Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894/Notes by Rev. J. E. Hanauer on Stone and Pottery Masks found in Palestine
NOTES BY REV. J. E. HANAUER.
I.—On Stone and Pottery Masks found in Palestine.
On pp. 268 and 269 of the Quarterly Statement for October, 1890, will be found an account, with illustration by Dr. Chaplin, of a stone mask obtained by him from Er Ram, and which Professor Petrie believed to be "of Canaanite origin."
The same curious object forms the subject of an interesting note by the late Rev. Greville J. Chester on p. 84 of the Quarterly Statement for January, 1891. He says that he had "seen several of somewhat similar make, but of pottery, found near Um Rit, in Northern Syria," and that he thinks that one "representing a bearded head, is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford." He supposes these objects to be Græco-Phœnician, and "perhaps of votive character,"
Major Conder takes up the very interesting discussion on p. 186 of the Quarterly Statement for April, 1891, and refers to the mention of the stone-mask in the "Memoirs," vol. iii, p. 438, and to its having been shown him by Dr. Chaplin. He does not think that it could ever "have been used as a real mask," and it "seems" to him "that it might be of any date from the twelfth century A.D. backwards."
This seems to me to be all that has been put forward in the Quarterly Statement concerning this most curious relic, which I have often examined and thought over when, during Dr. Chaplin's absence from Jerusalem, it was kept for safety in the London Jews' Society's Mission Library at Jerusalem, and I would take the liberty of hazarding a suggestion concerning it and the pottery masks mentioned by Mr. Chester and similar ones which I have seen in a collection of "antiques" at Jerusalem, and among antiquities offered for sale by dealers at Jaffa.
The readers of the Quarterly Statement will forgive me for reminding them of the remarkable and interesting classic pagan custom of suspending "oscilla" or "little faces" of Logreus—Dionysos—Bacchus in the vineyards, "to be turned in every direction by the wind, because it was supposed that whichever way they looked they made the vines in that quarter fruitful."—"Virgil," Georg. ii, 388-392.
On p. 846 of the second edition of Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities" will be found two figures: one being the representation of a beautiful "oscillum" of white marble, which, it is stated, is in the British Museum; and the other being copied from an ancient gem (Maffei. "Gem. Ant." iii, 64), and representing "a tree with four oscilla hung upon its branches." From the noun "oscillum" was derived the verb "oscillo," meaning to swing, which is the root of our English words oscillate, oscillation, &c.
Here at Jaffa I am shut out from the possibility of reference to all but a few of the back numbers of the Quarterly Statement, but I think that in one of Herr Schumacher's reports there occurs the mention (with illustration) of one of these masks.
II.—A Legend of Il Hakim.
A couple of years ago, at the time of the Greek excavations inside and close to the rock-cut tomb with sculptured grape-clusters, &c., at the traditional Aceldama, popularly called "The Retreat of the Apostles," though identified half a century ago by the late Dr. Schulz as the monument of Ananus, I one day visited a small Jewish settlement on the traditional Hill of Evil Counsel. A fellah who met me there offered me some beads, &c., which he said he had picked up whilst working on the said excavations, and of his own accord told me the following legend, which I record—firstly, because it seems to me to contain an undoubted reference to the freaks of the mad Fatimite Khalifeh II Hakim bi amr illah, whom the Druzes worship as a deity, but of whom, as far as I am aware, no traditions have hitherto been found to exist in the folk-lore of Southern Palestine, and secondly, because Mr. Bliss, to whom I recently told the strange story on the spot it referred to, suggested that it would not be deemed valueless if offered for the pages of the Quarterly Statement:—
Legend.
"A long time ago, when Palestine was under the Egyptian Government, تحت دولة مصر the caves in Wad el Rababeh were inhabited by a great number of monies and holy men who spent their time in fasting and prayer. Now it happened that the Governor in Egypt—الحاكم بمصر "El Hakim bi Musr"—needed money, and, therefore, sent orders to the Mutasarrif (Governor) of El Kuds to make everybody pay a tax. The Mutasarrif and Mejlis wrote back to say that it was impossible to do so, seeing that there were such large numbers of poor but holy men who, though Christians, lived like dervishes in the caves, and who, as they earned nothing, could not pay the sum demanded of each of them. On receiving this news the Governor of Egypt ordered his secretary to write back the order احصوا الرجال "Number the men," but, whether through carelessness or wickedness Allah knows, the secretary wrote a خ instead of a ح in the word for "number," and so the order read اخصوا الرجال i.c., "Mutilate the men." This cruelty was literally carried out. The sufferers all died in consequence, and were buried where they had lived, and the human bones now found in the caves in Wady Kababeh are theirs." The fellah who related this could neither read nor write.