Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/157

 Schröder. His literary efforts were chiefly confined to translations from French authors.

See H. Uhde, biography of Ekhof in vol. iv. of Der neue Plutarch (1876), and J. Rüschner, K. Ekhofs Leben und Wirken (1872). Also H. Devrient, J. F. Schönemann und seine Schauspielergesellschaft (1895).

 EKRON (better, as in the Septuagint and Josephus,,  ), a royal city of the Philistines commonly identified with the modern Syrian village of ʽAḳir, 5 m. from Ramleh, on the southern slope of a low ridge separating the plain of Philistia from Sharon. It lay inland and off the main line of traffic. Though included by the Israelites within the limits of the tribe of Judah, and mentioned in Judges xix. as one of the cities of Dan, it was in Philistine possession in the days of Samuel, and apparently maintained its independence. According to the narrative of the Hebrew text, here differing from the Greek text and Josephus (which read Askelon), it was the last town to which the ark was transferred before its restoration to the Israelites. Its maintenance of a sanctuary of Baal Zebub is mentioned in 2 Kings i. From Assyrian inscriptions it has been gathered that Padi, king of Ekron, was for a time the vassal of Hezekiah of Judah, but regained his independence when the latter was hard pressed by Sennacherib. A notice of its history in 147 is found in 1 Macc. x. 89; after the fall of Jerusalem 70 it was settled by Jews. At the time of the crusades it was still a large village. Recently a Jewish agricultural colony has been settled there. The houses are built of mud, and in the absence of visible remains of antiquity, the identification of the site is questionable. The neighbourhood is fertile.

 ELABUGA, a town of Russia, in the government of Vyatka, on the Kama river, 201 m. by steamboat down the Volga from Kazan and then up the Kama. It has flour-mills, and carries on a brisk trade in exporting corn. Pop. (1897) 9776.

The famous Ananiynskiy Mogilnik (burial-place) is on the right bank of the Kama, 3 m. above the town. It was discovered in 1858, was excavated by Alabin, Lerch and Nevostruyev, and has since supplied extremely valuable collections belonging to the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. It consisted of a mound, about 500 ft. in circumference, adorned with decorated stones (which have disappeared), and contained an inner wall, 65 ft. in circumference, made of uncemented stone flags. Nearly fifty skeletons were discovered, mostly lying upon charred logs, surrounded with cinerary urns filled with partially burned bones. A great variety of bronze decorations and glazed clay pearls were strewn round the skeletons. The knives, daggers and arrowpoints are of slate, bronze and iron, the last two being very rough imitations of stone implements. One of the flags bore the image of a man, without moustaches or beard, dressed in a costume and helmet recalling those of the Circassians.

 ELAM, the name given in the Bible to the province of Persia called Susiana by the classical geographers, from Susa or Shushan its capital. In one passage, however (Ezra iv. 9), it is confined to Elymais, the north-western part of the province, and its inhabitants distinguished from those of Shushan, which elsewhere (Dan. viii. 2) is placed in Elam. Strabo (xv. 3. 12, &c.) makes Susiana a part of Persia proper, but a comparison of his account with those of Ptolemy (vi. 3. 1, &c.) and other writers would limit it to the mountainous district to the east of Babylonia, lying between the Oroatis and the Tigris, and stretching from India to the Persian Gulf. Along with this mountainous district went a fertile low tract of country on the western side, which also included the marshes at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris and the north-eastern coast land of the Gulf. This low tract, though producing large quantities of grain, was intensely hot in summer; the high regions, however, were cool and well watered.

The whole country was occupied by a variety of tribes, speaking agglutinative dialects for the most part, though the western districts were occupied by Semites. Strabo (xi. 13. 3, 6), quoting from Nearchus, seems to include the Susians under the Elymaeans, whom he associates with the Uxii, and places on the frontiers of Persia and Susa; but Pliny more correctly makes the Eulaeus the boundary between Susiana and Elymais (N.H. vi. 29-31). The Uxii are described as a robber tribe in the mountains adjacent to Media, and their name is apparently to be identified with the title given to the whole of Susiana in the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, Uwaja, i.e. “Aborigines.” Uwaja is probably the origin of the modern Khuzistan, though Mordtmann would derive the latter from “a sugar-reed.” Immediately bordering on the Persians were the Amardians or Mardians, as well as the people of Khapirti (Khatamti, according to Scheil), the name given to Susiana in the Neo-Susian texts. Khapirti appears as Apir in the inscriptions of Mal-Amir, which fix the locality of the district. Passing over the Messabatae, who inhabited a valley which may perhaps be the modern Māh–Sabadan, as well as the level district of Yamutbal or Yatbur which separated Elam from Babylonia, and the smaller districts of Characene, Cabandene, Corbiana and Gabiene mentioned by classical authors, we come to the fourth principal tribe of Susiana, the Cissii (Aesch. Pers. 16; Strabo xv. 3. 2) or Cossaei (Strabo xi. 5. 6, xvi. 11. 17; Arr. Ind. 40; Polyb. v. 54, &c.), the Kassi of the cuneiform inscriptions. So important were they, that the whole of Susiana was sometimes called Cissia after them, as by Herodotus (iii. 91, v. 49, &c.). In fact Susiana was only a late name for the country, dating from the time when Susa had been made a capital of the Persian empire. In the Sumerian texts of Babylonia it was called Numma, “the Highlands,” of which Elamtu or Elamu, “Elam,” was the Semitic translation. Apart from Susa, the most important part of the country was Anzan (Anshan, contracted Assan), where the native population maintained itself unaffected by Semitic intrusion. The exact position of Anzan is still disputed, but it probably included originally the site of Susa and was distinguished from it only when Susa became the seat of a Semitic government. In the lexical tablets Anzan is given as the equivalent of Elamtu, and the native kings entitle themselves kings of “Anzan and Susa,” as well as “princes of the Khapirti.”

The principal mountains of Elam were on the north, called Charbanus and Cambalidus by Pliny (vi. 27, 31), and belonging to the Parachoathras chain. There were numerous rivers flowing into either the Tigris or the Persian Gulf. The most important were the Ulai or Eulaeus (Kūran) with its tributary the Pasitigris, the Choaspes (Kerkhah), the Coprates (river of Diz called Ititē in the inscriptions), the Hedyphon or Hedypnus (Jerrāhi), and the Croatis (Hindyan), besides the monumental Surappi and Ukni, perhaps to be identified with the Hedyphon and Oroatis, which fell into the sea in the marshy region at the mouth of the Tigris. Shushan or Susa, the capital now marked by the mounds of Shush, stood near the junction of the Choaspes and Eulaeus (see ); and Badaca, Madaktu in the inscriptions, lay between the Shapur and the river of Diz. Among the other chief cities mentioned in the inscriptions may be named Naditu, Khaltemas, Din-sar, Bubilu, Bit-imbi, Khidalu and Nagitu on the sea-coast. Here, in fact, lay some of the oldest and wealthiest towns, the sites of which have, however, been removed inland by the silting up of the shore. J. de Morgan’s excavations at Susa have thrown a flood of light on the early history of Elam and its relations to Babylon. The earliest settlement there goes back to neolithic times, but it was already a fortified city when Elam was conquered by Sargon of Akkad (3800 ) and Susa became the seat of a Babylonian viceroy. From this time onward for many centuries it continued under Semitic suzerainty, its high-priests, also called “Chief Envoys of Elam, Sippara and Susa,” bearing sometimes Semitic, sometimes native “Anzanite” names. One of the kings of the dynasty of Ur built at Susa. Before the rise of the First Dynasty of Babylon, however, Elam had recovered its independence, and in 2280 the Elamite king Kutur-Nakhkhunte made a raid in Babylonia and carried away from Erech the image of the goddess Nanā. The monuments of many of his successors have been discovered by de Morgan and their inscriptions deciphered by v. Scheil. One of them was defeated by Ammi-zadoq 