KALAH or Killah. ARAB. A castle, a fortress. Kala-Jabar or Ilasn-Jabar, near the Euphrates, the Ezion-geber of the Bible (1 Kings ix. 26, 27). Kalat-ar-Rum, on tho Euphrates, south of Edessa. Kalat ul Mudik occupies the site of Apameia. Asshur or Assur was originally the name of a city on the banks of the Tigris, the ruins of which are now known as Kalah Sherghat. The name was of Accadian derivation, and signified waterbank.' Babylonia was an older kingdom than Assyria, which took its name from the city of Assur, now Kalah Sherghat, the original capital of the country. It was divided into two halves, Accad (Genesis x. 10) being Northern Babylonia, and Sumir, the Shinar of the Old Testament, Southern Babylonia. The primitive populations of both Sutnir and Accad were related not to the Semitio race, but to the tribes which continued to maintain themselves in the mountains of Elam down to a late day. They
spoke two cognate dialects, which were agglutinat ive in character, like the Languages of tho modern Turks and Fins ; that is to say, the relations of grammar were expressed by coupling words together, each of which retained an independent meaning of its own. At an early date the Sumirians and Accadians were overrun and con quered by the Semitic Babylonians of later history, Accad being apparently the first half of the country to fall. It is possible that Casdim, the Hebrew word translated Chaldees or Chal dmans, is the Babylonian midi or conquerors, a title which continued to cling to them in con sequence of their conquest. The Accadians had been the inventors of the pictorial hiero glyphics which afterwards developed into the cuneiform or wedge-shaped system of writing.— Sayce, Fresh Light, p. 24.