CONPIUMED BY EECENT DISCOVERIES IN PALESTINE AND THE EAST. 147 



mont Ganneau offered reasons for placing Eshmunazar at a later 

 period, about 400 B.C., contemporary with the Ptolemies ; and the 

 discovery of another inscription, that of Eshmunazar's son Tab- 

 nith, has lent support to M. Clermont Ganneau's views. This 

 text of Tabnith's Avas found upon his tomb at the same time 

 as the marvellous recovery of the splendid carved sarcophagi 

 at Sidou which now form the chief glory of the Constantinople 

 museum. An interesting fact is derived from this find in regard 

 to the origin of the so-called anthropoid sarcophagi so common in 

 Sardinia and all over the Phoenician world. The inscription of 

 Tabnith, like that of Eshmunazar, is graven upon a granite 

 sarcophagus, not only, apparently, of Egyptian workmanship, but 

 positively so, for it still bears, unerased, the hieroglyphic text of 

 an Egyptian general, of one of the middle dynasties, for whom it 

 was originally made. It is evident that there was at one time, in 

 the era of Greek dominion on the Mle, a large export trade in 

 these valuable sarcophagi, which were purchased for the purpose 

 of providing the coffins of wealthy Phoenician princes, and it was 

 when local manufactui-ers copied these for a poorer class of burials 

 that the anthropoid shape became the vogue. 



The progress of discovery in Egypt is still rapid, and only lately 

 an inscription has been found throwing quite an unexpected light 

 upon a chapter of that Bible of Ancient Egypt, the so-called 

 Booh of the Dead, which had hitherto been inexplicable. Early 

 in 1892 a splendid tomb was opened at Assouan, in honour of the 

 visit of the Princess of Sweden, and its inscriptions have been 

 published by Professor Schiaparelli of Florence. It is of 

 exceedingly early date, being the grave of one Hirkhouf, wlio was 

 born in the time of Pepi I. of the sixth dynasty. In his autobio- 

 graphy, Hirkhouf takes great credit to himself for having 

 successfully brought to the Pharach, a sort of dwarf or ape* from 

 the Soudan, celebrated for his power of dancing, who was 

 called a Danga. It appears from M. Maspero's researches tbat a 

 Danga had been brought to the court upon a previous occasion, 

 and this sort of daiicer seems to have been an object whose 

 possession was greatly desired by the Pharaohs. Hirkhouf took 

 special precautions by means of sentries day and night to pre^ 



* Professor Flinders Fetrie cou; iders this was a dwarf, a Banga. — Ed. 



