48 REV. J. LESLIE PORTER, D.D. 
Troy and Mycene, there being in the latter case the clearest traces of 
Pheenician influence in the propagation of Grecian art, while we get no such 
traces*at Troy. Any one looking at the gold plaques and cups, and especially 
at the remarkable seal discovered’by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenz, and’ com- 
paring them with the ornamentation on the Assyrian robes and vases as well 
as with the Babylonian seals on which figures are cut with the same flounced 
dresses, represented in the same way as on the seal obtained by Dr. 
Schliemann, must feel convinced that they were the work of artists influ- 
enced bythe art of Assyria, and are totally distinct from what some anonymous 
writer in the Times would have us suppose, namely, that they were the work 
of Celts from northern Europe. There is a similarity between these gold 
ornaments and the Chaldaic representations, and there is evidence that in 
both cases the designs are from the conventional forms derived from the 
great school of nature, to which all primitive artists turned for the means of 
decorating ornamental objects. If this be the case at Mycenz, it is equally 
interesting to find that in the relics discovered at Troy there is hardly a 
trace of anything definitely Phcenician. This brings us to the writings of 
Homer, who speaks of Troy and of Pheenician art and of the Trojan inter- 
course with the Pheenicians. We know that Homer wrote probably about the 
tenth century B.c., after Troy had been destroyed, and he would seem to have 
gathered together the legends still current with regard to that city ; but, 
although he does not appear to have been in Troy himself, he may have 
visited its site. If we turn to Cyprus and to Assyria, and look at the artistic 
remains which have come down to us of the early art of those places, we see 
exhibited on the bronze bowls from Nimroud, and on some of the objects 
discovered by Di Cesnola in Cyprus, as well as by Dr. Schliemann at 
Mycenz, an art which ranged perhaps over a period of a century and a half— 
the art which Homer describes and which furnished him with the material 
for many of the graphic descriptions he gives of the works of Troy. Dr. 
Porter’s paper, as will be generally admitted, is one which embraces a very 
wide area. It brings us in contact with Jewish history and with that of the 
great empires of the more distant East. There is one point which I think 
Dr. Porter might have mentioned in the beginning of his paper. He seems 
to have forgotten the very beautiful examples of Pheenician art we have in 
the tombs of Egypt, although he speaks of having visited them. Why, I 
ask, has he not made some reference to that remarkable procession of the 
Pheenicians in the time of Thotmes the Third, carrying various objects and 
works of art as presents to the King? We know, that so thoroughly had 
the Pheenicians settled themselves in Egypt, and become part and parcel of 
the people of Lower Egypt, that the district of the delta on which the 
Jewish people had dwelt during their captivity in Egypt was known by the 
name of Keft aur, or greater Phoenicia, while the land of Pheenicia itself, 
on the shores of the Mediterranean, was known by the name of Kefti; 
and it is in the contact which took place between these Pheenicians and the 
Jews in the regions of Zoan and in the land of Goshen that we may 
