Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/34

 14 HISTORY OF ART IN PHUNKTA AND MS I)i:rr.M>K.<n;s. best in Africa, but a language that differs little from pure Hebrew 21 Ve could not put aside this question of origin altogether, and it was better that we should explain those solutions of the problem that seemed to us best foanded." Hut whether we call them Semites or Cushites the Phoenicians are the only nation of the Cunaanites which can pretend to occupy a conspicuous and well-understood place in the history of art. Nearly all the tribes of the interior remained in their original condition of agriculturists and nomad shepherds. The only tribe that succeeded in founding a powerful state was that of the Khetas or Hittites, which settled in northern Syria. We shall have occasion to return to these Hittites who, thanks to recent discoveries, have now emerged from the obscurity in which they were so long buried. We shall endeavour to show that they too had an influence upon the civilization of their western neighbours which must be taken into 1 The opinion we have here expressed is that now held by the scholar who has most closely studied the question. M. KRNKST RKXAN began by studying the Phoenician remains on the spot ; afterwards, in his lectures at the College dc France, lie explained all the texts now extant, and prepared translations of them for the Corpus Inscriptionum Ssmiticarum. He will be our chief guide in these pages. We shall conlinually have to quote his great work, the Mission dc J'henicii (i vol. 410., and a folio of 70 plates, Paris, Michel Levy, 1863-74). We also owe much to the ready liberality with which oar learned colleague has put his knowledge at our service whenever we have had to consult him in the course of our work. We may r.lso take this opportunity to express our obligations to M. PH. BERBER, associated for many years with M. Kenan, in the researches undertaken for the Academic des Inscriptions. M. Berger has given us much useful information. From the many papers he has published on Phoenicia and Carthage we have bo; rowed even more frequently than our foot-notes indicate. - In many respects this ques'.ion is still very obscure. The place given to the Canaanites in the genealogies of Genesis has been explained by the natural anti- pathy they inspired in a people with whom they disputed the possession of Palestine, and who expressed their hatred by making them the descendants of Ham, that is of an ill-conditioned and accursed ancestor; " but," objects M. Bjrger, "from that point of view the Hebrews would have done the same to the Moabites, the Ammonites, and, especially, to the Idumaeans and Amalekites, their traditional enemies " (La Phcnicie, p. 2}. But as a fact they consented to recognize those detested tribes as their kinsmen. We do not under-estimate the force of the objection, although we cannot allow it to stand before the great fact of the identity of language. In his Orpines dc /' Uistoire. M. Fr. Lenormant has not yet discussed the question. He has begun an examination of the ethnographical tables in the tenth chapter of Genesis, but in his second volume he has only got as far as the family of Japhet. (M. Fr. Lenormant has died since these words were in print, and his Origines de I ' Hiitoiie remains a fragment. F.u. )