PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY. SESSION 1878-9. Fifth Meeting, 4th March, 1879. SAMUEL BIRCH, ESQ., PRESIDENT, D.C.L., LL.D., &c., IN THE CHAIR. THE following Presents were announced, and thanks ordered to be returned to the Donors :— From the Royal Geographical Society :-" Proceedings and Monthly Record of Geography;" Vol. I., No. 2. Feb. 1879. Svo. London. From the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland :--"Journal;" Vol. VIII., Parts 1 and 2. 1875-6. "Fifty-second Annual Report," 1875. "Journal;" Vol. XI., Part 1. 8vo. London. 1879. From the Royal Society of Literature :--"Transactions;" Second Series, Vol. XI., Part 2. 1876. Part 3. 1878. 8vo. London. From the Editor (Walter Besant, M.A.):-" The Literary Remains of the late Charles F. Tyrwhitt Drake, F.R.G.S." 8vo. London. 1877. From the Author (St. John Vincent Day, C.E., F.R.S.E.):— "The Pre-Historic Use of Iron and Steel, etc." 8vo. London. 1877. The following have been purchased by the Council for the Library of the Society :- "Elements de la Grammaire Assyrienne." Par Jules Oppert. Seconde édition. 8vo. Paris. 1868. "Etat actuel du déchiffrement des Inscriptions Cunéiformes." Par J. Oppert. Extrait de la Revue Orientale et Américaine. 8vo. Paris. 1861. The following Candidates were nominated by the Council for election as Members of the Society, at the next meeting on April 1st: Edward Brooke. Rev. W. H. Sewell. Astor Library, New York, U.S.A. The following were submitted for election as Members of the Society, having been nominated by the Council on February 4th William Beamont. Rev. W. W. Spicer. Robert Stewart. Mrs. Thomas Wiltshire. The President, in announcing the death of Dr. C. E. Appleton, Mrs. Ranyard, and S. M. Drach, expressed the loss the Society had sustained. Mr. P. le Page Renouf read a paper "On the True Sense of an important Egyptian Word," which will be printed in full in a future part of the Transactions. The following is a brief abstract :— The Egyptian word ka occurs in numberless texts. It has generally of late years been supposed to signify person, self, entity, essence, and has sometimes been considered as a mere phonetic support of pronominal suffixes. This view is completely incorrect. The word only occurs in religious texts, and implies an object of religious worship. It is used for the images of gods and the departed. But its most important signification is living image. Every man had his ghostly double, or genius, residing in the unseen world, which had to be propitiated in this world, and with which he was united after death. There are numerous representations of the king propitiating his own ka, and it was customary to swear by the ka of the king, as the Romans swore by the genius of the Emperor. The gods themselves, and even localities, had their kas; and from the time of Rameses II., at least, we find victory, wealth, and other divine gifts, personified and worshipped under the name of the Fourteen kas. The Rev. A. Löwy observed— The word ka, in the sense of "image," might help to explain the origin and meaning of some obscure Hebrew terms connected with idolatrous and superstitious practices which had been condemned by the prophets of Israel. Jeremiah (ch. vii. 18, and xliv. 19) speaks of kavanim () or small figures made of dough in honour of the queen of heaven. This practice appears to have originated in Egyptian idolatry (see Jeremiah, xliv. 12-16). With the introduction of a foreign superstition naturally came the foreign designation. Ka (2) may be the Egyptian term denoting "image," and van or un be the affix common to numerous Semitic nouns. () would A second form is ki-un (), occurring in Amos (ch. v. 26). In the sense of image or a stellar deity it is employed in other Semitic languages. The hapax legomenon gå-qå (Leviticus, xix. 28), might be a secondary derivative of the same Egyptian etymon ka, as now explained by Mr. Renouf. The translation of the difficult passage in Leviticus would then be: "Ye shall not imprint [literally, put] upon yourselves any tracing of an image." Dr. Birch considered that Mr. Renouf had very clearly shown the mystical meaning of the word ka. There was great difficulty, he stated, in arriving at the exact meaning of the abstract ideas mentioned in the "Book of the Dead," &c. No passage was to be found which states the immortality of the ka, but a single passage mentions the "soul" as "ever living." The adventures in the "Book of the Dead" may be those of the ka, but the shade also accompanied the body. The ka could receive offerings, &c., and therefore might well be considered the same as eidolon. It would be important to know exactly what the Egyptians thought of the soul, and the exact difference between the shade and the ka. He thought the shade (xaibi) was probably a kind of protector of the soul. Remarks were also added by R. Cull, F.S.A., Theophilus G. Pinches, and Rev. Hy. Geo. Tomkins. A communication from Mr. Ernest A. Budge "On a recently discovered Text of Assur-nazir-pal, with Translation and Notes," was read by the author: The tablets on which this text is engraved were discovered by Mr. Rassam, with the other treasures, in the mound of Balawat. They were found in a curious oven-like alabaster coffer, close to the entrance of the temple dedicated by Assur-nazir-pal to the god Makhir, near the north-eastern side of the ancient Assyrian stronghold. Mr. Budge gave a short account of the leading events in the reign of Assur-nazir-pal, who appears to have been an able ruler, and, as stated by the late George Smith, "coming to the throne after a period of depression and inactivity, during which the power of Assyria had been seriously curtailed, and her territories reduced, he revived the military power of the empire, and again carried the arms of Assyria to Lamma in the east, and to the coast of the Mediterranean on the west. Assur-nazir-pal may be looked upon as the founder of the late Assyrian empire, which from his time gradually increased with but little check, until it reached its greatest limits.""Assyria," p. 45. His reign lasted twenty-five years (B.c. 885-860), and like many of the Assyrian kings, he was a great warrior. He states on these tablets or altar slabs :-" From the ford (or bank) of the river Tigris unto the land of Lebanon and the great sea of the land of Lacie to its extent the land of Lukhi, to the city of Raphek, to his [my] feet he [I] caused to submit," etc. He also appears to have given much time to the building and restoration of palaces and temples. The principal ones of Kalah (Nimroud), of which the original city, said to have been built by Nimrod, nothing is known, were built by Assur-nazir-pal; also he repaired with great splendour the palace of Nineveh, and the ancient temple of Ishtar there, repaired B.C. 1080, by Sam-si-Vul, King of Assyria. In the tablets under notice, he mentions a city bearing a name usually understood to have been the inner wall of the great city of Babylon. But from the following lines it is clear that a city was so named by Assur-nazir-pal himself:-"Of the countries of Nairi throughout, I brought. That city afresh I took. The city Imgur-Bel its name I called; this temple with the bricks of my palace then I built. An image of Makhir, my Lord, in the midst then I set up. To the land of Lebanon then I went; beams of cedar wood, surman wood, cypress wood I cut down. Beams of cedar wood upon this temple I brought. Doors of cedar wood I made; upon the edge copper I bound, for its gates," etc. Three tablets were found; one so much damaged by fire as to be almost illegible; those from which the present translation has been made having been closed up in the coffer were preserved from damage. They measure twelve and a half inches in length by eight inches in width, and two and a half inches in thickness. Variant readings occur in the tablets, all of which were pointed out; also some other peculiarities, the most important of which is the division of the words by straight lines. This was, probably, an early step towards the division of words by a diagonal wedge, as seen in the Persian text of the Behistun inscription. Mr. Budge mentioned the value of these divisions, by which we are enabled to know the exact division of each word, and also when any group of wedges is to be read as an ideograph. A complete translation of the inscription was given with the different readings from both tablets, also an analysis of the more important words. Remarks were added by G. Bertin, E. A. Budge, R. Cull, F.S.A., and Theo. G. Pinches. A letter from Dr. Oppert, referring to the tablet bearing the supposed date, 11th year of Cambyses, was read by the Secretary. The next Meeting of the Society will be held at 9, Conduit Street, Hanover Square, W., on Tuesday, April 1st, at 8.30 p.m., when the following communications will be read: "Historical Inscriptions of Seti I. in the Temple at Karnak." By E. L. Lushington, D.C.L., &c. "A Lawsuit heard before the Laocrites during the reign of Ptolemy Soter." By Eugène Revillout. HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE. |