Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/650

 340 Museums and Raree Shoivs m Antiquity.

of which (that is, the face, hands and feet) were of ivory) on which was inscribed " The Akragantines to Lindian Athena, spoil from Minoa." To judge by the formula used the offering must have been made shortly after the over- throw of the tyrant Phalaris in B.C. 550, since it is the Akragantines who are named and not the tyrant who had already dedicated in his own name a splendid ancient Krater inscribed : " Daidalos gave me as a gift to Cocalos " ; and on the base was written : " Phalaris of Akragas to Lindian Athena." Yet the offering of the Akragantines must be placed before the siege of Minoa shortly before B.C. 500, because after that date the official name of the town was Herakleia. The rest of the image was most likely of wood, a simpler technique than the later chrysele- phantine statues. These primitive wooden groups must have been extremely interesting, and would have added enormously to our knowledge of the development of sculpture had they been preserved.

Amasis, King of the Egyptians, dedicated a linen corselet, each thread of which had 360 strands, two golden images and ten bowls. The compiler adds that there were two inscrip- tions on the images, on one : " Amasis, the far-famed King of Egypt, was the bestower " ; on the other was an inscription " in w^hat the Egyptians call sacred writing," — that is, in hieroglyphics. Amasis reigned from B.C. 570-526, and probably the offering was made shortly after his accession, because it was all part of his policy of conciliation towards Cyrene and the Greek states. The corselet is mentioned twice by Herodotos, by Aelian and by Pliny, ^ the last named citing a traveller in the Orient, Gains Licinius Mucianus, who about a.d. 60 visited Lindos and states that there he touched the corselet of Amasis, which was by that time reduced under the hands of inquisitive generations to the merest rags. These rags were most likely genuine, a

1 Herodotos, ii. 183; iii. 47 ; Aelian, mpl ^wui', ix. 17; Pliny, N.H. xix. 12.