was Egypt which entered upon its career of Asiatic conquest, and Canaan
for a while was an Egyptian province. But the Egyptian dominion in its
turn passed away, and Palestine was left the prey of other assailants,
of the Hittites and the Beduin, of the people of Aram Naharaim and the
northern hordes. Egyptians and Babylonians, Hittites and Mesopotamians
mingled with the earlier races of the country and obliterated the older
landmarks. Before the Patriarchal Age came to an end, the ethnographical
map of Canaan had undergone a profound change.




CHAPTER III

THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN AND THE EGYPTIAN CONQUEST


It is in the cuneiform records of Babylonia that we catch the first
glimpse of the early history of Canaan. Babylonia was not yet united
under a single head. From time to time some prince arose whose conquests
allowed him to claim the imperial title of "king of Sumer and Akkad," of
Southern and Northern Babylonia, but the claim was never of long
duration, and often it signified no more than a supremacy over the other
rulers of the country.

It was while Babylonia was thus divided into more than one kingdom, that
the first Chaldæan empire of which we know was formed by the military
skill of Sargon of Akkad. Sargon was of Semitic origin, but his birth
seems to have been obscure. His father, Itti-Bel, is not given the title
of king, and the later legends which gathered around his name declared