Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/369

 Sculpture. 339 as "Jewish intaglios," but we venture to say that they do not justify a similar classification, either in form, fabrication, characteristics, or ornament. They consist generally of a cone, or ellipsoid, or modifications of these ; shapes, it is needless to say, adopted betimes by the Phoenicians as more convenient than the cylinder or the scarab. As to execution, we find in full facility without nobility, and the commonplace dexterity which are the distinctive marks of all Punic industrial productions ; whilst subject and ornament — when they occur in the field of the signet — never transgress beyond the usual Phoenician type. 1 On the other hand, those who hold them as Jewish have not always brought to bear sufficient acumen in respect to the mode of composition of theophore names upon which they chiefly rely for their theory. We are quite willing to admit that seals, where one of the proper names is compounded of Jehovah, were wrought by or for Israelites ; for example, Jehu, Joash, Jonathan, Ahiah, or Eliadah, El, Elohim. But the question is more difficult of solution when the name is formed with Baal, as Eshbaal, Abimelech, Jerubbaal, etc., which although found in the Bible and borne by Jews of position, are common to all Semitic races, and might with equal propriety have belonged to Sidonians and Canaanites, as to Jews inhabiting Jerusalem or any other part of Palestine. 2 With all these restrictions, we may accept as unre- servedly " Jewish," a number of intaglios with inscriptions in old Hebrew characters, which may be examined in all public and private collections. The letters of the oldest Hebrew inscriptions are akin to Punic characters ; nevertheless an adept detects certain twists and curves in the latter, as well as in Cypriote writing, which are absent from the somewhat more rigid handwriting of the scribes of the Jordan Valley. This may perhaps be accounted for by difference of climate, which in a comparatively temperate zone, as Judaea, is apt to stiffen the muscles, and is not conducive to undulating forms, hence it will be seen that the locality where the piece was unearthed is important and deserves to be duly considered. In Judaea, as in Phoenicia, plain seals with nothing but the name 1 See De Vogue's Mélanges d'Arch. Orientale, chapter on " Intailles à Légendes Sémetiques," in-8°, 1878, and Menant, Recherches sur la Glyptique Orientale, pp. 227- 231, Pt. IL, 1886. 2 Names such as Nahun, Menahemeth, Uzzia, Akbor, and the like, might belong with equal fitness to Phoenicians or Jews.