METALLURGY. 355 ornament is more simple in its decoration than on any other cup ; there is only one band of figures, the centre being occupied with a rosette surrounded by a plain band. The acts of worship figured belong in all probability to the rites of Astarte-Aphrodite, as they were celebrated in the Dali temple. There are grounds for identifying the robed and enthroned female figure with that goddess. The peristyle of the temple is hinted at by columns rising between the personages on the left of our engraving ; with their lotiform capitals and the bands tied about them at about the middle of their height, these columns are quite Egyptian in their physiognomy. 1 There is nothing taken from a non- natural world in the cup just mentioned, if we except the goddess ; but the fantastic re- appears in a monument now in the Varvakeion Museum, at Athens (Fig. 274). To savants the most interesting thing about this vase is the inscription engraved upon its under-side ; it has been read thus : To Nagid, son of Mepha. The characters are Aramaean and apparently less ancient than those on the Nimroud cups ; they might fairly be attributed to the sixth century. This, however, must wait for future decision ; the interesting point to us is the decoration. Here, as on the Dali patera, there is but one figured frieze, which runs about a large eight-pointed rosette. This frieze is divided into eight compartments ; four single male and female figures alternating with as many scenes of worship. The two female figures represent the naked goddess pressing her breasts, whom we have already met so often ; the male is bearded and robed in a tight-fitting garment ; we do not know what name to give him. The four scenes of worship are as follows : In the first, Isis- Hathor suckles the young Horus before an altar on which rests the lunar disk enveloped in a crescent. A person of uncertain sex stands behind the altar with a patera in one hand and the crux ansata in the other. To this scene there is a pendant with some slight changes ; the altar is of a different form ; the goddess is without the child ; she holds out a patera instead. In a third compartment we see three musicians playing respectively the lyre, the double flute and the tambourine ; the one with the tambourine 1 This cup was found at Dali, at the bottom of a small rectangular cavity in the floor of a sepulchral chamber ; a hatchet and a lance-head were found with it (CESNOLA, Cyprus, pp. 72-78).
