Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/164

 144 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. sepulchre, that in it he continued to live that imperfect and pre- carious life which we attempted to describe in the case of Egypt. One is, therefore, surprised to find no reference, direct or indirect, to any provision of funerary offerings such as those for which every Egyptian, were he never so humble, prayed perpetually in the words engraved on his stele. 1 No Phoenician tombs have been discovered in such a state that the silence of their inscrip- tions could be made up for by an inventory of their contents. Cords and bandages have sometimes left traces upon sarcophagi and tomb chambers, whence it has been concluded that certain practices in which the Egyptians excelled had their followers in Phoenicia. 2 Embalmed with more or less care and tied up in linen bandages, Phoenician corpses when ready for burial must have had much the look of mummies, but of mummies prepared with less scrupulous care and refinement than those of Egypt. When the corpse was placed in its human-headed sarcophagus, the opening of the ear was sometimes carried through the whole thickness of that stone envelope, as if to leave a free passage for the prayers of the living to the ears of the dead. 8 The sepulchral furniture differs little from what we found in Egypt and in Chalda^a. It comprises amulets, statuettes of tutelary divinities, and objects for the use of the dead. But so far as we can discover, no eatables, either real or figured, have yet been found in Phoenician tombs ; perhaps, however, this apparent difference between the practice of Syria and that of Egypt and Chaldaea is to be accounted for by the fact that in the first mentioned country no sepulchre has been found so intact as many of those in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. Tombs were less carefully hidden in Phoenicia, and cemeteries were far less extensive. As a result of this we find that even in antiquity many sepulchres were used at second hand by those who had no right to them. These usurpations must have led to the dispersal of the original furnishing of any tomb in which they took place. 1 Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. I. pp. 140-145. 2 DE LONGPERIKR, At u see Napoleon ///., notice of plate xvii. RKNAN, Mission, pp. 78 and 421. It would seem that the Jews sometimes embalmed corpses, in imitation of the Phoenicians. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that this was done in the case of King Asa (2 Chronicles xvi. 14). 3 DE LONGPERIER, Afusee Napoleon III., observations on plate xvii. An instance of this practice may be seen in a woman's sarcophagus which has been brought from the necropolis of Arvad to the Louvre.