History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) — John Shaqi
History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12)Maspero, G. (Gaston)
History
History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12)
Maspero, G. (Gaston)
Civilization, Ancient; Egypt -- History -- To 640 A.D.; History, Ancient; Middle East -- History
There are two points which seem to me of sufficient importance
to justify my expression of dissent from his views. These are the
geographical situation of the land of Magan, and the historical
character of the annals of Sargon of Accad. The evidence about Magan is
very clear. Magan is usually associated with the country of Melukhkha,
"the salt" desert, and in _every_ text in which its geographical
position is indicated it is placed in the immediate vicinity of Egypt.
Thus Assur-bani-pal, after stating that he had "gone to the lands of
Magan and Melukhkha," goes on to say that he "directed his road to
Egypt and Kush," and then describes the first of his Egyptian campaigns.
Similar testimony is borne by Esar-haddon. The latter king tells us that
after quitting Egypt he directed his road to the land of Melukhkha, a
desert region in which there were no rivers, and which extended "to the
city of Rapikh" (the modern Raphia) "at the edge of the wadi of Egypt"
(the present Wadi El-Arish). After this he received camels from the king
of the Arabs, and made his way to the land and city of Magan. The Tel
el-Amarna tablets enable us to carry the record back to the fifteenth
century b.c. In certain of the tablets now as Berlin (Winckler and Abel,
42 and 45) the Phoenician governor of the Pharaoh asks that help should
be sent him from Melukhkha and Egypt: "The king should hear the words of
his servant, and send ten men of the country of Melukhkha and twenty men
of the country of Egypt to defend the city [of Gebal] for the king." And
again, "I have sent [to] Pharaoh" (literally, "the great house") "for a
garrison of men from the country of Melukhkha, and... the king has
just despatched a garrison [from] the country of Melukhkha." At a still
earlier date we have indications that Melukhkha and Magan denoted the
same region of the world. In an old Babylonian geographical list which
belongs to the early days of Chaldsean history, Magan is described as
"the country of bronze," and Melukhkha as "the country of the _samdu_,"
or "malachite." It was this list which originally led Oppert, Lenormant,
and myself independently to the conviction that Magan was to be looked
for in the Sinaitic Peninsula. Magan included, however, the Midian of
Scripture, and the city of Magan, called Makkan in Semitic Assyrian, is
probably the Makna of classical geography, now represented by the ruins
of Mukna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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