the Hebrew rendering of Tyre. This is particularly interesting, for the Hebrew word Tzor means rock (see Psa. xviii. 2, 31), and in its use here implies that Tyre was a rock city-built upon a sea-girt rock. Tyre was doubtless fortified, and may have been identical with the Egyptian fortress, "Tsor of Sesostris." Colonel C. R. Conder, R.E., alludes to this in a footnote attached to an article, entitled "The Early Notices of Palestine," in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund (April, 1904, p. 170), and writes: "Skatai is noticed in the Tell-elAmarna Letters from Gebal, and in that of the Hittite prince Tarkhundara. It is also noticed in the Mohar's journey. The sequence of his topography . . . seems to me to be exact throughout. It begins with the Hittite countries, mentions Aub and Khartuma, and an Egyptian fortress (Tsor of Sesostris), and Khalep (Aleppo). . . . In the Oxford Bible for Teachers, Plate lix. represents a clay tablet from Tell-el-Amarna, in Upper Egypt, inscribed with a letter from Abimilkis (Abimelech), governor of Tyre, to the king of Egypt, about 1450 B.C. The writer accepts with great joy the appointment over the troops in Tyre, without which the city would have been lost. He will hold out to the end against the king's enemies (led by Zemrida, governor of Sidon, and Agria, a disaffected Egyptian official), but prays the king to send him wood and water, the citadel of Tyre being built on a rock and separated from the mainland.

This letter from Abi-milkis shows that at that period, Tyre was dependent on Egypt for assistance to repel her enemies, and points to her having been at one time-if not actually then-an Egyptian fortress.

A steep hill, sixteen miles south of the present Tyre, now known by the name of "Râs-en-Nakurah," was formerly called by the Romans "Scala Tyriorum," or "The Ladder of Tyre," for it is a narrow passage hewn out of the rocks, and forms the ordinary southern approach to Tyre. This is alluded to in Murray's Handbook for Syria and Palestine as follows; "We are here on

the borderland between Palestine and Phoenicia. Over this narrow headland . . . came the Egyptians, under the mighty Rameses II., bent on the conquest of Asia Minor. . . . More than thirty-one centuries have rolled by since Rameses II., the Sesostris of Herodotus, the Pharaoh of Moses, performed his warlike exploits. Therefore Tyre may well have been the Tsor of Sesostris, and known to the Israelites by that name. This Rameses II., or Sesostris, reigned in Egypt from 1571-1491 B.C. In connection with the date 1450 B.C. on the clay tablet, it may be noted that in the same year there was a great gathering of all the kings of the land to fight against Israel at the waters of Merom (the head waters of the River Jordan) (Josh. xi.), to the north of Lake Chinnereth, or Sea of Galilee, when Israel defeated them, and "chased them unto great Zidon," so that the enemies of Israel may have been those of Tyre at that time.

The two nations (Israel and Phoenicia) seem to have lived on terms of general friendship, if not of cordiality; for there was a certain similarity of character between the two races. On two occasions their relations became intimate, viz., when Hiram, king of Tyre, aided Solomon in the building of the Temple (1 Kings v. 1-12); and when Ahab married Jezebel, the daughter of the Phoenician king, called in Scripture, "Ethbaal, the king of the Zidonians" (1 Kings xvi. 31).

Tyre suffered from various sieges; but as these formed part of the judgments pronounced upon her by the prophets of God; their details and a reference to the present condition of Tyre will be considered in Chapter X., and a brief summary will suffice here. 1. Shalmaneser attacked it about 725 or 724 B.C., and for five years in vain attempted its capture.

2. The siege by Nebuchadnezzar lasted for thirteen years, viz., from 587 to 574 B.C.

3. That of Alexander the Great, 332 B.C., lasted nine months.

I See chronological note on p. 27.

4. In A.D. 638 the city was taken by the Mohammedans. 5. It was retaken by the Christians A.D. 1124.

6. It fell again into Moslem hands at the final collapse of the Crusades in A.D. 1291.

"The islet (on which Tyre stood) was completely surrounded by prodigious walls, the loftiest portion of which, on the side opposite the mainland, reached a height not less than 150 feet, with corresponding solidity and base. So gigantic was the strength of the wall of Tyre, fronting the mole, and even of the northern side, fronting Sidon, that none of Alexander's engines could make any break in it; but on the south side, towards Egypt, he was more successful, and a large breach was made in the south wall." Does not this illustrate the expression of the prophet Zechariah, “Tyrus did build herself a strong hold"? (Zech. ix. 3).

The city was half burnt down, and many of its inhabitants were either slain or sold into bondage. After this, Tyre ceased for a time to be a city, but the advantages of the site were such, that the energy of the people who flocked back to it after Alexander's death, raised it again to the position of a wealthy and flourishing community; although it had lost its political influence.

"The ruins which are now found in the peninsula of Tyre are the work of the Crusaders, or of the Saracens. The final destruction of the place, after A.D. 1291, left nothing but a heap of stones, most of which have since been removed for building purposes to Sidon and Acre. The city of the Crusaders lies beneath several feet of débris, below which are the remains of Mohammedan and early Christian Tyre; but the ancient capital of the Phoenicians-the Tyre of Alexander, the Tyre of Nebuchadnezzar, the Tyre of Shalmaneser, the Tyre of Hiram-if still in existence, lies far below the superincumbent ruins.

"In 1860 M. Renan made several excavations at Tyre, both on the island and on the mainland.

1 History of Greece, vol, x. ch. xciii., George Grote.

His

researches seemed to indicate the existence, under the great masses of overlying sand, of a vast number of Græco-Roman remains, and of a comparatively few Phoenician relics." I In short, the remains have been found of a Phoenician Tyre, a Roman Tyre, and a Mediæval Tyre. The small Tyre of the present day is a little Moslem village, built on the top of the old city, and it contains a population of about 5,000 souls. The British Syrian Mission has a boys' school and a

girls' school, a dispensary, and a Bible Mission in the modern town. Sunday schools and Sunday services are held in the boys' schoolroom, and they are attended by members of many different sects. Three ladies now labour in this deserted town, where there is a work carried on among the blind; and there is also a Medical Mission.

"Pleasant is the contrast," writes the Rev. H. E. Fox, "between the squalid town, barely hiding the ruins of her ancient splendour, and the trim, wellcared-for buildings, red-roofed and wall-girt, of the little Mission station." Hospitality is extended to the traveller by the Christian missionaries and teachers. This may be a fitting place for a brief allusion to ancient Phoenician Art.

The author of the article on "Phoenicia" in the Encyclopædia Britannica (vol. vIII.) writes thus: "In the domain of art, originality was as little characteristic of the Phoenicians as of the Hebrews. They followed foreign, and especially Egyptian, models. This influence is mainly evident in the sculptural remains in which Egyptian motifs, such as the Uræus frieze.. not unfrequently occur; but the national Phoenician element is strongly marked. It was in the time of the Persian monarchy that Phoenician art reached its highest development"; and the great perfection to which it attained is attested by those wonderful sarcophagi, of which seventeen were discovered forty feet below the earth's surface in 1887, at Sidon, and which are in the Museum of Constantinople. These are acknowledged to be unrivalled in the world, and the most exquisite is the one known as the Sarcophagus of Alexander. It was from the Egyptians, that the Phoenicians adopted the custom of depositing their dead in sarcophagi. Thus Tyre in art, as well as in enterprise and commerce, stood in the van of ancient civilization.

In the gem-room of the British Museum, there are a few objects of Phoenician character, found chiefly in Tharros, in Sardinia, and in Cyprus, where the Phoenicians had established themselves.

It has been said that we owe to the Phoenicians the invention of the alphabet,' but "the only merit they can claim as inventors or improvers of writing is that of simplification. They discarded the surplus signs with

The Antiquary, July, 1903. W. B. Wallace, B.A,