Page 225 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

Topography and archaeology, 1878-1879 551

80. Ho would mako tho land of Hagar tho birth plnco of tho Chaldeans,* the
• llrni Khalid. sons of Klialid (I3cn Khali), intimately connected
Cliaulolliai of Kraatothonca. with the Ishmaclitc9,f and the founders of Baby­
Clianlasii.
Clialdnaii. lon. IIo traces Khalod, Khalid, IChanlah, Khalt,
Chavolal nnd Colingil of Pliny.
Uualc, Huilc, Ilanilah, Aval, and Havileh, ns mcro
vorbal forms of tho same root.
81. Tho Chaldeans arc, howover, supposed to havo had a Scythic or
Turanian origin, and a largo library and much study would be necessary before
judging of tho reliability of such derivations.
82. Is it possible that tho forms of burial of difibrent races were distinct
enough to givo some cluo, and that further researches amongst the wilderness
of tombs in good preservation here may throw some light into a dark page
of history ?
83. I noticed above the Scythic customs of burial and transport of tho
dead to the land of the Gorrhi, to the point at which the Borysthencs becomes
navigable.
84. Is it possible that there should be any ethnic affinity, to account for the
likeness of names between Gerrhus and Gordin, or is it one of those mere
resemblances which arc so common and unreliable?
85. Granting however that Gerrha was near here, what more likely than
that these islands might have been used in the manner suggested above?
8G. I have been told by Arabs that lhc.ro aro many large i uius on the main­
land, and one man in particular told me that they found traces of building, stone,
and pillars at a placo where salt is quarried. Tho bottom of the Gulf behind
Bahrain has, I bcliovc, never bccu carefully explored.
87. To return however to the mounds at Ali. On my first arrival I went
over and round many of the bigger ones, and at last my perseverance was rewarded
by finding an entrance into one of these (under a flat stone near the summit)
through which, lying down, we wero just ablo to creep, and on getting beyond
the opening wo found ourselves in a long passage or gallery, which was however
blocked with fallen masonry a few yards in front of us.
88. The roof of this passage is formed by trausvcrc blocks of flat stone, laid
from wall to wall, about six feet in breadth, the width of tho passage being
somewhat less.
89. The walls, whero still intact, were covered with a coarso grained hard
plaster, and whoro brokon showed their enormous thicknoss of large stones,
welded together in tho same rough plaster building.
90. Prom tho gonoral form of tlioso greater mounds I should think they had
been pillared circular edifices with slightly domed or flat roofs. I saw no
trace of carving on any of the blocks of stone lying about on these mounds.
All that were so exposed wero of huge 6izc, and I think most aro of a species
of bard sand-stone, of limestono at any rate; though overy block boro
evidence .of having been shaped, thoy were so worn by age, that no writing,
however docp, could havo remained.
91. No doubt as time wore on the inhabitants havo made uso of these mounds
as quarries, which may partly account, for tho bare appcaranco of manv of
them, whero no stouo is left on tho surface. Tho stones that wore buried,

t In regard l0 thin aco hi* argument from tho concurrent testimony of Djonjaiua. ®"d ft®
rimy to prove tho mixture of Agrai or Ilngaritc* and Cl.aldua.ior Uon. Kl.ahd Cuahite ponulaUon*. He
tho former obscured, if they did not expel the latter, and again Chronicles. Chapter V. lat.book.
the Arab tribe* bordering on Gilead, does ao first generally a* Haparitca, and then
abovo )Ur WM* Nadab of Kedomah. (With rognrd to the derivation, Ac., Ac., of Kcdoinab,
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