History of Dor. 59 



Sidon which Seylax' statement presupposes is the one referred to 

 here by Eshmunazar. Inasmuch as Seylax lived about 350 B.C.', 

 Eshmunazar must be dated in the period of Persia's suj^remacy. 

 This argument of Schtirer seems to have considerable weight. The 

 counter-argument based on the usage of " King of Kings " by the 

 Persians instead of "Lord of Kings" is not decisive. The latter 

 title was used of Alexander^ and others, and may well have been 

 applied to the Persian overlord. 



The excavation of the temple of Eshmun at Sidon jaossibly 

 throws some light on the question of the date of Eshmunazar II. 

 According to the report of Macridy-Bey^, a first temple was 

 destroyed and another built in its place. This second temple was 

 in its turn demolished, not later than the latter half of the third 

 century B.C. The date of the building of the second temple 

 Macridy-Bey, on the basis of fragments of architecture found 

 there, places in the latter half of the fourth century B.C. The 

 destruction of the first temple he therefore dates about the middle 

 of the same (i.e., the fourth) century. It must therefore have 

 been built at least as early as the first half of the fourth century 

 B.C. More convincing still is the discovery, amongst the debris 

 from the first temple found under the pavement of the recon- 

 structed temple, of a votive inscription in basalt upon which were 

 engraved several lines in hieroglyphic script giving the name of 

 Ak'horis, an Egyptian King of the 29th dynasty (393-381 B.C.) 

 This would bring the probable date of the first temple back to the 

 5th century. Now the inscriptions of King Bod-ashtart were 

 found imbedded in the core of the north wall of the reconstructed 

 temple*. They were so placed in the inside of the wall that they 

 could neither ])e seen nor read, and evidently consisted of stones 

 from the old temple used in rebuilding the later one. These 

 inscriptions, therefore, probably belonged to the first temple and 

 are to be dated not later than the early fourth century B.C. Inas- 

 much as Bod-ashtart belongs to the same generation as Eshmun- 

 azar II (both being grandsons of Eshmunazar I), Eshmunazar II 



^ Schiirer, Z.c. ; Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, II, 77. 

 ^ E.g., in the Umm-el-'Awamid inscription {C.I.S. I, 7; Cooke, p. 44). 

 3 Le Temple d'Echmoun a Sidon (Fouilles du Musee Imperial Ottoman), 

 pp. 13flf. 

 ^ Ibid., pp. 32-34. 



