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Rh HAM, in the Bible. (1) , Ḥām, in Gen. v. 32, vi. 10, vii. 13, ix. 18, x. 5, 1 Chron. i. 4, the second son of Noah; in Gen. ix. 24, the youngest son (but cf. below); and in Gen. x. 6, 1 Chron. i. 8, the father of Cush (Ethiopia), Mizraim (Egypt), Phut and Canaan. Genesis x. exhibits in the form of genealogies the political, racial and geographical relations of the peoples known to Israel; as it was compiled from various sources and has been more than once edited, it does not exactly represent the situation at any given date, but Ham seems to stand roughly for the south-western division of the world as known to Israel, which division was regarded as the natural sphere of influence of Egypt. Ham is held to be the Egyptian word Khem (black) which was the native name of Egypt; thus in Pss. lxxviii. 51, cv. 23, 27, cvi. 22, Ham=Egypt. In Gen. ix. 20-26 Canaan was originally the third son of Noah and the villain of the story. Ham is a later addition to harmonize with other passages.

(2) , Ḥām, 1 Chron. iv. 40, apparently the name of a place or tribe. It can hardly be identical with (1); nothing else is known of this second Ham, which may be a scribe’s error; the Syriac version rejects the name.

(3) , Ḥam, Gen. xiv. 5; the place where Chedorlaomer defeated the Zuzim, apparently in eastern Palestine. The place is unknown, and the name may be a scribe’s error, perhaps for Ammon.

HAM, a small town of northern France, in the department of Somme, 36 m. E.S.E. of Amiens on the Northern railway between that city and Laon. Pop. (1906), 2957. It stands on the Somme in a marshy district where market-gardening is carried on. From the 9th century onwards it appears as the seat of a lordship which, after the extinction of its hereditary line, passed in succession to the houses of Coucy, Enghien, Luxembourg, Rohan, Vendôme and Navarre, and was finally united to the French crown on the accession of Henry IV. Notre-Dame, the church of an abbey of canons regular of St Augustin, dates from the 12th and 13th centuries, but in 1760 all the inflammable portions of the building were destroyed by a conflagration caused by lightning, and a process of restoration was subsequently carried out. Of special note are the bas-reliefs of the nave and choir, executed in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the crypt of the 12th century, which contains the sepulchral effigies of Odo IV. of Ham and his wife Isabella of Béthencourt. The castle, founded before the 10th century, was rebuilt early in the 13th, and extended in the 14th; its present appearance is mainly due to the constable Louis of Luxembourg, count of St Pol, who between 1436 and 1470 not only furnished it with outworks, but gave such a thickness to the towers and curtains, and more especially to the great tower or donjon which still bears his motto Mon Myeulx, that the great engineer and architect Viollet-le-Duc considered them, even in the 19th century, capable of resisting artillery. It forms a rectangle 395 ft. long by 263 ft. broad, with a round tower at each angle and two square towers protecting the curtains. The eastern and western sides are each defended by a demi-lune. The Constable’s Tower, for so the great tower is usually called in memory of St Pol, has a height of about 100 ft., and the thickness of the walls is 36 ft.; the interior is occupied by three large hexagonal chambers in as many stories. The castle of Ham, which now serves as barracks, has frequently been used as a state prison both in ancient and modern times, and the list of those who have sojourned there is an interesting one, including as it does Joan of Arc, Louis of Bourbon, the ministers of Charles X., Louis Napoleon, and Generals Cavaignac and Lamoricière. Louis Napoleon was there for six years, and at last effected his escape in the disguise of a workman. During 1870–1871 Ham was several times captured and recaptured by the belligerents. A statue commemorates the birth in the town of General Foy (1775–1825).

See J. G. Cappot, Le Château de Ham (Paris, 1842); and Ch. Gomart, Ham, son château et ses prisonniers (Ham, 1864).

 HAMADĀN, a province and town of Persia. The province is bounded N. by Gerrūs and Khamseh, W. by Kermanshah, S. by Malāyir and Irāk, E. by Savah and Kazvin. It has many well-watered, fertile plains and more than four hundred flourishing villages producing much grain, and its population, estimated at 350,000—more than half being Turks of the Karaguzlu (black-eyed) and Shāmlu (Syrian) tribes—supplies several battalions of infantry to the army, and pays, besides, a yearly revenue of about £18,000.

Hamadān, the capital of the province, is situated 188 m. W.S.W. of Teheran, at an elevation of 5930 ft., near the foot of Mount Elvend (old Persian Arvand, Gr. Orontes), whose granite peak rises W. of it to an altitude of 11,900 ft. It is a busy trade centre with about 40,000 inhabitants (comprising 4000 Jews and 300 Armenians), has extensive and well-stocked bazaars and fourteen large and many small caravanserais. The principal industries are tanning leather and the manufacture of saddles, harnesses, trunks, and other leather goods, felts and copper utensils. The leather of Hamadān is much esteemed throughout the country and exported to other provinces in great quantities. The streets are narrow, and by a system called Kūcheh-bandi (street-closing) established long ago for impeding the circulation of crowds and increasing general security, every quarter of the town, or block of buildings, is shut off from its neighbours by gates which are closed during local disorders and regularly at night. Hamadān has post and telegraph offices and two churches, one Armenian, the other Protestant (of the American Presbyterian Mission).

Among objects of interest are the alleged tombs of Esther and Mordecai in an insignificant domed building in the centre of the town. There are two wooden sarcophagi carved all over with Hebrew inscriptions. That ascribed to Mordecai has the verses Isaiah lix. 8; Esther ii. 5; Ps. xvi. 9, 10, 11, and the date of its erection 4318 ( 557). The inscriptions on the other sarcophagus consist of the verses Esther ix. 29, 32, x. 1; and the statement that it was placed there 4602 ( 841) by “the pious and righteous woman Gemal Setan.” A tablet let into the wall states that the building was repaired 4474 ( 713). Hamadān also has the grave of the celebrated physician and philosopher Abu Ali ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna (d. 1036). It is now generally admitted that Hamadān is the Hagmatana (of the inscriptions), Agbatana or (q.v., of the Greek writers), the “treasure city” of the Achaemenian kings which was taken and plundered by Alexander the Great, but very few ancient remains have been discovered. A rudely carved stone lion, which lies on the roadside close to the southern extremity of the city, and by some is supposed to have formed part of a building of the ancient city, is locally regarded as a talisman against famine, plague, cold, &c., placed there by Pliny, who is popularly known as the sorcerer Balinās (a corruption of Plinius).

Five miles S.W. from the city in a mountain gorge of Mount Elvend is the so-called Ganjnāma (treasure-deed), which consists of two tablets with trilingual cuneiform inscriptions cut into the rock and relating the names and titles of Darius I. (521–485 ) and his son Xerxes I. (485–465 ).

HAMADHĀNĪ, in full '' (967–1007), Arabian writer, known as Badiʽ uz-Zamān (the wonder of the age), was born and educated at Hamadhān. In 990 be went to Jorjān, where he remained two years; then passing to Nīshapūr, where he rivalled and surpassed the learned Khwārizmī. After journeying through Khorasan and Sijistān, he finally settled in Herāt under the protection of the vizir of Mahmūd, the Ghaznevid sultan. There he died at the age of forty. He was renowned for a remarkable memory and for fluency of speech, as well as for the purity of his language. He was one of the first to renew the use of rhymed prose both in letters and maqāmas (see : Literature, section “Belles Lettres”).

His letters were published at Constantinople (1881), and with commentary at Beirut (1890); his maqāmas at Constantinople (1881), and with commentary at Beirut (1889). A good idea of the