Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/374

 galley, and not unlike the familiar figures of Faith on the Christian Knowledge Society books.

The cyclopean temple at Gozzo, the island adjacent to Malta, has been supposed to be a shrine of the Phœnicians to Mylitta or Astarte. It is of a cruciform shape (Fig. 9). A superb medal of Cilicia, bearing a Phœnician legend, and struck under the Persian domination, has on one side a figure of this goddess with a crux ansata by her side, the lower member split.

Another form of the cross (Figs. 19, 20) is repeated frequently and prominently on coins of Asia Minor. It occurs as the reverse of a silver coin supposed to be of Cyprus, on several Cilician coins: it is placed beneath the throne of Baal of Tarsus, on a Phœnician coin of that town, bearing the legend (Baal Tharz). A medal, possibly of the same place, with partially obliterated Phœnician characters, has the cross occupying the entire field of the reverse side. Several, with inscriptions in unknown characters, have a ram on one side, and the cross and ring on the other. Another has the sacred bull accompanied by this symbol; others have a lion’s head on obverse, and the cross and circle on the reverse.

A beautiful Sicilian medal of Camarina bears a