Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/245

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NOTES ON HERR SCHICK'S PAPER ON JERUSALEM CROSS.
205

No. 3 is a bud as in Hittite, the Cypriote Bu or Pu—a demonstrative pronoun.

No. 4 is like the Hittite and Cuneiform emblem Dim, which occurs on the bilingual of Tarkondemos.

No 5 is the tall vase not uncommon in the Hittite, to which I have proposed to give the sound Pe, and to regard it as the nominative definite.

We should thus obtain the reading Ko-mo bu Dim-pe, "Of my king this (is) the seal." This would indicate a Hittite population at Lachish about 1500 B.C. or earlier, who were subject to an Egyptian overlord, and added a native inscription to the royal seal. There is nothing improbable in this view, when we remember that the Hittites lived not far off at Hebron in the time of Abraham, and that the Hyksos are thought to have belonged to the same stock, and adored the same God (Set) worshipped by the Hittites. This seal may be the oldest object found at Tell el Hesy.

4th June, 1894,


NOTES ON HERR VON SCHICK'S PAPER ON THE JERUSALEM CROSS.

By Major C. E. Conder, R.E.

The representation of the Jerusalem Cross is not correct. The crosslets are plain, and the crutches of the central cross are much longer.

It is not improbable that this cross was older than the Crusades, for it has the Greek not the Latin form.

A number of crosses of all forms will be found in the "Survey Memoirs," chiefly Greek, and taken from lintel stones in monasteries and chapels; but none of them have the crutch form. The Calvary Cross (see Deir ul Kal'ah) is not noticed by Mr. Schick, and I only found it once.

If the so-called Crux Ansata of Egypt (the Ankh or symbol of life held in the hand of deities) be really a cross, it should not be forgotten that the Maltese cross is found hung, with other charms, to the neck of Assyrian Kings, whose statues are in the British Museum. The Anchorites' crosses from Egypt have not the Jerusalem form. Of the