274 



Incised Marking on the Impost 



corresponding position, on the under surface of the impost of the 

 adjoining trilith which fell in 1797. My conclusion on the whole 

 matter was that the marks " had been made in modern times, since 

 the fall of the stone." I further expressed the opinion that " the 

 whole was the work of some casual visitor to the spot, who however 

 (from the hardness of the sarsen stone) must have spent considerable 

 time in the operation/ ' 1 



The suggestion of the modern character of the marking was not 

 received with much favour, and in the number of the Archaeological 

 Journal in which these observations were published, it was remarked, 

 "It is scarcely needful to point out how strong an argument in 

 favor of the more remote antiquity of the markings may, as we 

 apprehend, be drawn not less from their having become so thickly 

 encrusted with lichen as to have escaped the notice of many keen 

 observers, but also from the improbability that characters could 

 have been thus carefully incised on so hard a material by any 

 ' casual visitor.' " 



On the occasion of the visit of the British Association to Stone- 

 henge, in September 1864, the Eev. H. M. Scarth drew the atten- 

 tion of the meeting to these marks, and expressed himself altogether 

 in favour of their remote antiquity, in terms similar to those pre- 

 viously employed in the Arch geological Journal. 



Somewhat less than a year ago, I received a letter from the 

 Rev. Canon Jackson, F.S.A., drawing my attention to certain 

 lapidary inscriptions found at Carthage in peculiar characters 

 hitherto undeciphered, but called Lybian or Berber, which were 

 collected by M. De Falbe, and are published in the thirtieth vol. 

 of the Archseologia, 2 In one of these inscriptions, as Mr. Jackson 



1 Arch. Journ. vol. xix, p. 79. The opinion that the markings were made, 

 "possibly soon after the fall of the stone," about 1620, is the only one not 

 verified by the evidence subsequently obtained. The woodcut in the text 

 (Fig. 4), being reduced from my careful rubbing from the stone, is in some par- 

 ticulars, more exact than that given by me in the Archaeological Journal. For 

 the two woodcuts (Figs. 2, 3,) I am indepted to the Council of the Archaeological 

 Institute. 



s Aroh. vol. xxx, p. 112. Other inscriptions from tho samo necropolis at 

 Makther are in the proper Phoenician characters. 



