Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/249

 Recent Excavations at Carthage. 219 at HierapoUs in Syria, and gives some curious details as to the rites and other matters connected with them. In the greater number of the cases above mentioned the goddess seems to have been the principal divinity. It would be an interesting subject of investigation, if the materials for it were within our reach, whether the Sun and Moon were originally worshipped by the Carthaginians under the names of Tanith and Baal-Hamon. Both names, being probably of Egyptian origin, may have been adopted by the Phrenicians in consequence of their intimate relations with Egypt, and have taken the places of Ashtoreth and Moloch, the more ancient names of the same divinities. The worship of Tanais received, as we have seen, a great extension under the influence of Artaxerxes II., who reigned from B.C. 405 to 362 ; and it is remarkable that from his contemporary, Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse from B.C. 405 to 357, the Carthaginians obtained the magnificent peplos of their goddess, as before men- tioned, for the large sum of 120 talents. On some of the tablets the inscriptions are accompanied by various ornaments and symbols, sometimes scratched with a sharp point, sometimes sculptured in low relief. The ornaments consist generally of rude representations of egg and tongue mouldings, rosettes, neurons of honeysuckle-pattern, or wreaths. Among the symbols the most remarkable and common is one of a triangular form sur- mounted by a circle and two curved arms, which is supposed to represent the goddess Tanith. An example may be seen on tablet No. 1, given on a previous page; other varieties" are shown in the accompanying woodcuts Nos. 3 and 4, and two exactly alike may be found in fig. 5, which is the fragment of a votive tablet, erected by Abdcsnum, son of Bodmilcart. On this tablet the images of the goddess seem to be supported on the slender stems of the lotus, an appropriate ornament, as the Egyptian goddess Keith had a lotus sceptre. These several forms make it probable that, like the Paphian Venus, the image of Tanith was a conical stone made to take a human semblance by some rude additions." In tablet No. 6 we sec the hand alluded to above as possibly signi- fying avow; it is placed between figures of the moon and sun as symbols of the two divinities ; this tablet is dedicated by Hanibal, son of [Bod]esmun. On one of the tablets are two fishes, animals described by Lucian as sacred to the goddess of Hierapolis," as they were also to Athor the Egyptian Venus. One more symbol One of these (fig. 4) is not unlike the representation of Baal as worshipped at Emesa. " On the worship of conical stones, see Munter, Der Tempel der himmliachen GOttin zu Paphos, 1824; Lajard, Memoire sur le Quite de Venus, Acad. des Inscrip. 1833; Akerman, The Stone-worship of Ancients, 1838. c De Dea Syria, 45. 2P2