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nofa, as Sig. (4) Abate Venuti has been plea fed to af- 
fert. On one fide the head of a woman veiled prefents 
itfelf to our view, and on the other three Egyptian 
figures, according to the Marquis Scipio Maffei. 
’Tis obfervable that my medal, as well as that com- 
municated to the learned world by the laffc mentioned 
author, exhibits a fort of wings fixed on the hips of 
the two exterior figures, though nothing like fuch wings 
is vifible on the fimilar medal publilhed by Sig. Abate 
Venuti. M. l’Abbe Barthelemy (5) may be fup- 
pofed to have had an eye to this coin, when he in- 
formed us, “ that the god Ofiris appears with his attri- 
<c butes on the medals which the Phoenicians {truck 
“ in the ifle of Malta and to have confidered the 
fymbols on the reverfe, whatever they were origi- 
nally expreffive of, as relative to the worfhip of 
Ofiris which prevailed amongft the Phoenicians in that 
ifland. The Marquis Scipio Maffei feems to take 
the whole type to be Egyptian, and to point out to us 
fome mode of the Egyptian fuperftition ; but Sig. 
Abate Venuti will have the figure in the middle to be 
the god (6) Mithra, and the other two worfhipers of 
that deity, each of them Teeming to offer a patera 
to him. Which of thefe opinions is true, or whe- 
ther any of them be fo, I fliall not at prefent take 
upon me to decide. 
That this medal was at firfl adorned with a fhort 
Punic infcription on the reverfe, formed of the let- 
ters Koph, Lamed i and Nun, and confequently firuck 
(4) Venut. ubi fup. p. 36. 
(5) Mem. de Litter. &cc. Tom. XXXII. p • 7 3 7 • A Paris, 
1768. 
(6) Venut. ubi fup. p. 37. 
in 
