Palestine had had a long history before coming of Israel. This history, formerly unsuspected, has been in recent years remarkably, though as yet only in part, revealed to us. Our first hint of a historical reference to this part of world occurs in inscription of Lugalzaggisi, king of Babylonia, about 4000 B. C. This king claims to have reached in his raids Upper Sea, i. e., Mediterranean.t At what point he reached Mediterranean coast he does not tell us. Probability points, however, to northern Syria. Sargon I, who ruled in Babylonia about 3800 B.C., conquered land of Martu, a name explained in tablets of a later period as the land of Amorites. The Amorites, as we shall see, lived in region of Lebanon mountains and hill country to south of them, so that Sargon, perhaps, conquered northern Palestine. Business documents were dated in Babylonia in year of this conquest,2 so that we are assured that conquest of so distant a land duly impressed Babylonians. We have no means of knowing what condition of Palestine was at this far-oS period, or who inhabited it. The excavation of Gezer by Mr. Macalister has, however, afforded us some knowledge of a people resident there at a time probably about 3000 B. C., and perhaps we shall not go astray if we suppose that country was peopled by a similar race and supported a similar civilization in time of Sargon. The earliest people found at Gezer were small of stature, being but an inch or two over five feet in height. They lived in caves, some of which were natural, and some of which were excavated in rock. They were ignorant of use of metal, but had knives of flint. Their household utensils, so far as known to us, consisted