*

subterranean chambers, or sepulchres. Not long before our arrival, the English consul, signor Peristiani, a Venetian, dug up, in one place, about thirty idols belonging to the most ancient mythology of the heathen world. Their origin refers to a period long anterior to the conquest of Cyprus by the Ptolomies, and may relate to the earliest establishment of the Phoenician colonies. Some of these are of terra cotta; others of a coarse lime stone; and some of soft crumbling marble. They were all sent to our ambassador at Constantinople, who presented them to Mr. Cripps. The principal figures seem to have been very ancient representations of the most popular divinity of the island, the pantamorpha mater; more frequently represented as Ceres than as Venus, (notwithstanding all that poets have feigned of the Paphian goddess,) if we may safely trust to such documents as engraved gems, medals, marbles, and to these idols, the authentic records of the country. Upon almost all the intaglios found in Cyprus, even among the ruins of Paphos, the representations are either those of Ceres herself, or of symbols designating her various modifications. Of these, the author collected many, which it would be tedious to enumerate. In their origin, the worship of Ceres and of Venus was the same. The Moon, or Dea Jana, called Diana by the Romans, and Astarte," daughter of Heaven," by the Phoenicians, whether under the naine of Urania, Juno, or Isis, was also the Ce res of Eleusis. Having in a former publication pointed out their connexion, and their common reference to a single principle in nature, (a subject involving more extraneous discussion than might be deemed consistent with the present undertaking,) it is not necessary to renew the argument further, than to explain the reason why the symbols of the Eleusinian Ceres were

*De la Roque was in Cyprus in May, 1688. At that time, a relation of his, Monsr. Feau, the French consul at Larneca, showed to him sundry antiquities recently discovered in sepulchres near the town. He particularly mentions, lachrymatories and lamps. Voy. de Syrie et du Mont. Liban, par De La Roque, tom. i. p. 2. Par. 1722.

The Latin Diana (Vossius de Idolat. lib. ii. c. 25.) is the contract of Diva Jana, or Dea Jana." See also the erudite dissertation of Gale (Court of the Gentiles, p. 119. Oxon. 1669.) "They styled the moon Urania, Juno, Jana, Diana, Venus, &c.; and as the sun was called Jupiter, from Tja warp, and Janus from the same, so also the moon was called first Jana, and thence Juno, from Tjah, the proper name of God." So Vossius de Idolat. lib. ii. c. 26. "Juno is referred to the moon, and comes from T Jah, the proper name of God, as Jacchus from T ja Chus. Amongst the ancient Romans, Jana and Juno were the same."

According to the learned Gale, our word Easter, considered of such doubtful etymology, is derived from the Saxon goddess ESTAR, or Astarte, to whom they sacrificed in the month of April. See Gale's Court of the Gentiles, b. ii. c. 2.

"Greek Marbles," p. 74.

also employed as the most ancient types of the Cyprian Venus.* A very considerable degree of illustration, concerning the history of the idols discovered at Larneca, is afforded by the appearance of one of them, although little more of it remains than a mere torso. It belonged to an androgynous figure, represented as holding, in its right hand, a lion's cub, pendent by the tail, upon the abdomen of the statue. We might in vain seek an explanation of this singular image, were it not for the immense erudition of Athanasius Kircher, whose persevering industry enabled him to collect, and to compare, the innumerable forms of Egyptian deities; while his learning qualified him for the task of exploring every source, whence indisputable testimony might be derived, touching their hidden meaning. According to the different authorities he has cited,† the momphta or type of humid_naiure.‡ (that is to say, the passive principle,) was borne by Isis in her left hand, and generally represented by a lion. In her right she carried the dog Anubis. Either of these symbols separately denoted the magna mater; and may thus be explained. The leonine figure, as employ ed to signify water, was derived from the astronomical sign of the period for the Nile's inundation. Hence we sometimes see the momphta expressed by a sitting image with the lion's head.** Plutarch gives to Isis the epithet momphiaan. Her double sex is alluded to by Orpheus, who describes her as at once father and mother of all things. By the figure of Anubis, Isis was again typified as the Hecate of the Greeks. It is a symbol frequently placed upon their sepulchral monuments;§§ and was otherwise represented by the image of Cerberus, with three heads, or with fifty, as allusion is intended either to the diva triformis, or to the pantamorphic nature of the goddess. Among

*CUJUS NUMEN UNICUM, MULTIFORMI SPECIE, RITU VARIO, NOMINE MULTIJUGO, TO TUS VENERATUR ORBIS.

Vid Kircher. Edip. Egypt. tom. iii. pp. 98, 184, 221, 323, 504. Rom. 1654. "Per Leonem, Morphla, humidæ naturæ præses." Kirch. De Diis Averruncis. Synt. 17.

See the engravings in Kircher. Edip. Egypt. tom. iii. p. 502. Also tom. ii. pars 2. p. 259.

"Pingitur leonino vultu, quod Sole in Leonem incrediente incrementa Nilotica seu inundationes contingant." Kircher, Edip, gypt. tom. iii. p. 323.

**A beautiful colossal statue of this description is now in the British museum. It was among the antiquities surrendered by the French, at the capitulation of Alexandria.

+ Plut. de Isid. et Osir. Kirch. Obel. Sallust Syntag. 4. cap. 4.

If Also as Luna, according to Plutarch (De Is. et Osir. c.43.), Isis bears the same description with regard to her double sex. "They call the moon," says he," Mother of the World, and think it has a double sex. Διὸ καὶ Μητέρα τὴν Σελήνην τοῦ Κόσμο καλοῦσι, καὶ φύσιν ἔχειν ἀρσενόθηλυν οἴονται.

See the author's "Greek Marbles," p. 10. No. XII.

S

the gems found in Cyprus, we noticed intagliated scarabæi with similiar symbols; and obtained one whereon Isis was exhibited holding the quadruped, precisely according to the appearance presented by the statue discovered at Larneca. Since these antiquities were found, the inhabitants have also dug up a number of stone coffins, of an oblong rectangular form. Each of these, with the exception of its cover, is of an entire mass of stone. One of them contained a small vase of terra cotta, of the rudest workmanship, destitute of any glazing or varnish.* Several intaglios were also discovered, and brought to us for sale. We found it more difficult to obtain ancient gems in Larneca than in the interior of the island, owing to the exorbitant prices set upon them. At Nicotia, the goldsmiths part with such antiquities for a few paras. The people of Larueca are more accustomed to intercourse with strangers, and expect to make a harvest in their coming. Among the ring stones we left in that town, was a beautiful intaglio representing Cupid whipping a butterfly: a common method among aucient lapidaries, of typifying the power of love over the soul. Also an onyx, which there is every reason to believe one of the Ptolemies had used as a signet. It contained a very curious monogram, expressing all the letters of the word пTOAEMAIOT, cording to the manner here represented:

ac

The use of such instruments for signature is recorded in the books of Moses, seventeen hundred years before the christian æra; and the practice has continued in eastern countries, with little variation, to the present day. The signets of the Turks are of this kind. The Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians, had the same custom; indeed, almost all the ancient intaglios were so employed. In the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, it is reJated that Tamar demanded the signet of Judah; and above three thousand years have passed since the great lawgiver of

the Jews was directed* to engrave the names of the children of Israel upon onyx-stones, "like the engravings of a signet ;" that is to say, (if we may presume to illustrate a text so sacred, with reference to a custom still universally extant,) by a series of monograms, graven as intaglios, to be set in ouches of gold, for the shoulders of the ephod." That the signet was of stone, set in metal, in the time of Moses, is also clear from this passage of sacred history: "With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones. Thou shalt make them to be set in ouches of gold." Signets without stones, and entirely of metal, did not come into use, according to Pliny, until the time of Claudius Cæsar. The most ancient intaglios of Egypt were graven upon stones, having the form of scarabæi. This kind of signet was also used by the Phoenicians, as will further appear. The characters upon them are therefore either in hieroglyphical writing, Phoenician letters, or later monograms derived from the Greek alphabet. Alexander, at the point of death, gave his signet to Perdiccas; and Laodice, mother of Seleucus, the founder of the Syro Macedonian empire, in an age when women, profiting by the easy credulity of their husbands, apologized for an act of infidelity by pretending an intercourse with Apollo, exhibited a signet found in her bed, with a symbol afterward used by all the Seleucida.[ The introduction of sculptured animals upon the signets of the Romans was derived from the sacred symbols of the Egyp tians hence the origin of the sphinx for the signet of Augustus. When the practice of deifying princes and venerating heroes became general, portraits of men supplied the place of more ancient types. This custom gave birth to the camachuia, or caméo; a later invention, merely exhibiting a model of the impression or cast yielded to a signet. The use of the caméo does not, in my opinion, bear date anterior to the period of the Roman power. The remains of these are rarely found in Greece; and even when discovered, with the excep tion of the remarkable stone found at Thebes, representing a female Centaur suckling its foal,** the workmanship is bad.

:

Exod. xxviii. 9, 10, 11.

+ Hist. Nat. lib. xxxiii. c. 1.

4 See a former note in this chapter, for the history of the ancient superstition con cerning the scarabaus.

Justin. lib. xü

Ibid. iib xv. c. 4.

**This celebrated caméo has been long known to all travellers who have visited Greece. It belonged to a peasant, who esteemed it beyond all price, from its ima

Concerning the Theban gem, it can perhaps be proved that the subject thereon exhibited was originally derived from a very popular picture painted by Zeuxis; and as its execution is by no means uniformly excellent, there is reason to conclude that the work is not of remote antiquity. Every traveller who has visited Italy may have remarked a practice of representing, both by caméos and intaglios, the subjects of celebrated pictures; such, for example, as those of the Danae and the Venus by Titian, and many other. Copies of this kind were also known among the Romans, and perhaps at an earlier period, taken from the works of Grecian painters. The first style of imitating such pictures by engraving was probably that exhibited by the intaglio, from whose cast the caméo was made. Gems of this kind, executed by the lapidaries of Greece, even so long ago as the age of Zeuxis, may have given origin to the Theban stone. That it does exhibit a subject nearly coinciding with an ancient description of one of his pictures, is manifest from a Greek Commentary upon Gregory Nazianzen, discovered by the late professor Porson, in a manuscript of that author brought by me from the library of the monastery of the Apocalypse in the Isle of Patmos. The commentary would perhaps have been illegible to other eyes than those of the learned professor. I shall therefore subjoin an extract from his own copy of this very curious marginal illustration, as authority

ginary virtue in healing diseases. Many persons in vain endeavoured to purchase it. The earl of Elgin, ambassador at the Porte, at last found the means of inducing its Owner to part with it.

*The famous Mosaic picture of the vase and pigeons, found in the Villa of Mecænas, and lately in the capitol at Rome, exhibits a subject frequently introduced aupon the ancient gems of Italy.

The writing both of the commentary and of the text, in that manuscript, was deemed, by the learned professor, as ancient as that of Plato from the same place, now with the copy of Gregory in the Bodleian library.

It is impossible to give an idea of the difficulty thus surmounted, without exhibiting the manuscript itself. Above two thirds of every letter in the beginning of the note had been cut off; these the professor restored, from their reliques, and from the context; and the abbreviated style of the whole is such as would baffle all but Porsopian acumen.

§ Ζεύξις ἐκεῖνος ἄριςτος, συγγραφέον γενόμενος, τα μὲν δημώδη καὶ κοινα οὐκ ἔγραφέν, ἤ ὅσα τάνυ ὀλίγα· αεὶ δὲ καινοτομεῖν ἐπειρᾶτο, καί τι ξένον καὶ αλλόκοτον ἐπινοήσας, ἐπ ̓ ἐκεῖνο τὴν τῆς τέχνης ακρίβειαν ἐπεδεικαυτο· θήλειαν οὖν ἱπποκένταυρον Ζεύξις ἐποίησεν ανατρέφεσαν προσέτι παι δίω ἱπποκενταύρω διδύμω κομιδέ νηπίω· τῆς εἰκόνος ταύτης αντίγραφον ̓Αθήνησι γέγονε πρὸς αὐτὴν ἐκείνην ἀκριβεῖ τῆι σταθμῆι· τὸ γὰρ ἀρχέτυπον • Σύλλας ὁ Ρωμαίων στρατηγὰς μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων ςκύλων εἰς Ἰταλίαν επέςτειλεν· εἶτα περι Μαλέαν καταδύσει τῆς ὁλκάδος πάντα καὶ τὴν γρα τὴν ἀπολέσθαι· λέγεται μόλις δὲ γράφουςι Καλλίμαχος καὶ Καλαίσης (sie; fortasse Καλάκης) τὴν εἰκόνα τῆς (excide fortasse vox αρχαίας) εἰκόνος οὕτως. Ἐπὶ χλόης εὐθαλοὺς Κένταυρος αὐτὴ πεποιήται ὅλοι μὲν τῆι ἵππων χαμαι