rejecting an ancient narrative merely because it seems unsupported by
other testimony. He has been warned, too, against making his own
prepossessions and assumptions the test of historical truth, of laying
down that a reported fact could not have happened because it runs
counter to what he assumes to have been the state of society in some
particular age. Above all, the lesson of modesty has been impressed upon
him, modesty in regard to the extent of his own knowledge and the
fallibility of his own conclusions. It does not follow that what we
imagine ought to have happened has happened in reality; on the contrary,
the course of Oriental history has usually been very different from that
dreamed of by the European scholar in the quietude of his study. If
Oriental archæology has taught us nothing else, it has at least taught
us how little we know.




CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION

I. THE ISRAELITES

II. CANAAN

III. THE NATIONS OF THE SOUTH-EAST

IV. THE NATIONS OF THE NORTH-EAST