* The state of Karduniash, whose name appears for the first time on the monuments of the Cossaean period, has been localised in a somewhat vague manner, in the south of Babylonia, in the country of the Kashdi, and afterwards formally identified with the _Countries of the Sea_, and with the principality which was called Bit-Yakin in the Assyrian period. In the Tel-el-Amarna tablets the name is already applied to the entire country occupied by the Cossaean kings or their descendants, that is to say, to the whole of Babylonia. Sargon II. at that time distinguishes between an Upper and a Lower Karduniash; and in consequence the earliest Assyriologists considered it as an Assyrian designation of Babylon, or of the district surrounding it, an opinion which was opposed by Delitzsch, as he believed it to be an indigenous term which at first indicated the district round Babylon, and afterwards the whole of Babylonia. From one frequent spelling of the name, the meaning appears to have been _Fortress of Duniash_; to this Delitzsch preferred the translation _Garden of Duniash_, from an erroneous different reading--Ganduniash: Duniash, at first derived from a Chaldaean God _Dun_, whose name may exist in _Dunghi_, is a Cossaean name, which the Assyrians translated, as they did Buriash, _Belmatati_, lord of the country. Winckler rejects the ancient etymology, and proposes to divide the word as Kardu-niash and to see in it a Cossaean translation of the expression _mat-kaldi_, country of the Caldaeans: Hommel on his side, as well as Delitzsch, had thought of seeking in the Chaldaeans proper--_Kaldi_ for _Kashdi_, or _Kash-da_, "domain of the Cossaeans "--the descendants of the Cossaeans of Karduniash, at least as far as race is concerned. In the cuneiform texts the name is written Kara--D. P. Duniyas, "the Wall of the god Duniyas" (cf. the Median Wall or Wall of Semiramis which defended Babylonia on the north). The people of Sumir and Akkad, already a composite of many different races, absorbed thus another foreign element, which, while modifying its homogeneity, did not destroy its natural character. Those Cossaean tribes who had not quitted their own country retained their original barbarism, but the hope of plunder constantly drew them from their haunts, and they attacked and devastated the cities of the plain unhindered by the thought that they were now inhabited by their fellow-countrymen. The raid once over, many of them did not return home, but took service under some distant foreign ruler--the Syrian princes attracting many, who subsequently became the backbone of their armies,* while others remained at Babylon and enrolled themselves in the body-guard of the kings.