Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/256

232 they bear the name of Reshep, a Phœnician god, and one of the figures upon them is that of a hawk-headed Egyptian divinity. Moreover, there are mistakes in the transcription of the Phœnician legend into cuneiform, faults which should rather be laid to him who furnished the text than to the engraver: the former knew Assyrian, but not well. The most likely explanation of these curious objects is, perhaps, to suppose them due to the desire of Sidonian merchants who had lived long in Mesopotamia to possess seals like those used by the inhabitants of a country in which they had gained much wealth. According to M. Oppert, the inscription on one reads:

On the other:

so that they would appear to have belonged to father and son.

In this instance every detail, both of figures and lettering, points to the Phœnician imitator, but it is not often that we can make so sure. Look for instance at this cylinder from the country north of Lebanon (Fig. 150). In the five characters there engraved the characteristics of Aramæan writing may be traced, so that by provenance and by its inscription the monument is Syrian; but the theme, the struggle between a divine or royal personage and two animals, is one of those created by Mesopotamian art, and frequently repeated from the time of the old Chaldæan monuments down to that of the Persian kings: the sacred tree and the crescent moon also belong to the same repertory. The costume of the principal figure is that of an Achæmenid prince. The type, as a whole, is that of the royal seal of Darius and his successors, a type which was adopted by the satraps and other officers who represented the royal authority. We can easily understand how such an officer should make use of a cylinder like this in Syria, but we have no means of knowing whether it was all the work of