The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

ADDENDA

NOTE ON A PHENICIAN SEAL FOUND IN IRELAND (Add to p. 1471. 8)

The Phcenician Seal found in North Ireland and reported by the late Sir Henry Rawlinson in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, I, 1864, p. 237, No. IX, is nowin the British Museum, Egyptian and Assyrian Department, and exhibited as No. 48502 in the Semitic Room, 2nd Northern Gallery, and is ‘said to have been found at Dundrum, Ireland” for these latter details I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. C. J. Gadd of that Department. Dundrum, its reputed find-site, with a bay of that name, is an ancient seaport of St. George’s Channel in County Down.

The inscription occupying four lines, is written in Aramean script dating not later than the 8th century B.C., according to Canon Taylor (The Alphabet I, 232). Rawlinson remarked that the seal is ‘‘a relic, it is supposed, of old Pheenician colonists.’ He read the inscription as follows : “Belonging to Abdalah the son of Shebat, the slave of Mitinta the son of Zadek.”” And he explained that “ Although the owner of this seal was ‘a slave,’ he probably filled a position of trust; for there is abundant evidence in the legal tablets that ‘ slaves’ under the Assyrian empire were allowed to possess property and were raised to high situations.’ The word translated “slave” (abd), however, ordinarily means ‘“‘ Servant” ; and the names transliterated “Mitinta”’ and ‘“ Zadek” read ‘“‘ Matta’’ and “ Sadaq ” respectively—Sadacandra was the name of an Indian epic Aryan king (W.V.P. 4, 212).

The owner of this scaraboid seal was evidently the agent of the Phcenician merchant named therein, and was presumably not a settled Phcenician colonist, but engaged in the Irish gold and pearl trade.

“HITTITE” DOUBLE AXE OFABOUT 1800 B.c. . FOUND IN IRELAND

Just as I write, my attention has been kindly called by Mr. Alexander Pringle of Belfast to the important recent discovery of a votive stone Double Axe of Hittite type in Ireland, the pre-Scotland home of the Scots. The discovery is announced by Mr. L. S. Gogan, assistant-keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum, Dublin, in the Daily Express of the 6thinst. Theaxe was discovered at Curraboy, Knox, County Mayo, by a farmer, Mr. Edward O'Toole,