There are three fragments of three very large
bowls, which are all of a special interest, and if the
bowls could have been recovered intact they would
have formed very valuable evidence. Search, however,
as we would, we never found more of these bowls,
and therefore must be content with what we have.
The first of these represents on its side a small portion
of what must have been a religious procession;
of this we have only a hand holding a pot or censer
Containing an offering in it, and an arm of another
figure with a portion of the back of the head with
FR A GM EN T O F SO AP STONE BOW L FR A GM EN T W IT H L E T T E R IN G
W IT H EA R O F CORN ON IT
the hair drawn off it in folds. Representations of a
similar nature are to be found in the religious
functions of many Semitic races, and it is much to be
regretted that we have not more of it for our study.
The second fragment has an elaborate design upon it,
taken from the vegetable world, probably an ear of
corn ; it was evidently around the lip of the bowl and
not at the side ; it is a very good piece of workmanship,
and of a soapstone of brighter green than that
employed in the other articles. The third fragment is
perhaps the most tantalising of a ll; it is a fragment of
the lip of another large bowl which must have been
more than two feet in diameter, and around which
apparently an inscription ran. The lettering is pro
vokingly fragmentary, but still there can be no doubt
that it is an attempt at writing in some form: the
straight line down the middle, the sloping lines on
f h r H 1 0 I I
L E T T E R S FROM PR O TO -A RA B IA N A L PH A B E T
either side recall some system of tally, and the straightness
of the lettering compares curiously with the
proto-Arabian type of lettering used in the earlier
Sabsean inscriptions, specimens of which I here give,
and also with some curious rock carvings found by
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L E T T E R S ON A RO CK IN B E CH U A N A LA N D , C O P IE D BY
M R . A . A . A N D E R SO N
Mr. A. A. Anderson in Bechuanaland. It was common
in Phoenician and early Greek vases to have an
inscription or dedication round the lip ; vide, for
example, a lebes in the British Museum from a
temple at Naucratis with a dedication to Apollo on
the rim, and used, like the one before us, in temple