FRAGMENT OF SOAPSTONE BOWL WITH PROCESSION
The next series of finds to be discussed are the numerous fragments [[196]]of decorated and plain soapstone bowls which we found, most of them deeply buried in the immediate vicinity of the temple on the fortress; and these bring us to consider more closely the artistic capacities of the race who originally inhabited these ruins. The work displayed in executing these bowls, the careful rounding of the edges, the exact execution of the circle, the fine pointed tool-marks, and the subjects they chose to depict, point to the race having been far advanced in artistic skill—a skill arrived at, doubtless, by commercial intercourse with the more civilised races of mankind. Seven of these bowls were of exactly the same size, and were 19·2 inches in diameter,[8] which measurements we ascertained by taking the radii of the several fragments. The most elaborate of these fragments is a bowl which had depicted around its outer edge a hunting scene; it is very well worked, and bears in several points a remarkable similarity to objects of art produced by the Phœnicians. There is here, as we have in all Phœnician patterns, [[197]]the straight procession of animals, to break the continuity of which a little man is introduced shooting a zebra with one hand and holding in the other an animal by a leash. To fill up a vacant space, a bird is introduced flying, all of which points are characteristic of Phœnician work. Then the Phœnician workmen always had a great power of adaptability, taking their lessons in art from their immediate surroundings, which is noticeable all over the world, whether in Greece, Egypt, Africa, or Italy. Here we have the same characteristic, namely, a procession of native African animals treated in a Phœnician style—three zebras, two hippopotami, and the sportsman in the centre is obviously a Hottentot. The details in this bowl are carefully brought out, even the breath of the animals is depicted by three strokes at the mouth. There is also a fragment of another bowl with zebras on it similarly treated, though somewhat higher and coarser. The fragments of a large bowl, which had a procession of bulls [[198]]round it, is also Phœnician in character.[9] The most noticeable feature in the treatment of these bulls is that the three pairs of horns we have preserved to us are all different.
| FRAGMENT OF SOAPSTONE BOWL WITH EAR OF CORN | FRAGMENT WITH LETTERING ON IT |
There are three fragments of three very large bowls, which are all of a special interest, and if the bowls could have been recovered intact they would have formed very valuable evidence. Search, however, as we would, we never found more of these bowls, and therefore must be content with what we have. The first of these represents on its side a small portion of what must have been a religious procession; of this we have only a hand holding a pot or censer containing an offering in it, and an arm of another figure with a portion of the back of the head with the hair drawn off it in folds. Representations of a similar nature are to be found in the religious functions of many Semitic races, and it is much to be regretted that we have not more of it for our study. [[199]]
LETTERS FROM PROTO-ARABIAN ALPHABET
LETTERS ON A ROCK IN BECHUANALAND, COPIED BY MR. A. A. ANDERSON
The second fragment has an elaborate design upon it, taken from the vegetable world, probably an ear of corn; it was evidently around the lip of the bowl and not at the side; it is a very good piece of workmanship, and of a soapstone of brighter green than that employed in the other articles. The third fragment is perhaps the most tantalising of all; it is a fragment of the lip of another large bowl which must have been more than two feet in diameter, and around which apparently an inscription ran. The lettering is provokingly fragmentary, but still there can be no doubt that it is an attempt at writing in some form: the straight line down the middle, the sloping lines on either side recall some system of tally, and the straightness of the lettering compares curiously with the [[200]]proto-Arabian type of lettering used in the earlier Sabæan inscriptions, specimens of which I here give, and also with some curious rock carvings found by Mr. A. A. Anderson in Bechuanaland. It was common in Phœnician and early Greek vases to have an inscription or dedication round the lip; vide, for example, a lebes in the British Museum from a temple at Naucratis with a dedication to Apollo on the rim, and used, like the one before us, in temple service. The circles on the birds also appear to have a line across, like the fourth letter given as illustrating the early Arabian alphabet.
