102 INSCRIBED SLING BULLETS. 



Mr. Hawkins, I. c, notices " many leaden bullets for slings, found 

 among the ruins of Eryx," [in Sicily], " some of which are inscribed 

 with imprecations. (See Captain Smyth's ' Sicily and its Islands,' 

 p. 242.)" He gives as an instance "one of these inscriptions, which 

 is translated : Your heart for Cerberus." 



No aling-buUets have, so far as I am aware, been discovered in 

 Great Britain There are, however, peculiar leaden objects, bearing 

 devices and inscriptions, which have been found at Felix-Stowe, iu 

 Suffolk, and at Brough-upon-Stanmore, in Westmoreland. It is 

 not clear to what age they belong, or for what purpose they were in- 

 tended. See Mr. C. E. Smith's Collectanea Antiqua, iii. p. 197, and 

 Journal of Archceological Institute, 1863, p. 181. Mr. Smith ap- 

 pears to regard them as " Eoman seals fastened to merchandize of 

 Borae kind," but observes that " their general character seems to 

 bespeak a Phoenician origin." 



I do not see suf&eient grounds for either of these opinions. 



P.S. — Since the foregoing article was in type, I have noticed a 

 report, in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1863, of the pro- 

 ceedings at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, on 

 May 7th. 



Prom this report it appears that the inscription on the glans ex- 

 bib ited by the Count d'Albanie was deciphered by Mr. Franks, who 

 was " of opinic^ that the ^ov(TTpo<jir]86v character of the inscription 

 was due to Phcenician influence, — the bullet having been found in a 

 lead-mine in Granada." In this opinion of the learned Director I 

 cannot concur: the inversion of the letters in this instance, as in 

 Mommsen's n. 646, seems to me to be merely the result of a blunder 

 of an unskilled or careless workman, who had not inverted the letters 

 on the mould so as to give an impression that could be read in the 

 usual direction. There are examples, however, of another kind of 

 inversion, whereby the letters are turned upside down, w^hich seems 

 to have been intentional and not due to accident or mistake. See 

 Mommsen's nn. 682, 694. 



