74 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



ancient Phenician colonists of Sardinia." But, I must still ask, where have 

 examples of such prototype been found in any of the countries referred to ? 

 Not surely in Lord Valentia's Towers at Bhaugulpore, in India, which are not 

 proved to have been fire-temples, or of any very remote antiquity ; nor in the 

 four towers of the Guebres in India, so vaguely described by Hanway, which 

 could not have been like our Round Towers ; nor in Major Keppel's pillar of 

 sun-burnt bricks, twenty-two feet six inches high, and sixty-three feet in circum- 

 ference. And, as to the prototype which Mr.Windele, " following in the track 

 of the old Phenician navigators," finds in Sardinia, I believe he is entitled to the 

 whole merit of the discovery. The buildings in which he finds this prototype 

 are those " called Nuraggis, a name deemed to be derived from Norax, the 

 leader of the Iberian colony," and which, in some places, " are called ' Domu 

 [Domoa] de Orcu,' or house of death, in the belief of their being monuments 

 of the dead" a rather singular appellation for temples of the sacred fire. 

 But this Norax, according to the best ancient authorities, colonized Sardinia 

 about 1250 years before the Christian era; and, I should like to be informed 

 how these works of a Greek people could have preserved the form of the fire- 

 temples of the Persian Magi, which were first constructed by Zerdusht, or Zoro- 

 aster, about seven centuries afterwards ? This is indeed " following in the track 

 of the old Phenician navigators" in a very singular and somewhat retrograde 

 manner; but I suppose Mr.Windele will only find in it an evidence of the identity 

 of our countrymen with the Iberian and Phoenician colonists of Sardinia. The 

 real question, however, is, Is there any similarity between these Nuraghes of 

 Sardinia and the Irish Round Towers ? Mr. Windele would have us believe 

 there is, and describes the Nuraghes in such a manner as would impress us with 

 this belief. " These are," he says, " conical towers, constructed of large cubic 

 stones, whose sides fit each other, without being connected together by either 

 lime or cement. The largest are from fifty to sixty feet high. The interior is 

 divided into three dark chambers, one above the other. Under several of these 

 structures, burying places and subterranean passages have been discovered, lead- 

 ing to other Noraghs." And, lastly, to crown all, he quotes a writer in the 

 Foreign Quarterly Review, who states that there are, he believes, structures of 

 a similar description in some parts of Ireland ; from which Mr. Windele ob- 

 viously wishes us to suppose, that that writer meant the Round Towers. But, 



