expensive a volume, that some shorter account should be written of the actual facts, as distinguished from learned dissertations on the religions of the ancients, concerning which there is much difference of opinion; and such a volume need not contain the mass of illustrations taken from other works, and from the art of other countries. By such means the general public might better be able to estimate the present condition of archæology in this interesting island. No objects of the finest Greek style have been found, and the native art seems always to have been rude and grotesque. The attribution of much that bears Cypriote texts was at first wrongly made, for it was supposed that the inscriptions would turn out to be Phoenician, and even Perrot and Chipiez have classed under this head statues which are now known to be of Greek origin. The discovery of archaic female statues at Athens which much resemble those of Cyprus, agrees with the discovery made by George Smith in 1872, that the Cypriote characters concealed writings in a Greek dialect. If there were any earlier inhabitants of the island than the Phoenicians, they at least do not seem to have left any trace of their presence. The Egyptians, who had fleets on the Mediterranean as early as 1500 B.C., knew Cyprus well. Even as early as the time of Thothmes III. it is supposed to be mentioned, under the name of Asebi, as a place where chariots were made of gold and silver, and whence copper (or bronze), lead, blue-stone, and elephants' tusks were brought. After the invasion of Egypt by rude Aryan hordes, in the time of Rameses XII. (about 1200 B.C.), the Egyptians are thought to have attacked Cyprus in revenge. The names of Idalion, Kition, Soli, and other cities in the island, appear to occur on a monument of this reign. Yet earlier, Meneptah II. had ships on the Mediterranean, in which he sent wheat to Northern Syria. The presence of the Phoenicians is attested by numerous inscriptions, in their own language and character. Renan enumerates more than eighty of these, but they are not very ancient, belonging mainly to the 4th and 5th centuries B.C. From them we learn the names of seven of the twelve Pho nician months, which included Bul and Etharnim (used by the Hebrews before the captivity), and the names of several Phoenician gods, but they are mainly votive texts, and contain very little matter of historic interest. The Phoenician settlements appear to have been mainly on the south side of the island, at Citium, Amathus, Paphos, etc., where the Sidonians lived; but the men of Gebal had a colony at Golgos further north. It was from one of these texts, dating from 376 B.C., that George Smith obtained the clue to the native characters. The Phoenician reads thus: . in the (4th year) iiii. of King Melekyathon, ruling Kition and Idalion, the prince (Baalram) son of Abd Milcom, placed this new statue for Reseph Mical, who had heard his prayer, blessed be he.' The Cypriote characters were found to give the same meaning in somewhat rude Greek, and a secure basis for decipherment was thus obtained, which has given satisfactory results in all cases where such texts occur. Dr. Deecke has collected the texts, and continued the work which was begun by the English scholar, and new texts are constantly discovered. The character is not alphabetic, but consists of a syllabary of 53 sounds, which emblems are pretty generally agreed to find their prototypes in the Hittite hieroglyphics of Syria and Asia Minor-as Dr. Sayce first pointed out-by which means the sounds of some 40 Hittite signs may be established. But the system was ill adapted to express the forms of a language like Greek, with its many long and short vowels; and its peculiarities appear to arise from the fact that it was originally used for a Non-Aryan language, which on other grounds is determined as having been Mongolic. The syllabary did not originate in Cyprus, and it was used by the Carians on the mainland to the north, and continued to be so used till the time of Alexander the Great, or even later. It appears to furnish the early forms from which originated the alphabets of * Die Griechesh-Kyprischen Inschriften in Epicorischen Schrift, 1883. Phoenicia and Greece and Lycia,* a view which is slowly winning acceptance among scholars. The Cypriote syllabary is thus the origin of all the alphabetic scripts that have ever existed, for the Phoenician alphabet is the parent of them all (as is well recognised by epigraphists), and superseded the clumsier Cuneiform and Egyptian systems. The Cypriote texts on stones and coins give the names of Greek and Phoenician kings, between about 527 and 307 B.C., some fifteen in all being known, including Evagoras, Nicokles, and Menelaos of Salamis-the latter in the time of Ptolemy I: Nicokles of Paphos, contemporary with Alexander the Great, and Stasioikos of Kurion and Paphos in 440 B.C. From Assyrian texts we know that in Yatnan, or Cyprus, there were seven kings or chiefs in the time of Sargon, about 708 B.C., and this conqueror invaded the island and set up at Kition a monument of himself. Diodorus (xvi. lii. 4) speaks of nine kings, but these petty princes cannot have ruled more than about 400 square miles apiece. The island is purely Phoenician in the Homeric poems, and even in 370 B.C. the names in the bilingual shew that a Phoenician ruler reigned at Kition and Idalion. The Greeks are sometimes thought to have arrived as early as the ninth century B.C., but did not probably become powerful till about the time of Alexander's conquests, or at earliest after the defeat of Xerxes, when 120 Greek ships from Cyprus aided his advance. The statues and small votive figures, of which so many have been dug up in the island, are for the most part uninscribed. One bears in Cypriote characters the text 'Moisedemos vowed me.' A few of the oldest bear a likeness to the Syrian native art, but the majority seem to be Greek, and some belong to Roman times. The artists of Cyprus were, however, but feeble imitators of the Greek-like those who carved the rude statues of Commagene. A foolish grin is depicted on the faces of men and women alike. The hair is often dressed in long plaits on the shoulders, such as appear in very early repre * See my paper on the subject in the quarterly statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund. January, 1889, p. 17. sentations of Greeks, and the beard is worn without moustache, which was also a Greek custom. On the sarcophagi Greek legends are pictured, such as the birth of Pegasus and Chrysaor (at Athieno), and the story of Hercules and Geryon. The most distinctive figure is perhaps the Paphian Venus (Ashtoreth), of whom numerous rude and gross naked figures exist, which recall those of Mesopotamia. Others of Aphrodite are however much later, and belong to Greek and Roman art. The small earthenware figures and groups from tombs—often representing a dance round the sacred tree-are yet more primitive in style, though not therefore of necessity very ancient. The work in which the Cypriotes excelled was metal work, and much of their jewelry and engraved bowl-ornament is delicate and beautiful; but the pottery is inferior, and its paintings of the rudest character; and very little really good Greek work has been discovered. Dr. Richter does not treat of either the history or the epigraphy of his subject, but confines himself to the antiquities, and to the fascinating but obscure subject of mythology. He gives a summary of the sites where excavations have been made, and several interesting notices of native superstitions. We may turn therefore from the above introductory remarks to consider some of the more interesting sites, antiquities, and peasant customs to which he refers. At Achna, half-way between Larnaca and Salamis, the peasants discovered a Temple of Artemis in 1882, with pottery statues twelve feet high, and a votive text. At Voni, on the south slopes of the north range, was found in the following year a fane of Apollo, a colossal limestone statue, with a good many Greek votive texts, and a statue with a Cypriote inscription by Gillika. At Dali, in the central region, as early as 1855, Mr. G. Watkins obtained two terra-cotta statues, and two limestone heads, now at Berlin. Ten miles to the west, at Tamassos, in 1885, were found sculptures and two bilinguals -Cypriote and Phoenician; and in 1889 bronze statues were also discovered. Discoveries of value (including Phoenician texts) were made by Cesnola at Kition in 1880, and at Pharangas, N.E. of Achna, which need not be specially noticed. At Ormidhia, in 1882, a curious terra-cotta statuette was found (with other votive figures) representing a man with an ox under his arm. At Pedalion, our author, in 1890, states that he found many stone figures larger than life. Similar remains occur at Arsos, and at Marathovouno; and at Goshi, nine miles north-west of Larnaka, sixteen votive texts in honour of the Paphian goddess have been recovered. Athieno was one of the most important religious centres in the eastern plain; and here General Cesnola found some of his most remarkable statues, including the figure of a man with long plaited locks and curly beard, holding a cup in the right hand and a dove in the left. There appear to have been two sanctuaries at this place, with a hill between them, surrounded by sacred groves. At Pyla Mr. Lang found texts of Apollo Magirios, and groups representing Hercules, Pan and Antemis, with terra-cottas of dancing women, and groups hand in hand round the holy cypress tree. Near Dali (Idalion) were two temples, that to the west being sacred to the goddess called Anat by the Phoenicians and Athene by the Greeks, and that to the east being for Ashtoreth or the Greek Aphrodite. Between them was a shrine of Apollo (the Phoenician Reseph) where Mr. Lang found many inscriptions. A group of Aphrodite with two children—one a babe in swaddling bands-was early discovered here on the eastern site; and not far off underground tombs built of stone have been excavated. In the shrine of Ambelleri, which appears to have stood in the sacred grove of Athene in this same vicinity, the long Cypriote text on copper-called the Luynes Tablet, now at Paris-was discovered, with weapons, pateræ and other objects of bronze, and a piece of armour with a short Phoenician text. Here, too, in 1887, Herr Richter found a dedication to Anat, including the names of Kings of Kition and Idalion. Several other smaller shrines surrounded these temples. Terra-cotta masks of men's and beasts' heads were found by our author, which seem to have been hung on the sacred trees-a custom which was not unknown among the Romans. Lythrodonad, six miles N.E. of Tamassos, towards the north |