the astronomical period of 600 years, at the expiration of which
the sun and moon return to the same positions nearly in the
heavens, which they occupied at its commencement.1 The
The canicular ancients were also acquainted with the cynic or canicular year,
by some called the heliacal, and by others the eniautus, or the
year, being the interval between two heliacal risings of Sirius.
They are supposed also to have discovered what they called
the great year, in which they imagined that the sun, moon,
and all the planets complete their courses, and return to the
same sign of the zodiac from which they originally set out.2
Traditional That such periods are mentioned by those writers, goes far
to show that they had been previously determined, and handed
down, either by written testimony, or the streams of traditional
history radiating from a common centre, which, although
dimmed by a mixture of error, are found everywhere to preserve
essential marks of truth; nor is it difficult to imagine,
and even to follow the links of such a chain. One individual
would have been sufficient to- transmit a knowledge of the
events which preceded the flood. Lamech, for instance, (son
of Methuselah,) lived from the time of Adam to that of the
second progenitor of mankind; from whom again the three
patriarchs, Eber, Isaac, and Levi, would have sufficed to carry
the chain down to Moses himself. Such a link would equally
prevail among the correlatives of this branch in Arabia, where
Yaafar, the great-grandson of Himyár, might have carried
down the traditionary chain from Shem to Jethro (the father-
in-law of Moses). The historian of the early Hebrews only
a n d itsp re - gives a complete genealogy of the line of Seth, which he conservation.
tinues through that of Shem, whilst he brings down the other
great antediluvian branch only to the daughter of Lamech; but
if, as will be presently noticed, Naamah was in reality the wife
of Ham, a further account would naturally have been preserved
by some of this race. Sanchoniatho, their historian, gives, like
Moses, and with a certain degree of resemblance in the names,
ten generations from Adam to Ham, whilst the records pre-
1 Josephus, lib., I . c. 3.
! From Censorinus: see Ancient Fragments, by I. P . Cory, Esq., p. 323.
W. Pickering, London, 1832.
served amongst the sons of his eldest brother (Japhet) are
still more minute, for which, as will be seen, the earliest locations
of his descendants in the vicinity of Ararat afforded
peculiar advantages.
Owing to the difficulties of the language, and exaggerated
accounts of the dangers in traversing this mountainous region,
Armenia, especially the tract occupied by the Kurds, has seldom
been visited; and as late as the year 1831 the populous districts
along the right bank of the Euphrates, namely, Gurun, Mala-
tiyah, 'Ain-tab, Sis, and ’Ain-zarbah, which formed part of
Armenia Minor, may be said to have been scarcely known.
The Armenians, as we learn from Moses Choronensis, Antiquity of
. 1 1 ^ - Armenian Michael Chamish, and others, trace their language, and the language,
line of their kings back to the Deluge, and, the people having
lived almost entirely apart from the rest of the world, within
the deep recesses of the Taurus, it may be presumed that the
former was long preserved among them in its original state.
We are informed by one of the writers just mentioned that
Noah’s family remained in Armenia Major some considerable
time subsequent to the Deluge, where they intermarried ; 1 but
at a later period there was a separation of the families, and the
people may from that time be considered as divided into
separate tribes. Shem, the eldest, by appointment, was the
first to seek another country; and we are told that he proceeded
in a north-western direction, to the foot of a lofty
mountain, bounded by an extensive plain, delightfully watered
by a river passing through the middle of the tract. Here he
remained for a short time, when, having given his name
(Shem) to the mountain, and left Taron, one of his youngest
sons,- at the town that he had built, which afterwards bore the
name of Tamberan, he proceeded thence towards the southeast,
a course which, presuming he quitted the plain of Erz-
lliim, would carry him to the land of Shinar.
Ham, now become the last by inheritance, appears to have Settlements
continued near Mount Ararat, Japhet being already settlednear ra‘
westward of that mountain; so that the temporary locations of
1 History of Armenia, by Father Michael Chamish, translated from the
original Armenian, by Johannes Avdall, Esq. Calcutta, 1827.