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96 A Short History of The World an Ethiopian dynasty. Sardanapalus simply replaced one conqueror by another. If one had a series of political maps of this long period of history, this interval of ten centuries, we should have Egypt expanding and contracting hke an amoeba under a microscope, and we should see these various Semitic states of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Pholo : D. McLeisTt, AVENUE OF SPHINXES Leading from the Nile to the great Temple of Karnak Hittites and the Syrians coming and going, eating each other up and disgorging each other again. To the west of Asia Minor there would be little ^gean states like Lydia, whose capital was Sardis, and Caria. But after about 1200 B.C. and perhaps earlier, a new set of names would come into the map of the ancient world from the north- east and from the north-west. These would be the names of certain barbaric tribes, armed with iron weapons and using horse-chariots, who were becoming a great affliction to the ^Egean and Semitic