4. But the erroneous form Neduchad_n_ezzar is not the only one which entirely militates against the notion of a contemporary writer. There seem to be other mistakes about Babylonian matters into which a person in Daniel's position could not have fallen. Thus the name Belteshazzar seems to be connected in the writer's mind with Bel, the favourite deity of Nebuchadrezzar; but it can only mean _Balatu-utsur_, "his life protect," which looks like a mutilation. Abed-_nego_ is an astonishingly corrupt form for Abed-_nabu_, "the servant of Nebo." Hammelzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Ashpenaz, are declared by Assyriologists to be "out of keeping with Babylonian science." In ii. 48 _signîn_ means a civil ruler;--does not imply Archimagus, as the context seems to require, but, according to Lenormant, a high civil officer. 5. The _Aramaic_ of Daniel closely resembles that of Ezra. Nöldeke calls it a Palestinian or Western Aramaic dialect, later than that of the Book of Ezra.[54] It is of earlier type than that of the Targums of Jonathan and Onkelos; but that fact has very little bearing on the date of the Book, because the differences are slight, and the resemblances manifold, and the Targums did not appear till after the Christian Era, nor assume their present shape perhaps before the fourth century. Further, "recently discovered inscriptions have shown that many of the forms in which the Aramaic of Daniel differs from that of the Targums were actually in use in neighbouring countries down to the first century A.D."[55] 6. Two further philological considerations bear on the age of the Book. i. One of these is the existence of no less than fifteen _Persian_ words (according to Nöldeke and others), especially in the Aramaic part. These words, which would not be surprising after the complete establishment of the Persian Empire, are surprising in passages which describe Babylonian institutions before the conquest of Cyrus.[56] Various attempts have been made to account for this phenomenon. Professor Fuller attempts to show, but with little success, that some of them may be Semitic.[57] Others argue that they are amply accounted for by the Persian trade which, as may be seen from the _Records of the Past_,[58] existed between Persia and Babylonia as early as the days of Belshazzar. To this it is replied that some of the words are not of a kind which one nation would at once borrow from another,[59] and that "no Persian words have hitherto been found in Assyrian or Babylonian inscriptions prior to the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, except the name of the god Mithra."