FOOTNOTES:
[215] A. Michælis, A Century of Archæological Discoveries, p. 6, New York, 1908.
[216] The Most Illustrious Ladies of the Renaissance, p. 152, by Christopher Hare, London, 1904.
[217] Michælis, Op. cit., p. 20, Cf. also Fiorelli's Pompeinarum Antiquitatum Historia, Vol. I, Pars. III, Naples, 1860. Arditi characterized Queen Caroline's interest in the excavations as "entusiasmo veramente ammirabile."
[218] Frauenarbeit in der Archæologie in Deutsche Rundschau, March, 1890, page 396.
[219] Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson, pp. 296-297, by her niece, Geraldine Macpherson, London, 1878.
[220] Ilios, the City and Country of the Trojans, pp. 657-658, by Dr. Henry Schliemann, New York, 1881.
As an illustration of Mrs. Schliemann's devotion to the work which has rendered her, as well as her husband, immortal, a single passage from the volume just quoted, p. 261, is pertinent. Referring to the sufferings and privations which they endured during their third year's work at Hissarlik, Dr. Schliemann writes as follows:
"My poor wife and myself, therefore, suffered very much since the icy north wind, which recalls Homer's frequent mention of the blasts of Boreas, blew with such violence through the chinks of our house-walls, which were made of planks, that we were not even able to light our lamps in the evening, while the water which stood near the hearth froze into solid masses. During the day we could, to some degree, bear the cold by working in the excavations; but, in the evenings, we had nothing to keep us warm except our enthusiasm for the great work of discovering Troy."
So high was Dr. Schliemann's opinion of his wife's ability as an archæologist that he entrusted to her—as well as to their daughter, Andromache, and son, Agamemnon—the continuation of the work which death prevented him from completing.
[221] See Mme. Dieulafoy's graphic account of the expedition in a work which has been translated into English under the title, At Susa, the Ancient Capital of the Kings of Persia, Narrative of Travel Through Western Persia and Excavations Made at the Site of the Lost City of the Lilies, 1884-1886, Philadelphia, 1890.
See also her other related work—crowned by the French Academy—entitled, La Perse, La Chaldée et la Susiane, Paris, 1887.
[222] Among the specimens secured were two of extraordinary beauty and interest. One of them is a beautiful enameled frieze of a lion and the other, likewise a work in enamel, represents a number of polychrome figures of the Immortals—the name given to the guards of the Great Kings of Persia. Both are truly magnificent specimens of ceramic art, and compare favorably with anything of the kind which antiquity has bequeathed to us. Commenting on the pictures of the Persian guards, Mme. Dieulafoy writes: "Whatever their race may be, our Immortals appear fine in line, fine in form, fine in color and constitute a ceramic work infinitely superior to the bas-reliefs, so justly celebrated, of Lucca della Robbia." Op. cit., p. 222.
[223] One passage in this codex bears so strongly on a leading argument of this work that I cannot resist the temptation to give it with Mrs. Lewis' own comment:
"The piece of my work," she writes, In the Shadow of Sinai, p. 98 et seq., "which has given me the greatest satisfaction, consists in the decipherment of two words in John IV, 27. They were well worth all our visits to Sinai, for they illustrate an action of our Lord which seems to be recorded nowhere else, and which has some degree of inherent probability from what we know of His character. The passage is 'His disciples came and wondered that with the women he was standing and talking'....
"Why was our Lord standing? He had been sitting on the wall when the disciples left Him; and, we know that He was tired. Moreover, sitting is the proper attitude for an Easterner when engaged in teaching. And an ordinary Oriental would never rise of his own natural free will out of politeness to a woman. It may be that He rose in His enthusiasm for the great truths He was uttering; but, I like to think that His great heart, which embraced the lowest of humanity, lifted Him above the restrictions of His race and age, and made Him show that courtesy to our sex, even in the person of a degraded specimen, which is considered among all really progressive peoples to be a mark of true and noble manhood. To shed even a faint light upon that wondrous story of His tabernacling amongst us is an inestimable privilege and worthy of all the trouble we can possibly take."
[224] Mrs. Gibson, unaccompanied by her sister, has since made two more visits to Mt. Sinai in order to complete the work so auspiciously begun.
[225] The following partial list of the works of these erudite twins on subjects connected with Scripture and Oriental literature gives some idea of their extraordinary attainments and of their prodigious activity in researches that are usually considered entirely foreign to the tastes and aptitudes of women.
Some Pages of the Four Gospels Retranscribed From the Sinaitic Palimpsest, with a translation of the whole text by Agnes Smith Lewis.
An Arabic Version of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians and part of Ephesians. Edited from a ninth century MS. by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.
Apocrypha Sinaitica. Containing the Anaphora Pilati in Syriac and Arabic: the Syriac transcribed by J. Rendel Harris, and the Arabic by Margaret Dunlop Gibson; also two recensions of the Recognitions of Clement, in Arabic, transcribed and translated by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.
An Arabic Version of the Acts of the Apostles and the Seven Catholic Epistles, from an eighth or ninth century MS., with a treatise on the Triune Nature of God and translation. Edited by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.
Apocrypha Arabica, Edited by Margaret D. Gibson, containing 1, Kitab al Magall or the Book of the Rolls; 2, The Story of the Aphikia Wife of Jesus Ben Sira (Carshuni); 3, Cyprian and Justa, in Arabic and Greek.
Select Narratives of Holy Women, from the Syro-Antiochene or Sinai Palimpsest, as written above the Old Syriac Gospels in A. D. 778. Translation by Agnes Smith Lewis.
Apocrypha Syriaca Sinaitica, being the Protevangelium Jacobi and Transitus Mariæ, from a Palimpsest of the fifth or sixth century. Edited by Agnes Smith Lewis.
Forty-One Facsimiles of Dated Christian Arabic Manuscripts, with Text and English Translation, arranged by Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, with introductory observations in Arabic calligraphy by the Rev. David S. Margoliouth.
The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, edited from a Mesopotamian MS, with various readings and collations of other MS, by Margaret Dunlop Gibson.
The Arabic Version of the Acta Apocrypha Apostolorum, edited and translated by Agnes Smith Lewis, with fifth century fragments of the Acta Thomæ, in Syriac.
The Gospel of Isbodad in Syriac and English, by Margaret D. Gibson.
Acta Mythologica Apostolorum in Arabic, with translation by Agnes Smith Lewis.
For an elaborate and sympathetic account of the labors and discoveries of Mrs. Lewis and her sister, the reader is referred to an article from the pen of the learned Professor V. Ryssel, in the Schweizerische Theologische Zeitschrift, XVI, Jahrgang, 1899.
[226] For an evidence of this learned lady's competency to deal with the most recondite stores of history and archæology, the reader is referred to two of her later works, viz., Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides, Cambridge, 1906, and Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge University Press, 1903.