Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/797

BEGUINES. (Leipzig, 1790), and E. Hallmaiin, Geschichte des Crsjtniiigs der bel(iischcii lieghinen (1843).

BEGUM, ba'guni or bf'gum (Hind, hcgam, Pers. hin(jiin. lady, from Turk, hty, lord, prince + possil>ly Ar. uiiim. mother). A title bestowed upon sultana> and East Indian princesses.

BEHA-EDDIN, baha' edden'. See BoHAD-DI.V.

BEHAM, ba'ham, or BEHAIM, ba'him, BasTHEL (1302-40). A German painter and engrav- er, born in Nuremberg. Although at first strongly influenced by Diirer, he afterwards eon- formed closely to the forms of the Italian Kcnaissance. His engravings, comprising about J)0 plates, are considered especially fine. The following are a few of his principal paintings: 'I'alatine Otto Heinrich" (Augsburg Gallery, 15.33); "Christ on JJount of Olives" (Berlin ' Museum) : "Christ on the Cross" (Fiirstenberg '- Gallery, Donaueschingen) ; three panels with r portraits of King Ferdinand's children (Amster- ' dam Museum) ; "King Louis of Hungary" (Old Pinakothek, Munich): fifteen jjortraits of Ba- varian princes (Schleissheim Gallery). — His brother, Hans Sebald Beham (c. 1300-52), like- wise renowned as a painter and engraver, was born in Nuremberg, whence, however, like his brother, he was banished because of his deistib and socialistic views. He afterwards lived at Munich and Frankfort-on-the-Main. In his engravings, he even excels his brother.

BEHAIM, ba'him, Martix (1459-1506). A famous CJerman cosniographer. He was born in Nuremberg, of Bohemian descent, and probably received his scientific training from the famous . savant Regiomontanus. Taking up a mercan- I tile life, he traveled over Europe, visiting Ven- ice, ^lechlin. Antwerp, and Vienna, for purposes of trade, between 1475 and 1479. In 1480 he went to Portugal and began the business of mak- ing maps, in which he soon acqxiired fame and a competency. He was selected to accompany the Portuguese expedition commanded by Diogo Cam, on a voyage of discover}- along the west- ern coast of Africa, in 1484-85 — an expedition which pushed nearly twentj' degrees beyond the best previous exploration, as far as the moutli of the Congo River. In I486 he visited Fa.val, in the Azores, where there was a Flemish colony, and he shortly afterwards married the daughter of the governor of the islands of Fayal and Pico, Jobst von Hurter. He was a mem- ber of a commission to discover some practical method of determining a ship's position at sea by means of astronomical observations, and ren- dered im])ortant service in this coimeetion to the .science of navigation. In 1490 he went back to Nuremberg, where he lived till 1493. During I this period he constructed a globe as a gift to his native city, where it is still preserved, being the oldest still in existence, and an invaluable rec- ord of the exact extent of geographical knowl- edge among the best-informed European scholars and travelers at the time Columbus started on the voyage in which America was discovered. After another short residence in Fayal, he re- moved to Lisbon, where he died, July 29, 1506. For his biography, consult: Murr, Diploma- tische Geschichte dcs Rilter Martin Behaim (Gotha, 1801); and for more modern informa- tion, Nordenskjold, Facsimile-Atlas (Stockholm, 1889).

BEHAR, bc-hiir' (Skt. rihara, a Buddhist temple or convent). One of the provinces of Lower Bengal (q.v.), British India (Map: India, E 3). It is divided into the two commissioner- ships of Patna and Bhagaljjur, which are again subdivi<led into 40 administrative districts. Area, 44.180 square miles. Population, in I89I, 24,393,000; in 1901, 24,183,000.

BE'HEMOTH (Heb. plur. of Behemah, beast; as often in Helirew, the plural indicates a 'large beast,' the lord of beasts as it were, and not a plurality of animals). An animal mentioned in Job xl. 15-24. While it is evident from the de- scription given of it — eating grass (15) yet be- ing also in the water — that the author had in mind the hip])opotamus, yet there is also no doubt that mythological notions are involved in the conception. It is grouped (Job xl. 25-31) with the leviathan ( q.v. ), and recent investiga- tion has made it probable that behemoth and leviathan represent two of the primeval mon- sters who, according to Babylonian traditions which became current among the Hebrews, were depicted as in control of the rniiverse before the gods established order. The monsters, of which, in the Babylonian cosmogonical myths, there are no fewer than eleven, symbolize the primeval chaos. Egyptian notions of "supernatural' hip- popotamuses and crocodiles, which are represen- tatives of the evil god Sit, may also have con- tributed toward the bililical conception of behe- moth and leviathan. Consult Gunkel, fichopfung iind Chaos (Giittingen, 1893).

BEHISTUN, ba'hIs-toiJn' (Ar., Pers. bagh, garden + Pers. Stan, distriqt, region; Bisutoun, Bisutun of the old Persian inscriptions). A ruined town of the Persian Province of Irak- Ajemi, 21 miles east of Kermanshah. Diodorus Siculus (II., 13) says that (.,)ueen Semiramis, on a journey from Babylon to Eebatana, encamped here, and had her likeness and the likenesses of a hundred of her guard cut into the rock of the mountain that rises at this place. This tradi- tion refers to a most remarkable inscription found at the limestone mountain at Behistun, which posses.ses great historical value. The mountain rises to a height of 1700 feet, and the inscription is found at a height of 300 feet, in a position such that it must have been engraved with the aid of scaffolding. Although observed by several travelers, it was not until 1835 that it was copied by Sir Henry Rawlinson, after in- finite trouble and at great expense. The inscrip- tion was made by Darius I. (c.518 B.C.), and contains an account of his genealogy and his tri- umphs. It is in cuneiform characters, and tri- lingual, being written in Assyrian, in Persian, and in Median. Accompanying the text, there is an elaborate series of sculptures, representing Darius receiving nine pretenders to the throne, who stand before him with chains about their necks. The inscription was cut into the rock with the utmost eare, and was preserved by a varnish harder than the rock itself. After copy- ing the inscription. Rawlinson spent many years in the task of dcciphernicnt. He published the Persian text in 1846, in the publications of the Ro3'al Asiatic Society, and this publica- tion, with Rawlinson's translation of the in- scription, was a most important contribu- tion to the solution of the mystery of Per- sian cuneiform. This accomplished, he and