Northern Babylonia and Assyria probably attracted the tillers of the soil.  But the movements of seafarers must have followed a different route.  It is possible that about this time the Phoenicians began to migrate towards the “Upper Sea”.  According to their own traditions their racial cradle was on the northern shore of the Persian Gulf.  So far as we know, they first made their appearance on the Mediterranean coast about 2000 B.C., where they subsequently entered into competition as sea traders with the mariners of ancient Crete.  Apparently the pastoral nomads pressed northward through Mesopotamia and towards Canaan.  As much is suggested by the Biblical narrative which deals with the wanderings of Terah, Abraham, and Lot.  Taking with them their “flocks and herds and tents “, and accompanied by wives, and families, and servants, they migrated, it is stated, from the Sumerian city of Ur northwards to Haran “and dwelt there”.  After Terah’s death the tribe wandered through Canaan and kept moving southward, unable, it would seem, to settle permanently in any particular district.  At length “there was a famine in the land”—­an interesting reference to the “Dry Cycle”—­and the wanderers found it necessary to take refuge for a time in Egypt.  There they appear to have prospered.  Indeed, so greatly did their flocks and herds increase that when they returned to Canaan they found that “the land was not able to bear them”, although the conditions had improved somewhat during the interval.  “There was”, as a result, “strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle.”

It is evident that the area which these pastoral flocks were allowed to occupy must have been strictly circumscribed, for more than once it is stated significantly that “the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled in the land”.  The two kinsmen found it necessary, therefore, to part company.  Lot elected to go towards Sodom in the plain of Jordan, and Abraham then moved towards the plain of Mamre, the Amorite, in the Hebron district.[272] With Mamre, and his brothers, Eshcol and Aner, the Hebrew patriarch formed a confederacy for mutual protection.[273]

Other tribes which were in Palestine at this period included the Horites, the Rephaims, the Zuzims, the Zamzummims, and the Emims.  These were probably representatives of the older stocks.  Like the Amorites, the Hittites or “children of Heth” were evidently “late comers”, and conquerors.  When Abraham purchased the burial cave at Hebron, the landowner with whom he had to deal was one Ephron, son of Zohar, the Hittite.[274] This illuminating statement agrees with what we know regarding Hittite expansion about 2000 B.C.  The “Hatti” or “Khatti” had constituted military aristocracies throughout Syria and extended their influence by forming alliances.  Many of their settlers were owners of estates, and traders who intermarried with the indigenous peoples and the Arabian invaders.  As has been indicated (Chapter I), the large-nosed Armenoid