Prof. Sayce and others now insist that Dagon was not a fish-god. The name and worship of Dagon were imported into Philistia from Babylonia.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Chap. XIII. pp. 4, 5. For a complete list of idolatrous observances mentioned in the Old Testament the reader is referred to The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, pp. 421-5, 1905.
[39] Twelfth Quarterly Report on the Excavation of Gezer, p. 196. P. E. F.
[40] Quarterly Statement P. E. F., Oct. 1909, p. 274.
CHAPTER XVI
THE GAZA JUPITER
The great statue from Gaza was discovered on September 6, 1879, by the natives at Tell 'Ajjûl, about four miles and a half south of Gaza. Captain Conder, in 1882, reported that we owe its preservation to the exertions of the Rev. A. W. Schapira, the C.M.S. missionary at Gaza. The Arabs had at once commenced to break up the statue, and had succeeded in greatly damaging the face. Mr. Schapira persuaded the Turkish Governor to set a guard over the spot. The antiquarians of Palestine owe him a debt of gratitude for having prevented the entire destruction of this unique monument.
Dr. Meyer, in his History of the City of Gaza, Note, on page 153, states that this statue was rescued by the missionary Schapira, and adds in a note on page 156, "that Schapira's connection with the finding of the statue tended at first to discredit the authenticity of the find, because of his previous share in the famous Moabite forgeries. But nothing has ever been advanced to show that this statue shares the character of his other discoveries."