Dr. Meyer is mistaken in attributing the Moabite forgeries to the Rev. Alexander Wilhelm Schapira, who was formerly a Church Missionary Society clergyman at Gaza. It was Mr. M. W. Schapira whose name became connected with the celebrated Schapira collection of forgeries in 1873.
The following appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, November 11, 1879—
"An interesting archæological discovery is reported from Palestine. An Arab who was quarrying stone the other day at a place about four miles and a half from Gaza unearthed a marble figure supposed to be a colossal god of the Philistines. The dimensions of the figure are as follows: Three feet from the top of its head to the end of its beard, twenty-seven inches from ear to ear, thirteen and a half inches from top of forehead to mouth, fifty-four inches from shoulder to shoulder, eighty-one inches from crown of head to waist, and fifty-four inches the circumference of the neck. The total height of the figure is fifteen feet. The hair hangs in long ringlets down upon the shoulders, and the beard is long, indicating a man of venerable age. The right arm is broken in half, while the left arm is crossed over the breast to the right shoulder, where the hand is hidden by the drapery of a cloth covering the shoulders. There is no inscription on the figure, or the pedestal, which is a huge block carved in one piece with the figure. The statue was found in a recumbent position, buried in the sand, on the top of a hill near the sea. It had evidently been removed from its original site, which is unknown. Its estimated weight is 12,000 lbs. The Pasha of Jerusalem has ordered a guard to watch this relic of ancient art, and to prevent any injury to it by the fanatics of Gaza."
Captain Conder, in his notes from Constantinople, July 1882, sent a copy of the sketch which he had made from the original of the Gaza Jupiter in the porch of the Stamboul Museum, which is reproduced in the Quarterly Statement P. E. F., July 1882, p. 148.
Conder supposed that the terrible mutilations of this Jupiter may have been effected before the statue was discovered, and it is possible that the pious pagans may have buried their Jupiter to save him from the Christians, and have been obliged to divide it for facility of transport.
CHAPTER XVII
AN OLD SARCOPHAGUS AT GAZA[41]
The Jerusalem paper, El-Kuds, in its issue of February 25, 1910, gave an interesting account of a discovery made at Gaza, and Prof. R. A. S. Macalister has kindly forwarded a translation of the relevant portions of the description. After some remarks on the history of Gaza, the paper proceeds as follows—
"We have been induced to record the above by our having heard that Musa el-Burtu and his partner, Ibn Halaweh, of the people of Gaza, bought land at Gaza for six hundred dollars; and that when Musa went to his land, and was working and digging in it, he found a little door. He entered by it into a cave divided into two chambers, and, entering through the second door, he found a coffin of hard wood. And he opened it, and in the coffin was another of crystal. And he broke this, and inside it he found one of the old queens embalmed, and on her head a crown adorned with precious stones, and on her neck a necklace of pearls, and three chains besides on her breast; and above her head was a candlestick of gold with a spout, a metre and a half long, and another at her foot a metre long. And he collected all these things and brought them to Beirût, and thence to Egypt; and we have learnt that he sent to his partner in Gaza to pay to the workmen a sum of five hundred napoleons.