FIIOM ROSETTA IN EGYPT TO LARNECA IN CYPRUS. XS& 
the Jews was directed* to engrave the names of the children 
of Israel upon onyx-stones,like the engravings of a signet 
that is to say, (if we may presume to illustrate a text so sacred, 
with reference to a custom still universally extant,) by a series 
of monograms, graven as intaglios, to be set 44 in ouches of 
gold, for the shoulders of the ephod.” That the signet was of 
stone, set in metal, in the time of Moses, is also clear from 
this passage of sacred history : “With the work of an engra¬ 
ver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shall thou en- 
grave the two stones. Thou shalt make them to be set in 
ouches of gold.” Signets without stones, and entirely of 
metal, did not come into use, according to Pliny,f until the 
time of Claudius Cses?a\ The most ancient intaglios of 
Egypt were graven upon stones, having the form of scarabsei.J 
This kind of signet was also used by the Phoenicians, as will 
further appear. The characters upon them are therefore 
either in hieroglyphical writing, Phoenician letters, or later 
monograms derived from the Greek alphabet. Alexander, at 
the point of death, gave his signet to Perdiecas;§ and Laodice, 
mother of Seleucus, the founder of the Syro Macedonian em¬ 
pire, in an age when women, profiting by the easy credulit 3 r 
of their husbands, apologized for an act of infidelity by pre¬ 
tending an intercourse with Apollo, exhibited a signet found 
in her bed, with a symbol afterward used by all the Seleucidas.lf 
The introduction of sculptured animals upon the signets of the 
Homans was derived from the sacred symbols of the Egyp¬ 
tians : hence the origin of the sphinx for the signet of Au¬ 
gustus. When the practice of deifying princes and venerating 
heroes became general, portraits of men supplied the place of 
more ancient types. This custom gave birth to the cama ~ 
cknia , or cameo ; a later invention, merely exhibiting a model 
of the impression or cast yielded to a signet. The use of the 
cameo does not, in rny opinion, bear date anterior to the pe¬ 
riod of the Roman power. The remains of these are rarely 
found in Greece; and even when discovered, with the excep¬ 
tion of the remarkable stone found at Thebes, representing a 
female Centaur suckling its foal,** the workmanship is bad. 
& Exod. xxVHiv 9, 10, 11. 
f Hist. Nat. lib. xxxiii. c. 1. 
t See a former note in this chapter, for the history of the ancient superstition go® 
ce ruing the scar abacus. 
§ Justin, lib. xii. 
|! Ihid. iib xv. c. 4. 
^ This celebrated cameo has been long known to all travellers who have, visited 
Greece. It belonged to a - peasant, who festeecne.d it beyond all price, from its ima - 
