(1) “New Archaeological Lights on the Origins of
     Civilization in Europe,” British Association, Newcastle-on-
     Tyne, 1916.

(2) The necessary omission of plates, representing the slides shown in the lectures, has involved a recasting of most passages in which points of archaeological detail were discussed; see Preface.  But the following paragraphs have been retained as the majority of the monuments referred to are well known.

Some of the most famous monuments of Semitic art date from the Persian and Hellenistic periods, and if we glance at them in this connexion it is in order to illustrate during its most obvious phase a tendency of which the earlier effects are less pronounced.  In the sarcophagus of the Sidonian king Eshmu-’azar II, which is preserved in the Louvre,(1) we have indeed a monument to which no Semitic sculptor can lay claim.  Workmanship and material are Egyptian, and there is no doubt that it was sculptured in Egypt and transported to Sidon by sea.  But the king’s own engravers added the long Phoenician inscription, in which he adjures princes and men not to open his resting-place since there are no jewels therein, concluding with some potent curses against any violation of his tomb.  One of the latter implores the holy gods to deliver such violators up “to a mighty prince who shall rule over them”, and was probably suggested by Alexander’s recent occupation of Sidon in 332 B.C. after his reduction and drastic punishment of Tyre.  King Eshmun-’zar was not unique in his choice of burial in an Egyptian coffin, for he merely followed the example of his royal father, Tabnith, “priest of ’Ashtart and king of the Sidonians”, whose sarcophagus, preserved at Constantinople, still bears in addition to his own epitaph that of its former occupant, a certain Egyptian general Penptah.  But more instructive than these borrowed memorials is a genuine example of Phoenician work, the stele set up by Yehaw-milk, king of Byblos, and dating from the fourth or fifth century B.C.(2) In the sculptured panel at the head of the stele the king is represented in the Persian dress of the period standing in the presence of ’Ashtart or Astarte, his “Lady, Mistress of Byblos”.  There is no doubt that the stele is of native workmanship, but the influence of Egypt may be seen in the technique of the carving, in the winged disk above the figures, and still more in the representation of the goddess in her character as the Egyptian Hathor, with disk and horns, vulture head-dress and papyrus-sceptre.  The inscription records the dedication of an altar and shrine to the goddess, and these too we may conjecture were fashioned on Egyptian lines.

     (1) Corp.  Inscr.  Semit., I. i, tab.  II.

     (2) C.I.S., I. i, tab.  I.