Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

G98
EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
some scholars.
Head from Minean Tombstone
In no other country have old manners and
customs been so firmly retained as among the Semites in
Western Asia, and here again most of all in Arabia; so that
a more exact
knowledge of
those customs often furnishes
an instructive commentary
upon the life of past
ages, as we see it
in the Bible
and in other ancient records.
Of course work in this field
requires such a facultv of
keen observation as not
every traveler possesses ;
still
books of travel like those
of Burckhardt and Doughty
prove that, even without the
results
gained from inscriptions,
a tour into Central Arabia may be exceedingly instructive
and profitable to the Orientalist, and most of all
the student of the Bible.
to
But yet these works only furnish
information of a more general character, however valuable
it may be, often giving only interesting analogies sometimes
leading to wrong conclusions {e.g., those of Robertson Smith
concerning gvna?ocracy among the Semites). Such evidence
is
not to be compared with that which comes directlv
from an antiquitv contemporaneous with the Bible, like the
evidence gained from inscriptions or statuettes, votive tablets,
small works of art, old utensils, etc., or even from the
ruins of whole castles and temples. A single line of an
inscription often sheds more light on an expression in the
Old Testament than descriptions, however numerous and
exact, of conditions existing at the present day.
As for the exploring expeditions to Arabia undertaken
bv Europeans since the year 1763,
all that was done in
that field up to 1 846 was presented with great care and,