148 THE HOLY LAND. 
CHAP, discovered. No value was set upon them : 
^ .y- ■ / they were not esteemed by the Arabs in whose 
possession they were found, although some 
Christian pilgrim had placed the two fragments 
belonging to one of them upon the rude altar 
which his predecessors had constructed from 
the former materials of the building. Not the 
smallest objection was made to their removal : 
so, having bestowed a trifle upon the Moslem 
tenant of the bee-hive repository^ we took them 
into safer custody'. 
Among the various authors who have men- 
tioned Sephoury, no intelligence is given of the 
church in its entire state : this is the more 
(I) The author is further indebted to his learned friend, the Rev. 
»/. Palmer, of St. John's College, Cambridge, Arabic Professor in the 
University, for the following observations upon these pictures. Pro- 
fessor Palmer travelled in the Holy Land soon after they were dis- 
covered. 
" The antiquity of the Tablets cannot be determined precisely ; yet it 
may be of importance to remai'k the absence of any Arabic titles eorre- 
sponding with MP, 0T, and 0EOTOKOC, so commonly, not to say 
invariably, inscribed upon the effigies of the Virgin, some of them more 
than five hundred years old, which are seen in the Greek cliurches. 
" I assume, as beyond doubt, that these tablets belonged to some 
church, or domestic sanctuary, of Malkite Greeks ; both from the close 
correspondence, in figure and expression, between the effigies in their 
churches, and those on tlie tablets ; and from the fact, familiar to all who 
have visited Eastern countries, that such tablets are rarely, if ever, found 
anionic Catholic Christians." 
