Semites
a name given by J. G.
Eichhorn in 1787 to a group of nations closely allied in language, religion, manners, and physical features, who are represented in Gen. x. as descended chiefly from Shem, a son of Noah. Their habitat was Abyssinia, Arabia, Palestine, Phœnicia, Syria, and the countries of the Euphrates and Tigris. Into those lands, according to one theory which is supported by Lenormant and others, there had preceded them an immigration of Cushites of the Hamitic race, who, proceeding from Central Asia, occupied not only the lands that afterward became Semitic, but also the Nile valley. Their Hamitic language and civilization, the Semites are said to have adopted. In language the Semites do show some affinity with the Berbers and the inhabitants of the Nile valley. The increasingly prevalent theory is that not less than in literature and culture. In 3800 в. c. the Semitic adventurer Sharrukin usurped the kingdom of Accad. In Elam also the Turanian population was early over, powered by the intruding Semites, who came to form the upper strata of society.
In 2280 в. c. the Semite Khudur-Nankhundi of Elam invaded and conquered Shumir and Accad, founding the Elamite line of princes; and about 2200 B. C. one of his successors, Khudur-Lagamar (Chedorlaomer), carried his conquests as far as Palestine (Gen. xiv.).
These painful and oppressive impulses seem to have occasioned emigrations of many Semites. Some proceeded toward the N. W., reached the Mediterranean Sea, founded Sidon, Tyre, and other cities, and became known afterward as Canaanites or Phœnicians. Later, from Ur went. others in the same direction, settled behind the Phoenicians, and were afterward known as Israel. Others went N. and built cities which developed into the empire of Assyria. While the Semites were in Mesopotamia they used the Turanian language in their public documents till they attained the ascendant in political power; and when afterward they used their own language they continued to use the Turanian cuneiform mode of writing. The Turanian religion also was adopted by the Semites, and mixed with what religion their own primeval tribal religion or totemism had developed into.
This amalgamation was consummated by Sharrukin II. of Accad about 2000 в. c.
The Semites as a race have a fine physical organization, are mentally quick, clever, but not inclined to change, and not persistent in progress. Their literature has neither epic nor dramatic poetry worth notice. Almost their only arts are the sculpture of Assyria, the exquisite glass and pottery, and the textile fabrics and embroidery of the Phoenicians. They have made their mark on the world in the Phoenician commerce, which visited even the Atlantic shores of Spain and France and drew tin from Britain; in the Phoenician colonies, which, dotting all the coasts and many islands of the Mediterranean Sea as far as Cadiz, and the coast of Asia as far as India, dispensed manufactures in the Carthaginian empire within Europe and Africa; in the exploits of Hannibal; in the dissemination of alphabetic writing, whereof the Phoenician form was the mother of the SEMITIC LANGUAGES European and of most Asiatic alphabets, while the alphabet of the great Sabæan kingdom, or of the great and still more ancient Minæan kingdom in Arabia, is apparently the oldest of all alphabets hitherto discovered; in the Babylonian and Assyrian empires; in the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish religion; in the New Testament and the Christian religion; in the Koran and the Mohammedan religion; in the Mohammedan conquests and empire; and in the preservation of culture thereby during the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages.