The methods employed by the Phoenicians to obtain the metals which they coveted were not, on the whole, unlike those which continue in use at the present day. Where surface gold was brought down by the streams, the ground in their vicinity, and such portions of their beds as could be laid bare, were searched by the spade; any earth or sand that was seen to be auriferous was carefully dug out and washed, till the earthy particles were cleared away, and only the gold remained. Where the metal lay deeper, perpendicular shafts were sunk into the ground to a greater or less depth—sometimes, if we may believe Diodorus,[1031] to the depth of half a mile or more; from these shafts horizontal adits were carried out at various levels, and from the adits there branched lateral galleries, sometimes at right angles, sometimes obliquely, which pursued either a straight or a tortuous course.[1032] The veins of metal were perseveringly followed up, and where faults occurred in them, filled with trap,[1033] or other hard rock, the obstacle was either tunnelled through or its flank turned, and the vein still pursued on the other side. As the danger of a fall of material from the roofs of the adits and galleries was well understood, it was customary to support them by means of wooden posts, or, where the material was sufficiently firm, to arch them.[1034] Still, from time to time, falls would occur, with great injury and loss of life to the miners. Nor was there much less danger where a mountain was quarried for the sake of its metallic treasures. Here, too, galleries were driven into the mountain-side, and portions of it so loosened that after a time they detached themselves and fell with a loud crash into a mass of débris.[1035] It sometimes happened that, as the workings proceeded, subterranean springs were tapped, which threatened to flood the mine, and put an end to its further utilisation. In such cases, wherever it was possible, tunnels were constructed, and the water drained off to a lower level.[1036] In the deeper mines this, of course, could not be done, and such workings had to be abandoned, until the invention of the Archimedes’ screw (ab. B.C. 220-190), when the water was pumped up to the surface, and so got rid of.[1037] But before this date Phoenicia had ceased to exist as an independent country, and the mines that had once been hers were either no longer worked, or had passed into the hands of the Romans or the Carthaginians.
When the various ores were obtained, they were first of all crushed, then pounded to a paste; after which, by frequent washings, the non-metallic elements were to a large extent eliminated, and the metallic ones alone left. These, being collected, were placed in crucibles of white clay,[1038] which were then submitted to the action of a furnace heated to the melting point. This point could only be reached by the use of the bellows. When it was reached, the impurities which floated on the top of the molten metal were skimmed off, or the metal itself allowed, by the turning of a cock, to flow from an upper crucible into a lower one. For greater purity the melting and skimming process was sometimes repeated; and, in the case of gold, the skimmings were themselves broken up, pounded, and again submitted to the melting pot.[1039] The use of quicksilver, however, being unknown, the gold was never wholly freed from the alloy of silver always found in it, nor was the silver ever wholly freed from an alloy of lead.[1040]
The Romans and Carthaginians worked their mines almost wholly by slave labour; and very painful pictures are drawn of the sufferings undergone by the unhappy victims of a barbarous and wasteful system.[1041] The gangs of slaves, we are told, remained in the mines night and day, never seeing the sun, but living and dying in the murky and foetid atmosphere of the deep excavations. It can scarcely be hoped that the Phoenicians were wiser or more merciful. They had a large command of slave labour, and would naturally employ it where the work to be done was exceptionally hard and disagreeable. Moreover, the Carthaginians, their colonists, are likely to have kept up the system, whatever it was, which they found established on succeeding to the inheritance of the Phoenician mines, and the fact that they worked them by means of slaves makes it more than probable that the Phoenicians had done so before them.[1042]
When the metals were regarded as sufficiently cleansed from impurities, they were run into moulds, which took the form of bars, pigs, or ingots. Pigs of copper and lead have, as already observed, been found in Sardinia which may well belong to Phoenician times. There is also in the museum of Truro a pig of tin, which, as it differs from those made by the Romans, Normans, and later workers, has been supposed to be Phoenician.[1043] Ingots of gold and silver have not at present been found on Phoenician localities; but the Persian practice, witnessed to by Herodotus,[1044] was probably adopted from the subject nation, which confessedly surpassed all the others in the useful arts, in commerce, and in practical sagacity.
CHAPTER XI—RELIGION
Strength of the religious sentiment among the Phoenicians—
Proofs—First stage of the religion, monotheistic—Second
stage, a polytheism within narrow limits—Worship of Baal—
of Ashtoreth—of El or Kronos—of Melkarth—of Dagon—of
Hadad—of Adonis—of Sydyk—of Esmun—of the Cabeiri—of
Onca—of Tanith—of Beltis—Third stage marked by
introduction of foreign deities—Character of the Phoenician
worship—Altars and sacrifice—Hymns of praise, temples, and
votive offerings—Wide prevalence of human sacrifice and of
licentious orgies—Institution of the Galli—Extreme
corruption of the later religion—Views held on the subject
of a future life—Piety of the great mass of the people
earnest, though mistaken.
There can be no doubt that the Phoenicians were a people in whose minds religion and religious ideas occupied a very prominent place. Religiousness has been said to be one of the leading characteristics of the Semitic race;[0111] and it is certainly remarkable that with that race originated the three principal religions, two of which are the only progressive religions, of the modern world. Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism all arose in Western Asia within a restricted area, and from nations whose Semitic origin is unmistakable. The subject of ethnic affinities and differences, of the transmission of qualities and characteristics, is exceedingly obscure; but, if the theory of heredity be allowed any weight at all, there should be no difficulty in accepting the view that particular races of mankind have special leanings and aptitudes.
Still, the religiousness of the Phoenicians does not rest on any à priori arguments, or considerations of what is likely to have been. Here was a nation among whom, in every city, the temple was the centre of attraction, and where the piety of the citizens adorned every temple with abundant and costly offerings. The monarchs who were at the head of the various states showed the greatest zeal in continually maintaining the honour of the gods, repaired and beautified the sacred buildings, and occasionally added to their kingly dignity the highly esteemed office of High Priest.[0112] The coinage of the country bore religious emblems,[0113] and proclaimed the fact that the cities regarded themselves as under the protection of this or that deity. Both the kings and their subjects bore commonly religious names—names which designated them as the worshippers or placed them under the tutelage of some god or goddess. Abd-alonim, Abdastartus, Abd-osiris, Abdemon (which is properly Abd-Esmun), Abdi-milkut, were names of the former kind, Abi-baal (= “Baal is my father”), Itho-bal (= “with him is Baal”), Baleazar or Baal-azur (= “Baal protects”), names of the latter. The Phoenician ships carried images of the gods[0114] in the place of figure-heads. Wherever the Phoenicians went, they bore with them their religion and their worship; in each colony they planted a temple or temples, and everywhere throughout their wide dominion the same gods were worshipped with the same rites and with the same observances.
In considering the nature of the Phoenician religion, we must distinguish between its different stages. There is sufficient reason to believe that originally, either when they first occupied their settlements upon the Mediterranean or before they moved from their primitive seats upon the shores of the Persian Gulf, the Phoenicians were Monotheists. We must not look for information on this subject to the pretentious work which Philo of Byblus, in the first or second century of our era, put forth with respect to the “Origines” of his countrymen, and attributed to Sanchoniatho;[0115] we must rather look to the evidence of language and fact, records which may indeed be misread, but which cannot well be forged or falsified. These will show us that in the earliest times the religious sentiment of the Phoenicians acknowledged only a single deity—a single mighty power, which was supreme over the whole universe. The names by which they designated him were El, “great;” Ram or Rimmon, “high;” Baal, “Lord;” Melek or Molech, “King;” Eliun, “Supreme;” Adonai, “My Lord;” Bel-samin, “Lord of Heaven,” and the like.[0116] Distinct deities could no more be intended by such names as these than by those under which God is spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures, several of them identical with the Phoenician names—El or Elohim, “great;” Jehovah, “existing;” Adonai, “my Lord;” Shaddai, “strong;” El Eliun,[0117] “the supreme Great One.” How far the Phoenicians actually realised all that their names properly imply, whether they went so far as to divest God wholly of a material nature, whether they viewed Him as the Creator, as well as the Lord, of the world, are problems which it is impossible, with the means at present at our disposal, to solve. But they certainly viewed Him as “the Lord of Heaven,"[0118] and, if so, no doubt also as the Lord of earth; they believed Him to be “supreme” or “the Most High;” and they realised his personal relation to each one of his worshippers, who were privileged severally to address Him as Adonai—“my Lord.” It may be presumed that at this early stage of the religion there was no idolatry; when One God alone is acknowledged and recognised, the feeling is naturally that expressed in the Egyptian hymn of praise—“He is not graven in marble; He is not beheld; His abode is unknown; there is no building that can contain Him; unknown is his name in heaven; He doth not manifest his forms; vain are all representations."[0119]