Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/333

Rh 4. This brings me to another point. Professor Smith speaks of the strokes of the letters as "saw-cuts." To me it appears that they were made with the point of a graving tool. Had the}^ been made with a saw they would have been straight and of the same depth from one end of the stroke to the other, whereas on both lines of the inscription not only are some of the strokes not straight but all of the less-worn ones are broader and deeper in the middle than at the ends, where they terminate in points. By use these shallow and tapering ends have in several letters become nearly or quite obliterated, as in the 'ain of the less-worn side, and in all the letters, except the last, of that which is more worn, and this obliteration sometimes separates the ends of strokes which ought to touch one another, as in the first letter of the much-worn side, and that which Professor Sayce regards as a shin. In nearly all the letters on both sides the bottoms of the grooves are more or less smoothed, almost polished, as if they had been finished by rubbing with a blunt tool. I do not remember to have seen this peculiarity in any modern forgery.

5. Below is a reproduction of a drawing of the inscription kindly sent to me by Professor Robertson Smith. The drawing was done, I believe, by Mr. r. C. Burkitt, of Cambridge. It will enable scholars to form their own opinion as to whether the prolongation of the respective lines of the disputed letter until they meet would form a figure representing an old Hebrew shin as suggested by Professor Sayce. Without presuming to enter into a controversy which must be settled by the experts, I venture to think that there is little room for doubt that Professor Sayce is right. As shown on the drawing, the lower ends of the strokes of this shin are not much further apart than the ends of the lateral strokes of the raish on that side, and the prolongations of the strokes required to make a perfect shin appear to me no more "imaginary" than the prolongations required to complete the raish, which is a letter no one calls in question. It is strange to find Professor Robertson Smith remarking that "the point of the spindle would naturally be less worn than the middle," for the most worn of all the letters, except the disputed shin, is the raish at the extreme end of the spindle.

The interest attaching to this weight with its inscription is so great that I feel it ought not to remain in the keeping of a private person, and I have, therefore, presented it to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, where doubtless it may be seen by those desiring to study it.