Abstract
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
|
Part II: A Study of the Names in Genesis
10
Chapter 3
The Descendants of Ham
THE DESCENDANTS
of Japheth and the descendants of Shem are traced reasonably
clearly in subsequent history, but the descendants of Ham present
problems which are not shared by these other two. It is true
that a certain number of listed descendants of Ham are also easily
traceable, for example, Mizraim, Canaan, and Heth. And a number
of tlle cities related to Ham in Genesis 10 present no problems,
having become household words to Bible students. But there are
many names here, about which we have very little information,
yet which may have been ancestors of very substantial portions
of the present world's population. It is certain of these names
we propose to examine, for they bear upon the origin of the so-called
"coloured races."
We have already proposed that Japheth
was indeed "enlarged" to an exceptional degree in his
descendants, not merely in the number of nations ultimately derived
from his family but in their very wide spread over the face of
the earth. Also, this enlargement was gradual enough to occur
without seriously disrupting the natural development of dialectic
differences, which in due course became distinct languages within
the family. In another Doorway Paper (96) it is suggested that the confusion which occurred
at Babel served chiefly as an affliction for the children of
Ham, whose languages have proliferated bewilderingly from very
early times to the present day, a proliferation contributing
in no small measure to the fragmentation of the original family.
The changes which took place in the Semitic family of languages
were remarkably small. And though the changes which took place
in the Japhetic family of languages were somewhat
96. Custance, Arthur, "The Confusion of Languages",
Part V in Time
and Eternity , vol. 6 in The Doorway Papers Series.
pg
1 of 12
greater, they were nevertheless
so orderly as to allow linguists to reconstitute both families
with considerable assurance. In neither of these two families
of language is there any real evidence of "confusion"
in their development. On the other hand, in the languages of
the Hamitic line there is a great deal of confusion, if by "confusion"
we allow the term to mean that dialects rapidly developed between
neighbouring and related tribes as they multiplied, rendering
their speech unintelligible to one another in a remarkably short
space of time. This subject is explored in the Doorway Paper
mentioned above and will not be pursued here, but it is necessary
to introduce this because it bears on the lack of persistence
through passing centuries of Hamitic ancestral names compared
to those in the lines of Japheth and Shem. This makes it much
more difficult to establish lines of connection by the means
of names. In fact, the most important members of Ham's family
bore names which disappeared completely except as preserved in
ancient documents. The names of Ham's sons are not preserved
even in corrupted form in modern times. The sons of Ham were
Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan, but not one of these is held
today by any living representatives in any recognizable form
whatever. Cush subsequently became identified with Ethiopia,
Mizraim with Egypt, Phut with Libya, and Canaan with Palestine,
but the old names passed completely out of use.
On the other hand, many of the
names were bywords for a long time not because there were numerous
descendants, as in the case of Japheth, but rather because of
some single notable achievement. Nimrod was remembered for his
hunting prowess. Many of the cities which are listed as having
been founded by Ham's descendants had notable histories. But
they, too, for the most part ceased to have importance long before
modern times. A notable exception is the city Jerusalem, which
of course is not actually mentioned at all even under its older
name Jebus.
How, then, can one provide substantiating
evidence for the claim that from Ham were descended the coloured
races? The answer is, Only by inference. For example, while there
was a Cush in or near Mesopotamia at the very beginning, the
most prominent settlement established by descendants of this
patriarch was in Ethiopia. The Ethiopians have been habitually
considered true blacks, which is recognized indirectly in Scripture
when the prophet asks, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?"
(Jeremiah 13:23) . The first son of Cush was Seba, and according
to Jervis, this
pg.2
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patriarch was reputedly
the founder of the Kingdom of Jemameh in Arabia. He says: (97)
His tribe,
extending eastward, occupied the coast of Oman, from Cape Musandam
to tle neighbourhood of Ras-el-Had, on the extreme east border
of the peninsula: they are mentioned by Ptolemy under the name
of Asabi. The commercial greatness of this nation is attributed
to their possession of Littus Hammaeum or Gold Coast, and of
tlle port of Maskat, which, from the infancy of navigation, must
have attracted and cornmanded the commerce of India.
It appears that, from thence, they
spread into Africa, across tlle straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Josephus
attests that Saba was an ancient metropolis of the kingdom of
Meroe, in the very fertile region between the Nile and Astaboras
(or Bahr-el-aswad); and that it ultimately received the name
of Meroe after a sister of Cambyses King of Persia, although
Meroe seems rather to be a word of Ethiopic derivation. The ruins
of the ancient Meroe lie four miles to the north-east of Shendy,
in Nubia.
There are other
native African tribes which trace themselves back traditionally
to Ham. The Yoruba (98)
who are black skinned, for example, claim to be descendants of
Nimrod, whereas the Libyians, who are "white" skinned,
are usually traced back to Lehabim, a son of Mizraim. And the
Egyptians were direct descendants of Mizraim. It is therefore
possible that all of Africa, despite the different shades of
colour of its native populations, was initially settled by various
members of this one Hamitic family. There still remains, however,
the vast aggregate of peoples who are generally classified as
Mongoloid, who settled the Far East and the New World. Do they
really appear in this genealogical tree, or must we admit that
the Table of Nations is not comprehensive here?
There are two names which I think
may conceivably provide us with clues. That they should be so
briefly referred to in the genealogy may seem surprising if �
as we are proposing � they gave rise to such enormous populations.
We are referring specifically to Heth, a son of Canaan, and the
Sinites, a tribe presumably descended from Sin, a brother of
Heth.
Heth was, without question, the
father of the Hittites. Except for the work of archaeologists,
however, we should never have known how important the descendants
of this man really were at one point in history, for the Hittite
empire disappeared
97. Jervis, J. J-W., Genesis Elucidated,
Bagster, London, 1872, p.167.
98. Yoruba: see K. C. Murray, "Nigerian Bronzes: Work from
Ife," Antiquity, England, Mar., 1941, p.76.
pg.3
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completely from view
-- or nearly completely. This qualification is necessary if we
allow any weight to an observation made by C. R. Conder. (90) It was his contention
that when the Hittite empire crumbled, all the Hittites of importance
were either killed or fled eastwards. Conder's view was that
the word "Hittite," which appears in Cuneiform as "
Khittae," was borne by the fleeing remnant of this once
powerful nation to the Far East and was preserved through the
centuries in the more familiar form ''Cathay.'' (100) He assumes that they became
a not unimportant part of early Chinese stock. Certainly there
are curious links between them, for example, their modes of dress,
their shoes with turned-up toes, their manner of doing their
hair in a pigtail, and so forth. Representations show them to
have possessed high cheekbones, and craniologists have observed
that they had not a few characteristics of the Mongoloids. More
recently, another possible corroborating link appears in the
discovery that the Hittites mastered the art of casting iron
and the taming of horses, two achievements of great importance,
and recurring very early in Chinese history (101) � long before reaching the West.
It should be observed that linguistic
evidence exists for a Japhetic component in the Hittite empire.
(102) In view of
the fact that their initial expansion took place in Asia Minor,
it is not too surprising that there may have been a mixture of
races within the Empire. It could well be that there was an Indo-European
aristocracy, just as at one point in Egyptian history there was
a Shepherd King (Shemite) aristocracy. George Barton observed:
(103)
Some
features of their speech clearly resemble features of the Indo-European
family of languages, but other features seem to denote Tartar
(i.e., Mongol) affinities. In a number of instances the influence
of the Assyrian language can clearly be traced. The same confusion
presents itself when we study the pictures of Hittites as they
appear in Egyptian reliefs. Two
99. Conder, C. R., "The Canaanites,"
Transactions of the Victoria lustitute, London, vol.24, 1890,
p.51.
100. Chinese used rocket weapons for the first time, called them
"Alsichem Al-Khatai" or "Chinese Arrows".
See Willey Ley, "Rockets", in Scientific American,
May, 1949, p.31.
101. Needham, J., Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge,
1954, vol.1, for horses, pp.81, 83, etc., for cast iron, pp.I,
235, etc.
102. Hittite Indo-Europeans: See for example, O. G. Gurney, The
Hittites, Pelican Books, London, 1952, chap. 6, p.117. And
see the conclusion of George Barton, Archaeology and the Bible,
American Sunday 8chool Union, Philadelphia, 6th edition, 1933,
p.92, fn.
103. Barton, George, ibid., pp.90, 91.
pg.4
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distinct types of face are there portrayed.
One type has high cheekbones, oblique eyes, .and wears a pigtail,
like the people of Mong,olia and China. The other has a cleancut
head and face which resemble somewhat tlhe early Greeks.
This brings
us to Heth's brother whose name was, presumably, Sin. Of this
name there are many occurrences in variant forms through the
Middle East and towards the Far East. One of the characteristics
of Hamitic peoples -- using the term "Hamite" in its
strictly biblical sense and not as anthropologists currently
employ it � is a tendency to deify their ancestors. It has
been suggested that the Ammon of the Egyptians is a case in point,
in which Ham himlself has been deified: the combination in that
same land of No-Ammon may be an extension of this practice back
to Noah himself, who is then associated with his son in the dual
title. The point of direct concern here is that the word "Sin"
became the name of a very important deity, appearing frorn quite
early times until quite late in Assyrian history. The last King
of Sumerian Ur was named "Abi-Sin." The word appears,
of course, in the name Sennacherib (Sin-ahe-erba, i.e., "May
the god Sin multiply [my] brothers''), and as Naran-Sin, etc.
Sin was important enough not only
to have been deified but to have been given the title "I,ord
of Laws". (104) In a hymn from Ur, it is said of him that
it was "he who created law and justice so that mankind has
established laws," and again, "the ordainer of laws
of heaven and earth." Another remarkable circumstance may
stem from this, for if some of his descendants travelled south
into Arabia and settled in a district subsequently known as Sin-ai,
then possibly his reputation as a great codifier of law led to
a tradition which associated Sinai as a place where law was originated.
It is possible that there is some connection between this circumstance
andl God's choice of Mount Sinai as the place where He gave the
Ten Commandments. Moreover, according to Boscawen, the title
"Lord ot Laws," attributed to the deified Sin is, in
the original hymn of Ur, Bel-Terite, and the first syllable is
a gotm of the more familiar ''Baal." And the word "Terite"
is the plural of the form "tertu" meaning "law,"
which itself is the equivalent of the Hebrew ''torah" ("law").
In spite of the fact, therefore,
that the patriarch Sin receives scant mention in Genesis 10,
he was a very important individual.
104. Boscawen, W. St. Chad, The Bible and
the Monuments, Eyre ancl Spottiswoode, London, 1896, p.64.
pg.5
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He may further have had
his name preserved in the modern term "China." Although
Perry espoused a view of culture growth which has corne into
general disrepute because of its over-simplification, he nevertheless
rnay be essentially correct in the statements which he makes
showing the Chinese civilization as having come from the West.
Not a few Cuneiform scholars have noted how similar, in some
respects, was Sumerian to Chinese. Now, Perry says: (l05)
There is one significant feature
concerning the possible mode of origin of Chinese civilization
tlat well merits attention. Tlle place most closely associated
by tle Chinese themselves with the origin of their civilization
is the capital of Shensi, namely, Siang-fu (Father Sin). Siangfu,
on the Wei, a tributary of the Yellow River, is near important
gold and jade mines.
It is surely
significant that Sinai was equally important as a place of mines.
The name "Sin," according to Dillmann, (106) is met with in Assyrian
in the form "Sianu." It would not be difficult for
"Father Sin" to become "Father Sian" or,
with a slight nasalization, "Siang," in Chinese "Sianfu."
The Chinese have a tradition that their first king, Fu-hi, made
his appearance on the Mountains of Chin immediately after the
world had been covered with water. (107) Sin himself was the third generation from Noah, a
circumstance which, if the identification is justified, would
provide about the right time interval.
Moreover, the people who early
traded with the Scythians and who came from the Far East were
called "Sinae," and their most important town was "Thinae,"
a great trading emporium in western China. (107) This city is now known as "Thsin" or simply
"Tin," and it lies in the province of Shensi.
The Sinae became independent in
western China, their princes reigning there for some 650 years
before they finally gained dominion over the whole land. In the
third century B.C. the dynasty of Tsin became supreme in the
Empire. The word itself came to have the meaning of "purebred."
This word was assumed as a title by the Manchu Emperors and is
believed to have been changed by the Malays into the form "Tchina"
and
105 Perry, W. J., The Growth of Civilization,
Pelican Books, London, 1937, p125.
106. Dillmann, A., Genesis: Critically and Exegetically Expounded,
T, & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1897, vol.1, p.367.
107. Inglis, J., Notes on the Book of Genesis, Gall and
Inglis, London, 1877, p.89, footnote to verse 28.
108. Fausset, A. R., "Sinim," Bible Cyclopedia:
Critical and Expository, Funk and Wagnalls, London, no date,
p.655.
pg.6
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from them through the
Portuguese brought into Europe as "China." Some years
ago the newspapers regularly carried headlines with reference
to the conflict between the Japanese and Chinese in which the
ancient name reappeared in its original form, for they commonly
spoke of the Sino-Japanese war.
Arrian in A.D. 140 (109) speaks of the Sinae or
Thinae as a people in the remotest parts of Asia. One is reminded
of the reference to the Sinim in Isaiah 49:12 as coming "from
afar," but specifically not from the north and not from
the west.
Reverting once more to Conder's
observation with respect to the "far Cathay" of Medieval
reference, it would make sense to suppose that the remnants of
the Hittites after the destruction of their Empire travelled
towards the East and settled among the Sinites who were relatives,
contributing to their civilization certain arts, chiefly metallurgy
(especially the casting of iron) and being so absorbed subsequently
as to disappear entirely from history as a distinct people.
The finding of prehistoric man
in the Choukoutien Caves with skeletal remains variant enough
to bridge from the western limits of types in China to types
in the Nev World has seemed to many to be clear evidence that
those who settled the New World passed through Cllina. That the
New World was peopled by a Mongoloid stock is generally agreed,
although there is some evidence of a small Negroid component.
(1l0) The evidence,
it is true, is slim, but what evidence there is appears to me
to point consistently in the same direction, supporting our initial
contention that not only Africa with its black races, but the
Far East and the Americas with their coloured races were all
descendants of Ham.
There is one further illustration
of how the descendants of Ham may have contributed uniquely to
Japhetic civilization, in this case, the Roman. The contribution
made to Japhetic culture by the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the
Cretans, and later the Chinese, and the American Indians, is
explored in detail in Part IV of this volume, "The Technology
of Hamitic People." The contribution made by the Etruscans
is similarly pointed out in that Paper. The origin of the Etruscans,
even though they have
109. Arrian: as quoted by C. A. Gordon, "Notes
on the Ethnology and Ancient Chronology of China,'' Transactions
of the Victoria Institute, London, vol.23, 1889, p.170.
110. Taylor, Griffith, Environment, Race and Migration,
University of Toronto, 1945, p.256. See also E. A. Hooten, Apes,
Men and Morons, Putnam's Sons, London, 1937, p.185.
pg.7
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been studied and puzzled
over intensively for over a hundred years, is still a mystery.
I should like to suggest that there is one name in the list of
Ham's descendants which might conceivably be a reference to their
forebear, namely Resen (verse 19).
Resen is said to have been a city.
It is characteristic of the earliest towns and cities mentioned
in Genesis that they were named after their founders or their
founders' children. Cain built a city and called it after the
name of his son, Enoch, according to Genesis 4:17. There is little
doubt that the Unuk, and later Uruk, of Cuneiform inscriptions
reflects this. As we have shown elsewhere, this early settlement
became known as Erech in due time, and much later as Warka. It
gave rise to a word meaning "city" (111) which has come into English as "burg."
We have noted also that Sidon is first mentioned as the firstborn
son of Canaan, but a few verses later as the name of a city (verses
15 and 19). Similarly, the Jebusites, presumably descendants
of a man named Jebus, lived in a stronghold named originally
after their ancestor. So I think it quite probable that when
Nimrod went up from southern Babylonia into Assyria and built
Nineveh and Resen, among other tovns, he was naming the city
of Resen either from a forebear or after an immediate relative.
It is not strictly required to demonstrate that the Etruscans
were a kind of colonizing fragment originating from this particular
settlement founded by Nimrod. All I am proposing is that an ancestor
whose name was Resen not only achieved sufficient importance
to have an ancient city named after him in Assyria, but also
to have given rise to a people who grew powerful enough and large
enough to migrate up into Europe and into the north of Italy,
from which they multiplied, and became wealthy and cultured enough
to inspire the Japhetic Romans to adopt a very large part of
their art, law, custom, and technology as their own, making scarcely
any improvement on it.
The question is, Can we reasonably
establish the propriety of deriving the more familiar word "Etruscan"
from an ancient Resen; of tracing these same people back to the
Middle East and close proximity to Assyria; and of establishing
their racial affinity as neither Indo-European nor Shemitic.
The answer to all three of these questions can be stated in the
affirmative with some assurance on the following grounds.
To begin with, it can be stated
simply that the people of
1l1. City: Eisler, R., "Loan Words in
Semitic Languages Meaning 'Town'," Antiguity, Dec.,
1939, pp.449ff.
pg.8
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Etruria or Tuscany were
called by the early Greeks Tyrsenoi. By the early Romans they
were called Etrusci. But in classic Latin times, they called
themselves Rasena. (112)
According to Herodotus, (113) these people came from
Lydia. They claimed to have invented, during a very protracted
famine in the land, a series of games, including dice. These
were subsequently introduced into northern Italy and into Greece
as a result of the following circumstance. The situation finally
became so serious that it was decided to divide the nation in
half, one half emigrating from Lydia in the hope of saving the
other. The king's son was named Tyrrhenus, and he became the
leader by appointment of that half of the nation which left Lydia.
After sailing past many "countries," they came to a
place which Herodotus calls "Umbria" (apparently almost
the whole of northern Italy is intended) where they built cities
for themselves. They laid aside their former name of Lydians
and called themselves after the name of the king's son, Tyrrheneans.
That these people, the Etruscans,
did come from Asia Minor is confirmed on linguistic and other
grounds. Professor Joshua Whatmought says, "There is scarcely
room any longer to doubt the Anatolian aflmities of the Etruscans."
Raymond Bloch (115)
on the basis of linguistic evidence believes that the Etruscans
belonged to a loosely interrelated family of people who inhabited
the shores of the Mediterranean, including those of Asia Minor,
before the Indo-European invasion upset the patterns of the region,
an invasion which came in the second millennium B.C. He considers
the Etruscans to be a "pocket" of such displaced people,
and that this explains the similarity between their religious
and social customs and those of certain peoples of Asia Minor.
Many years ago, Prof. E. St. John
Parry (116) presented
evidence to show that the Pelasgians who, like the Etruscans,
built Megalithic monuments, may have been disturbed at the same
time by the same circumstance and moved out from Asia Minor along
with them, subsequently being confused with them by early historiographers.
112. Rouse, M. L., "Bible Pedgree of
the Nations of the World", Transactions of the Victoria
Institute, vol.38, 1906, p.93.
113. Herodotus, History, vol.1, Everymans, London, 1936,
pp.50, 51.
114. Whatmough, Joshua, in a review of "The Foundations
of Roman Italy," Antiquity, vol.11, 1937, p.363.
115. Bloch, Raymond, "The Etruscans," Scientific American,
Feb., 1962, p.87.
116. Parry, E. St. John, "On Some Points Connected With
the Early History of Rome," Canadian Journal, Apr., 1854,
p.219.
pg.9
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One
thing seems well established, and that is their language was
neither Indo-European nor Semitic. (117) It seems fairly safe to assume (though language is
by no means a safe guide in the matter) that they were themselves
racially distinct from the Indo-Europeans. (118) A relationship has also been proposed with certain
other "pockets" � the Basques, for example. (119)
We have mentioned the tradition
which ascribes to the Etruscans or Racena the invention of dice.
Years ago a pair of dice were found with the numbers apparently
written out upon them instead of merely being indicated by dots.
Shortly after their discovery, the Rev. Isaac Taylor presented
a paper (120) before
the Victoria Institute in London in which he showed that the
most probable interpretation of the numerals was to be found
by reference to allied terms in Finnic, Altaic, and Basque. A
few years later, while the subject was still a very live issue
� as indeed it still is � a paper was presented by a
Mr. R. Brown (121)
before the same Institute in which, in an appendix, some further
Etruscan words are compared to certain Sumerian words. We are,
then, coming perhaps even nearer to the ancient Resen of Genesis
10.
In his Origin of Nations,
Rawlinson (122)
draws attention to the fact that certain Etruscan bronzes are
decorated or adorned with figures in rows, exhibiting sphinxes
and human beings which, he suggests, are not unlike similar processions
of figures found near Nineveh. These Assyrian parallels were
discovered by Layard and reported in his famous work, Discoveries
in the Ruins of Babylon and Nineveh. Of these, Layard wrote
as follows: (123)
A second
bowl, 7/2 inches in diameter and 3/4 inches deep, has in the
centre a medallion and on the sides in a very high relief two
lions and two sphinxes . . . wearing a collar, feathers, and
a headdress formed by a disc with two uraei. Both bowls are remarkable
for the boldness of the relief and the archaic
117. Fiesel, Eva, "The Inscriptions on
the Etruscan Bulla," American Journal of Archaeology, June,
1935, p.196.
118. MacIvor, D. R., "The Etruscans," Antiquity,
June, 1927, p.162.
119. Basques: Everyman's Encyclopedia, vol.5, Dent, London,
1913, p.544.
120. Taylor, Isaac, "On the Etruscan Languages," Transactions
of the Victoria Institute, London, vol.10, 1876, p.179-206.
121. Brown, R., special note on "The Etruscans," Transactions
of the Victoria Institute, London, vol.14, 1881, p.352-354.
122. Rawlinson, G., The Origin of Nations, Scribners,
New York, 1878, p.123.
123. Layard, A. H., Discoveries in the Ruins of Babylon and
Nineveh, Murray, London, 1853, p.189.
pg.10
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treatment of the figures, in this respect
resembling tbe ivories previously discovered at Nimroud
They forcibly call to mind the
early remains of Greece, and especially the metal work and painted
pottery found in very ancient tomls in Etruria, which they so
closely resernble not only in design but in subject, the same
mythic animals and the same ornaments being introduced, that
we cannot but attribute to both the same origin.
Layard emphasizes
this impression by illustrating his point with woodcuts in the
text, which show that the figures found on a bronze pedestal
at Powledrara in Etruria "are precisely similar to those
upon a fragment of a dish brought from Nineveh." A thread
of evidence carries us back, therefore, to the very environs
of Nineveh where the city of Resen was situated.
There is a further piece of evidence
leading us back to the same earlier source. It is of a slightly
different nature though equally suggestive. The Romans annually
celebrated a festival called the "Festival of Saturnus,"
or "Saturnalia," during which law courts were closed,
school children had a holiday, and all business was suspended.
One remarkable custom was the "liberation" or "freeing"
of all slaves, who were allowed to say whatever they wished about
their masters, took part in a banquet attired in their masters'
clothes, and were waited upon by them at table. This period of
freedom lasted about one week.
The origin of this festival, according
to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,
is not certain. (124)
In one legend it was attributed to the Pelasgians. In view of
the fact that so many of the features of earlier Roman culture,
including their ceremonies, are directly attributable to the
Etruscans, and that the Etruscans and Pelasgians were sometimes
confused with one another, it seems possible that this strange
practice of giving slaves a week of complete liberty, indeed
of licence, was originally introduced by the Etruscans.
It is therefore highly significant,
I think, that when Prof. Pinches read a paper before the Victoria
Institute entitled, "Notes upon Some of the Recent Discoveries
in the Realm of Assyriology," he referred to one inscription
of the famous Gudea who stated that after he had built Eninnu
(a house or temple), he "released bonds and confirmed benefits.
For seven days obedience was not exacted, the maid was made like
her mistress,
124. "Saturnalia": Smith's Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Antiquities, vol.2, Murray, London, 3rd
edition, 1901, p.600.
pg.11
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and the manservant like
his lord." In commenting on this, Prof. Pinches (125) remarks:
Of course, the Sumerians were
slave-holders, but they seem to have been of a kindly disposition,
and to have treated their slaves well. In this case seven days'
holiday are said to have been given them, and this is the only
Cuneiform record known of such a thing.
It is indeed
remarkable that there should be such a hiatus of so many centuries
of absence of reference to this custom from Gudea to Roman times,
yet evidently the custom was transmitted somehow, and it would
seem most logical to assume that the transmitters were the Racina,
the descendants of a certain Resen who were familiar with Assyrian
culture.
In summary, then, we have a people
calling themselves Rasena, after an ancestor whose name could
easily be a form of the more ancient Resen, starting in Assyria,
settling in Lydia from which they later emigrated to northern
Italy, speaking a language neither Semitic nor Indo-European,
pre-eminently city-builders (as though continuing the tradition
of their ancestor), and still producing works of art for which
quite exact parallels have been found in the very locality in
which Genesis 10 states the city of Resen was built.
It may be that just as Sidon was
remembered by a city named for him, so the city of Resen commemorated
a patriarch whose descendants, long after the city had disappeared
from view, multiplied and carried on their inherited tradition
of city life as well as the name of their forebear and settled
in Etruria, where they made a tremendous contribution to the
basic Roman civilization which has become in time our own.
125. Pinches, T. G., "Notes Upon Some
of the Recent Discoveries in the Realm of Assyriology with Special
Reference to the Private Life of the Babylonians," Transactions
of the Victoria Institute, London, vol.26, 1892, p.139.
pg.12
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Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
reserved
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