NOTES. 
In the interesting work published by Mr. Wilkinson on the Thebaid and Egypt, in which it appears, 
that the most ancient money of that country, even before the Exodus of the Israelites, was gold and silver 
rings of a graduated weight, as the following extracts will show: 
“In the second line black chiefs of Cush or Ethiopia bring presents of gold rings, copper, skins, fans, 
or umbrellas, of feather-work, and an ox bearing on its horns an artificial garden and a lake of fish.” — 
Wilkinson's Thebaid, p. 136. 
“A continuation of these presents follows in the third line, where, besides rings* of gold, and bags of 
precious stones, are the cameleopard, &c.” 
Thothmes III. (1495 B.C. p. 154.) ‘The money used at that epoch was, as I have already observed, 
of gold and silver rings.” 
“On the right hand are some very elegant vases of what has been called the Greek style, but common 
in the oldest tombs of Thebes. They are ornamented as usual with arabasques and other devices. Indeed, 
all these forms of vases, the Tuscan border, and the greater part of the painted ornaments, which exist 
on Greek remainss, are found on Egyptian monuments of the earliest epoch, even before the Exodus of 
the Israelites, and plainly removes all doubts as to their original invention. Above these are, chariot 
makers and other artisans. Others are employed in weighing gold and silver rings, the property of the 
deceased ; their weights are an entire calf—the head of an ox (the half weight), and small oval balls (the 
quarter weights.) They have a very ingenious mode of preventing the scale from sinking when the ob- 
ject they have weighed is taken out by means of a ring upon the beam,” p. 151—vide Genesis xliii. 21, 
“ our money in full weight.” 
Pomponius Mela thus speaks of the Phenicians: “ Phcenicen illustravere Phcenices solers hominum 
genus, et ad belli pacisque munia eximium literas et literarum operas aliasque etiam artes maria navibus 
adire classe confligere, imperitare gentibus regnum preliamque commenti.’ — Viait A.D. I. under Claudius, 
De Situ orbis. 
They were the shrewdest and most acute of mankind—skilled eminently in the arts of peace and 
war, and by their skill and valour, kept the empire of the seas, and governed nations—skilled in sci- 
ence, literature, and the arts—addicted to navigation and commerce. 
When Pliny and other ancient authors declares the Peni to have been the inventors of navigation and 
astronomy, he intended the Phenicians and not the Carthagenians. It was under the conduct of the 
Phenicians, the fleets of Solomon sailed to Ophir and Tarshish, from the ports of Eilath and Esiongeber, 
in the Red Sea. Ophir was the general name of the eastern coasts of Africa, which was always a great 
market for gold-dust. Tharshish was also a general name for all distant countries. 
The Greeks, in their lists of the nations who have been masters of the Mediterranean, give the seventh 
place to the Phenicians, and the eighth to the Egyptians; but they were always reproached by the 
Egyptians, as novices in antiquities, as they really were. The Egyptians do not appear to have ever been 
a naval power, except by their allies, the Phenicians. 
* The money of the Ethiopians and Egyptians was in rings of gold and silver, like those still in use about Sennaar. I had 
interpreted the hieroglyphic signifying silver, ‘ wrought-gold,”” but the white colour of the rings placed opposite to others 
painted yellow, (in another tomb at Thebes) decides the question in fayour of the word silyex, 
