THE EXCAVATIONS OF CARTHAGE. 613 



and hard features, his forehead bare, his upper lip strongly curved, his 

 turbaned head lying on two cushions with tassels. His right hand is 

 lifted in sign of adoration ; his left holds a scent box. On his breast he 

 wears a breastplate of the shape of a Maltese cross, its points extending 

 to the shoulders. A band reaching from the right shoulder to the hem 

 and, widening from the shoulder on, makes a brocade on the robe, which 

 laps over the feet in large folds. On the vertical edge of the lid behind 

 the head is the legend, in beautiful Phoenician characters, "Abdmelqart, 

 the Bab." 



Another funeral chamber at the bottom of the shaft contained a second 

 sarcophagus with a human figure of the same dimensions, less archaic 

 in style, possibly, yet wonderfully lifelike. The pose is the same, but 

 the body, instead of being engraved, is sculptured in high relief on the 

 cover, like the knights and ladies on their stone coffins. The expression 

 is calm and collected ; the hair and beard are carefully curled. The 

 sculptor's work, somewhat weak and betokening no great antiquity, is 

 so finely done that all the details of the costume can be studied. A 

 large band, a sort of cap, caught at the shoulder by a clasp, falls to the 

 middle of the leg. As in the other sarcophagus, the right hand is lifted 

 and the left holds a scent box on a level with the breast. 



Contact with these great dead, who possibly played a role in the 

 struggles of Carthage with the Eomans, is deeply impressive, and one 

 is tempted to question them. Who were they ? Were they all of equal 

 dignity? What office was denoted by that title Eab, which signifies 

 "prince" or "grandee?" Doubtless it meant members of one of the 

 grand councils of Carthage, one of the principes mentioned after the 

 suffetes on inscriptions. The dedication of the temple of Astarte and 

 Tanit, found at nearly the same time on the top of the cliff overlooking 

 the necropolis of Bordj Djedid, mentions on the list of eponymic mag- 

 istrates, between the suffetes and the high priest, the same personages 

 with the same titles. And who knows but what the soil of Carthage 

 may some day yield a list of the Bab, or, indeed, of the suffetes — a list 

 which would do for Carthaginian history what the discovery of the 

 Consular Fastes has done for Boman history? 



Meanwhile every day adds to our knowledge, or, rather, diminishes 

 our ignorance, and every day we are permitted to penetrate deeper 

 into this life beyond the tomb, the continuation of terrestrial existence. 

 Some few weeks ago M. Gauckler discovered near a shaft one of the 

 small lead leaves rolled up, which were slipped into the tomb, and bore 

 imprecations to restrain certain spirits or conciliate them; only the 

 inscription was not Greek or Latin, like that of all hitherto known, but 

 in Phoenician characters. Thus beliefs supposed to have been peculiar 

 to Egypt or Greece turn out to have been Carthaginian as well. 



Another inscription, the latest discovered, of which Pere Delattre 

 has just sent a photograph, will possibly furnish some light on this 

 point, when entirely deciphered. It is a funeral inscription of rare 



