PHŒNICIAN Numerals antiently used at SIDON, from One to a Thousand.
J. Mynde sc.
The powers of the Phœnician numeral characters antiently used at Sidon, which I flatter myself are now discovered, having been for many ages unknown; the Society will perhaps not be displeased to see accurate draughts of the principal Phœnician medals, from whence they are deduced. I have therefore taken the liberty to transmit them[208] such draughts, which may be intirely depended upon. I have also constructed a table[209] of the numeral characters themselves, from Unity to A Thousand; which will demonstrate, in the clearest manner possible, the great affinity between them and those of the Palmyrenes.
1. From this table it plainly appears, that the people of Sidon had no particular character to denote Five, whilst the Phœnician numerals here explained were in vogue amongst them; that they expressed TWENTY by a character, during that period, not very different from the correspondent one used at Tadmor; and that in all other respects the Phœnician notation then prevailing at Sidon was, in a manner, the same with that of the[210] Palmyrenes.
2. It may not be improper to observe, that two of the Sidonian coins I have been considering[211] exhibit the Phœnician word מא, equivalent to the Hebrew מאה, and Syriac מאא, AN HUNDRED, instead of the centenary numeral character. This, in conjunction with the appearance of that character, occupying the very place of the term אמ, on others of those coins, first induced me to believe, that the inscription preserved by every one of them in the exergue could be nothing else but a date.
3. I shall beg leave farther to remark, that none of the indubitable medals of Tyre, adorned with Phœnician letters, as far as I have been able to discover, present to our view any Phœnician dates at all. This still more clearly evinces the second element prefixed to the Phœnician numerals in the exergue to point out to us the city of Sidon, and not that of Tyre; which[212], indeed, seems already to have been sufficiently proved.
4. From the foregoing observations we may likewise collect, that the coin assigned to Demetrius III. by Mr. Masson, F. Frœlich[213], and Sig. Haym, exhibiting a Phœnician legend, without a Phœnician date, in the exergue, ought in reality to be attributed to Demetrius I. Those three learned men therefore have been guilty of a mistake in this particular. Nor can the head on this medal be denied to bear some resemblance to that of Demetrius I.[214] with a moderate beard, as it appears on a coin published by Dr. Vaillant, and in one of F. Frœlich’s plates. That the letters A K, behind the head, indicate the piece to have been struck in the twenty-first year of the proper Sidonian æra[215], as Mr. Masson and F. Frœlich are pleased to assert, can never be proved. On the contrary, the improbability of such a notion may be inferred from two similar letters, behind the turrited head of the Dea Syria[216], on a Phœnician coin, which Mr. Masson makes to point out the forty-first year of the proper epoch of Sidon; whereas, in truth, that piece seems to have been struck either in the reign of Demetrius I. or Antiochus IV.[217] many years before. Nay, that it was actually struck when Demetrius I. sat upon the Syrian throne, is rendered almost incontestable by a medal of that prince now in my possession, with a Beta behind the head on the anterior part, and the very reverse of the last-mentioned coin. From the former of which circumstances it farther appears, that the alphabetic characters MA, supposed by Mr. Masson to denote 41, are by no means to be taken for a date. To which we may add, that the head on a Phœnician medal, with the two Greek elements AK behind it, published by Mr. Reland[218], is apparently that of Demetrius I.; and that the posterior part of this coin is nearly the same, in all respects, with the reverse of that supposed to[219] appertain to Demetrius III. by Mr. Masson and Sig. Haym. But to wave all other considerations, relative to the point in view, that may occur, the features and turns of the face on the medals of Demetrius III. are so different[220], that no inference of any validity can be drawn from the pretended identity or similitude of them, in support of Mr. Masson’s opinion.
5. The Palmyrene and Phœnician numerals, deduced from coins and inscriptions, may perhaps be thought not unworthy a place amongst the arithmetical characters of various nations, formerly[221] collected by Bishop Beveridge; and consequently may be allowed to render somewhat more complete the chronological institutions, or rather the chronological arithmetic, of that learned and judicious author.
You will pardon the prolixity of this letter, which the novelty of the subject may perhaps render a little more excusable than it would otherwise have been; and believe me to be, with the most perfect consideration and esteem,