ORIENTAL ELEMENTS OF CULTURE IN THE OCCIDENT. 513 



thouolit .suo\i;e.sts itself tlmt the eyes of the Venotiun painters were 

 trained in these surrdunclings. AVc leave out of considenition what 

 the antitjue on its part owed to the Orient and will only refer, con- 

 cerning the origin of the gem. to the result arrived at by Furtwanglm-, 

 of Munich, the greatest exj^ert in glyptics:" 



The glyptic is none of the si>ontaneons arts wiiicii arisf and Hourish cvcvywIuTe 

 where men attained a rertain degree of euUnre. It seems, closely seen, to have one 

 original home to whieii all the other eases of its ajipearanee more or less directly go 

 back, that is, Babylonia. 



And the geuis again remind me of the Oriental origin of the fal)idous 

 animals and heraldic emhlems;'' the double eagle is, as it is well known, 

 Hittitc. 



The spirit, tlie forms, and products of tiie Orient everywhere per- 

 vade and ti'ansform our home. Before ouv windows blossom the 

 tulip, the imperial lily, and the lihic, transmitted to us by the tlower- 

 loving Turks, to whom we probably also owe the horse chestiuit. The 

 eggs of the hen, a fowl originally from India,'" and the spices and 

 other prodiicts of the Tropics have become indispensable necessities for 

 our kitchen. Even tiie old (Tcrman millet-pa}) had to give way to the 

 Arabic coHee. Nay, even our idle pastimes bear the stamp of .Moslem 

 custom, for we owe the games of chess, checkers, and playing cards'' 

 to the Moluunmedans. 



But let us turn our attention from these small m.atters to more impor- 

 tant eleuients. The idea of phonetic writing, as is well known, had 

 only one source. All the Indo-Oermanic alphabets have a conuuon 

 origin in the North Semitic (PlKcnician or, more correctly, the 

 Canaauitish-Aramean). That also the South Arabic characters are 

 but secondary forms of it was pr<)\"en by Lidz])arskil,' notwithstand- 

 ing the attempt to reverse the relation. Kven the Devauagari sciipt 

 with its family o-oes back to the North Semitic source.' Wherein 



«Antike Gemmen, vol. 3, 1900, p. 1. 



^Edward Thomas Rogers, Le blason chez les princes musulmans de I'Egypti! et 

 de la 8yrie: Bulletin <le I'lnstitut egyptien (Seance du 24. dec. LS80) II. Serie Caire 

 1882, pp. 8:!-131. 



"^The author of the strange book, Rembrandt als Erzieher, had the misfortune 

 to contrast (24th edition, p. 43) the hen, as rei)resentative of the beautiful of our 

 native fauna, with the parrot. The exceptions made by the Rembrandt i)hilos( )])her to 

 the colors of the parrot might also hold good with regard to the roller, which like- 

 wise remains a (Terman bird. 



''I have shown in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen ]Morgenl;iudischen Gesellschaft 53 

 (1899), 349-350, that the Sjianish "naipe" — playing card — is derived from the 

 Arabic lail), play. 



'^ Der Ursj)rung der nord-und siidsemitischen Sclu-ift: Kphemeris fiir semitische 

 Epigraphik, vol. 1, part 2. This methodically masterly treatise should form the 

 starting point for all further investigations in the held. 



./Compare G. Biihler, Indische Palaeographie ((irunchiss der indo-arischen Rhi- 

 lologie), Strassburg, 1896, p. 17 ff. 



SM 1902 33 



