Page 273 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

Topography and archaeology, 1878-1879 599

218 THE ISLANDS OF BAHREIN.

a derivation from tlio Kusli or Asiatic Ethiopians of
Herodotus and Strabo, who dwelt in tlio sumo region. The
rationalizing Greeks, who evidently looked upon King
Erythras as a myth, attempted to explain tlio name of the
Erythraean Sea by tho ruddy reflexion on the waves of the
rays of a vertical sun, or by the colour of the adjoining
mountains, reddened by the intensity of tho heat;1 but tho
colour of the islanders, as it seems to me, offers a far more
plausible solution of the difficulty. I shall not here critically
discuss the question whether there really ever was any ethnic
connexion between the islanders of the Persian Gulf and tho
founders of the Mediterranean sea-ports of Tyre and Sidon,
because there is no direct evidence cither for or against such
a supposition to bo derived from tho inscriptions, Tho
supposed similarity of name between Tylus and Aradus in
the Persian Gulf, and Tmr and Arvad on tho Phoenician
coast, will not bear a moment's serious examination ;2 but at
tho same time I sec nothing improbable in the Turanian
immigrants who first colonized Babylonia from the Gulf,
having subsequently pushed on to the westward till they
reached the shores of tho Mediterranean, and formed that
confederacy of cities on the sea-coast, which belonged (many
centuries anterior to a Semitic settlement) to tho Philistines
of tho Bible, a Turanian raco immediately cognate with the
Canaaniles and Ilittitcs. If any dependence is to be placed
on the information given by the priests of Tyre to Herodotus,
that tho Temple of Hercules had been founded 2300 years
before his visit,—and viewed by the light of recent discovery
as to tho extromo antiquity of the historic monuments of
Egypt and Babylonia, I can see no improbability in the
statement,—this great Turanian immigration must have set

1 Sco Strabo, loc. cit.
2 Beforo (putting tho subject of Nidukki} I may alludo to a curious passago m
B.M.I. vol. ii. p. GO, col. 3, which seems to refer to somo fabulous voyago of tho
king of the island, in a ship built for tho purpose. Tho passago is too imperfect
to bo made out clearly, and tho geographical names aro in many cases mutilated;
but I strongly suspect that tho list was intended to reprosont a sort of .Vonplus of
tho Erythnoan »Sea. Tho eataloguo of names reads as follows: Nidukki, A toint,
Oiff/i, tiuli . . . , Istar offspring of Nirjara, Nitjara offspring of I\rigira} mountains
of Vurm . . . , iW/W, l'am . . . , Tobar} Khiliba . . . > Knilibana, Jiumad • • • >
Tilikhasbat, Sandarij)p\} Sc . . . . , aud JJasi.