population and, when next our written sources reveal to us the location of the nations, the Canaanites were dwelling in Phoenicia. The Egyptian scribes of a later time called the entire western part of Syria and Palestine "The Canaan." Probably, therefore, the Canaanites settled along the sea coast. We, therefore, infer that they came into this region at this time. With the coming of an increased population, the Amorites appear to have been in part subjugated and absorbed, and in part forced into narrower limits. A powerful group of them maintained their integrity in the region afterward occupied by the tribe of Asher and in the valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains, where they afterward formed a kingdom. Another group of them survived to the east of the Jordan, where they maintained a kingdom until overthrown by the Hebrews. (See Num. 21 and Deut. 1-3.)

After the coming of the Canaanites our information concerning the history of Palestine fails us for nearly three hundred years. All that we know of the history of the country is what can be inferred from the accumulated débris of the "second Semitic" strata of the different mounds that have been excavated. During these centuries Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos, whose course was run, and under the great eighteenth dynasty the Hyksos were expelled, chased into Asia, and the conquest of Asia undertaken.

5. Egyptian Domination.-Ahmose I, 1580-1557 B. C., besieged Sharuhen (Josh. 19:6) in southern Palestine for six years and captured it, while both Amenophis I and Thothmes I between 1557

1 See Chapter IV, pp. 89, 91.

* See Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt, III, § 616.