permutation ever took place, and it therefore cannot be authenticated.

The Maya, of which we find so many vestiges in the Akkadian language, affords a most natural, thence rational, etymology of the name Akkad, and in perfect accordance with the character of the country thus named. Akal is a Maya word, the meaning of which is "pond," "marshy ground;" and akil is a marshy ground full of reeds and rushes, such as was and still is lower Mesopotamia and the localities near the mouth of the Euphrates.

As to the name Sumer, its etymology, although it is also very clear according to the Maya, seemed perplexing to the learned Mr. Lenormant, who nevertheless has interpreted it correctly, "the low country. The Akkadian root sum evidently corresponds to the Greek núμßos, "bottom," "depression," and to the Maya, kom, a valley. The Sumeri would then be the inhabitants of the valleys, while the Akkari would be those of the marshes.

From this and from what will directly appear let it not be supposed that the ancient Akkadian and ancient Maya are cognate languages. The great number of Maya words found in the Akkadian have been ingrafted on it by the Maya colonists, who in remote times established themselves in Akkad, and became prominent, after a long sojourn in the country, under the name of Kaldi.

Through the efforts of such eminent scholars as Dr. Hincks, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Dr. Oppert, Monsieur Grivel, Professor Sayce, Mr. François Lenormant, and others, the old Akkadian tongue, or much of it, has been recovered, by translating the

1 Sir Henry Layard (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 356) says that the ancient name of the Mediterranean was Akkari.

tablets that composed King Asurbanipal's library. Mr. Lenormant has published an elementary grammar and vocabulary of it. From this I cull the few following words that are pure Maya, with the same signification in both languages. Having but a limited space to devote here to so interesting a subject, in my selection I have confined myself to words so unequivocally similar that their identity cannot be questioned.

Place.

To place in safety.

Sign of possession; to take.

To take away; to empty.

Expresses the idea of locality; the earth.
The earth; the country. Ma is likewise
Egyptian for country; place.

Expresses the idea of an internal or external
locative-into; from; from within; as
tan; Ma ta, country.

Place; smooth and level ground.

Toward; in the centre; before; near.
To bear toward.

Place; neighborhood; place where one stands.
Prefixed to verbs, nouns, or adjectives, is the

sign of negation.

Prefixed to verbs, nouns, or adjectives, is the sign of negation. Ma uolel hanal (“I don't wish to eat "). So also it is in Greek. To be.

I am.

1 Mr. Lenormant, Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, p. 300, in a foot-note remarks: "I do not give the name of number four' in this table, because in the Akkadian it seems quite distinct." The Akkadian word San is (in Maya) can. See farther on for the various meanings and the power of that word, which among the Mayas was the title of the dynasty of their kings. It meant "serpent." Mr. Lenormant (p. 232) says that "the serpent with seven heads was invoked by the Akkadians." Was this seven-headed serpent the Ah-ac-chapat, totem of the seven members of the family of King Canchi of Mayach, that no doubt the Nágás worshipped at AngorThom in Cambodia? (See Le Plongeon, Sacred Mysteries, p. 145.) Sir George Rawlinson (The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i., p. 122) says, "The Accadians made the serpent one of the principal attributes, and one of the forms of Hea."

1

The moon.

Sun struck; lighted by the sun.

Modern Assyriologists, after translating the tablets on Assyrian and Chaldean magic, written in the Akkadian language, agree with the prophetical books of Scripture in the opinion that the Chaldees descended from the primitive Akkadians, and that those people spoke a language differing from the Semitic tongues. A writer in the British and Foreign Review says: "Babylonia was inhabited at an early period by a race of people entirely different from the Semitic population known in historic times. This people had an abundant literature, and they were the inventors of a system of writing which was at first hieroglyphic. Of the people who invented this system of writing very little is known with certainty, and even the name is a matter of doubt."

According to Berosus, who was a Chaldean priest, these first inhabitants of Babylonia, whose early abode was in Chaldea, were foreigners of another race (alloɛ0vεis). He carefully establishes a distinction between them and the Assyrians. 1 British and Foreign Review, No. 102, January, 1870, vol. ii., p. 305. Berosus, Fragments, 5, 6, 11.

Those primitive Akkadians, those strangers in Mesopotamia, the aborigines would naturally have regarded as guests in the country. Taking a hint from this idea, they called their first settlement ula or ul, a Maya word meaning "guests newly arrived." In this settlement in the marshy ground, lest the natives or the wild beasts that swarmed in the reeds should attack them, the strangers surrounded their dwellings with palisades, and designated the place as Kal-ti, whence Kaldi by which their tribe continued to be known even when they became influential. The word kalti is composed of two Maya primitives-kal, “to be enclosed with posts," and ti, "place.

In my work "The Monuments of Mayach and their Historical Teachings," I have traced step by step the journey of the Maya colonists, along the course of the Euphrates, to the "City of the Sun," Babylon, called in Akkadian, according to Mr. Lenormant,' Ká-Dingira or Tin-tir, the etymology of which appears to be unknown to him, though very easily found by means of the Maya. The name Ká-Dingira seems to be composed of four Maya primitives-Cah, "city; " Tin, a particle which in composition indicates the place where one is or an action happens; Kin, "priest; " La, "eternal truth,' the god, the sun. Cah-Tin-kin-la, or be it Ká-Dingira, is "the city where reside the priests of the sun."

The name Tin-tir, Maya Tin-til, means Tin, "the place where a thing actually exists; " Tiliz, by elision til, "sacred," "mysterious," "venerable." Tin-til would therefore be "the holy, the mysterious place," a very appropriate title for a sacred city. Til may, again, be the radical of Tilil, which means "property. "Tin-til would in this case signify "this place is 'Lenormant, Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, pp. 193, 353.