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 this period. The recent recognition of the Hittites of Hebron as Hittites, and all the developments as to the Jebusites, Horites, Mitannians, Amorites, together with the fact that about those times the Hittites perhaps actually occupied Babylonia for a little, all contribute to the growing evidence that Palestine had a continuous culture from before Abraham to the Conquest.

Attention has been called by Winckler and others to the very striking resemblance of the legal procedure in the sale of land by the Hittites to Abraham to the regular Babylonian procedure (compare Winckler Vorderasien 1913 and Johns' Babylonian Laws) and certainly this implies private if not public records while Judah's seal implies probably the same although it may, of course, only have been used for sealing of objects rather than documents.