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will occur, In the explication of the fourth medal to 
be confidered here,, that will bring no fmall acceffion 
of hrength to the notion I would now recommend 
to the attention of the learned world. 
With regard to the two Phoenician letters exhi- 
bited by this coin, they feem either to form the 
word N'D, MA, which in Phoenician not improbably 
denoted WATER, or the SEA, (15) as in Arabic, 
or to be the two firft elements of the word MAIVMA, 
in Syriac (16) fignifying likewife WATER, the 
name of the port and place of the magazine of naval 
ffores, fuch a port and place having formerly apper- 
tained both to Afcalon(i7) and Gaza. For thofe 
two Phoenician letters, preferved on many medals, 
(18) can fcarce always be looked upon either as the 
whole or part of the proper name of the place where 
the coins were Ifruck, as they feem firfl to have ap- 
' peared in different towns j though it muft be owned,, 
that MAIVMA, as applied to the ports of Afcalon 
and Gaza, was (19) confidered as the proper name 
of a town, erefted at a fmall diftance from each of 
thofe two cities. However, I fhould rather take the 
word MA to have denoted WATER, or THE SEA, 
as a fmall veffel on the fea is vifible on thefe coins, 
and the word MAIVMA, as applicable to the ports 
of Afcalon and Gaza, feems not to have (20) been 
ufed long before the time of Conftantine the Great: 
(15) Go!. Lex. Arab. p. 210. Val. Schind. Lex. Pent, p.994.. 
Hanoviae, 16 1 2. 
(16) Gothofred. apud Henric. Noris, ubi fup. p, 511. 
( 17) Sozom. Lib. ii. c. Henr. Noris, ubi fup. p- 5 1 1, 512. 
(18) Numiftn. Jntiqu. See. « Thom. Pemb. Mont. Goin. 
Com. colleif. p. 2. T. 75. n. 7, 8. 
(19) Henr. Noris,. ubi fup. p. 511. (20) Id, ibid. 
unleik 
