The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
The traditions of the Armenians are in accordance with those of the
Greeks. The Armenian Geography applies the name of Cush, or Ethiopia, to
the four great regions, Media, Persia, Susiana or Elymais, and Aria, or
to the whole territory between the Indus and the Tigris. Moses of
Chorene, the great Armenian historian, identifies Belus, King of Babylon,
with Nimrod; while at the same time he adopts for him a genealogy only
slightly different from that in our present copies of Genesis, making
Nimrod the grandson of Cush, and the son of Mizraim. He thus connects,
in the closest way, Babylonia, Egypt, and Ethiopia Proper, uniting
moreover, by his identification of Nimrod with Belus, the Babylonians of
later times who worshipped Belus as their hero-founder, with the
primitive population introduced into the country by Nimrod.
The names of Belus and Cush, thus brought into juxtaposition, have
remained attached to some portion or other of the region in question from
ancient times to the present day. The tract immediately east of the
Tigris was known to the Greeks as Cissia or Cossaea, no less than as
Elymais or Elam. The country east of Kerman was named Kusan throughout
the Sassanian period. The same region is now Beloochistan, the country
of the Belooches or Belus, while adjoining it on the east is Cutch, or
Kooch, a term standing to Cush is Belooch stands to Belus. Again, Cissia
or Cossaea is now Khuzistan, or the land of Khuz a name not very remote
from Cush; but perhaps this is only a coincidence.
To the traditions and traces here enumerated must be added, as of primary
importance, the Biblical tradition, which is delivered to us very simply
and plainly in that precious document the “Toldoth Beni Noah,” or “Book
of the Generations of the Sons of Noah,” which well deserves to be called
“the most authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of
nations.” “The sons of Ham,” we are told, “were Cush, and Mizraim, and
Phut, and Canaan . . . . And Cush begat Nimrod . . . . And the
beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in
the land of Shinar.” Here a primitive Babylonian kingdom is assigned to
a people distinctly said to have been Cushite by blood, and to have stood
in close connection with Mizraim, or the people of Egypt, Phut, or those
of Central Africa, and Canaan, or those of Palestine. It is the simplest
and the best interpretation of this passage to understand it as asserting
that the four races--the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Libyans, and
Canaanites--were ethnically connected, being all descended from Ham; and
further, that the primitive people of Babylon were a subdivision of one
of these races, namely of the Cushites or Ethiopians, connected in some
degree with the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Libyans, but still more
closely with the people which dwelt anciently upon the Upper Nile.
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