Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/118

 9^ HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. the same letter, a belli, usually from five to twelve inches hitf h ( I; 'K- 35)-' Our readers will remember the bronze platters which were found at Nineveh ; many like them were found at distant points on the Mediterranean, and from the first archaeologists have never hesitated to ascribe them to a Phoenician origin. But that which after all was no more than a very probable conjecture was changed into certainty by the famous discovery at Palestrina : upon one of these platters, found in 1876 in the necropolis of the ancient Prameste, in the interior of Latium, a short but very clearly engraved Phcenician inscription was discovered and read ; " in all likelihood it gives us the name of the first owner of the dish, rather than that of its maker :! it runs Esmunj air-ben- A sto (Fig. 36). This point, however, is of slight importance; the value of the discovery lies in the fact that vases, diadems, jewels, etc., were found in the same tomb ; that they were made in IMC. 35. Crmhayiiiian mason's mark. 1 the same way and decorated in the same spirit as the platter, and that no reason can be named for giving them a different origin. Here then we have a whole collection of objects, with the 1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. No. 136. Beside beth, plic has been tound once and ain seven times. 2 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, p. i. No. 164. At the head of the article devoted to this inscription by the editors of the Corpus will be found a list of all the writings to which its discovery has given birth. The original of our reduction (Fig. 36) is plate 32 of vol. x. of the Monimenti of the Jnstitut de Correspondancc archeologique ; but aided by a fine photograph, for which we are indebted to the kindness of M. Fiorelli, our draughtsman has endeavoured to give his figures a sharper contour and to mark their relief with more accuracy. 1 M. RLNAN suggests that the name is that of some person deceased, to whose memory the dish was consecrated, and whose person was symbolized by the hawk which occupies the centre. We find it difficult to admit this explanation for an object which was destined, by its very nature, to pass from hand to hand, and, as the place of the discovery proves, to become an object of commerce. 4 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. plate 29.