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SALAMIS IN THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS.
BY ALEXANDER PALMA DI CESNOLÀ, F.S.A.,
page 66

with pendants, such as the terra-cotta statues wear. The base has three letters in relief. Other vases of extremely elegant forms are comprised in this collection. One of these, of which both handles have been lost, and its foot fractured, comprises the original stopper of alabaster. These works are undoubtedly Greek.Fig. 121 is a flat basin, measuring four inches and three-quarters in diameter, like the bowl of a small fountain, having three projections from its sides, besides a spout. Round the rim of this article is a doubtful inscription, which must have been cut long after the making of the object, and has not been read. This comes from Kurium. I am inclined to consider that, although a true piece of antiquity, its value has been sought to be enhanced by the addition of this mysterious inscription, some of the letters of which are of a nondescript character. On a slab of the same material, now forming a mantel-piece in the house of a miller in the same town, I observed an inscription in similar characters. The fireplace which it adorns is of the period of the Lusignans. There is also among these alabaster antiquities a vase, like awater-cooler, with a wide neck (fig. 122);it bears a band of lancet-shaped leaves, with their points downwards, enclosing the greater part of the body of the relic, but not the whole of it. On a flatspace, which has been ground out of onepart of the girth, is an illegible inscription in archaic Greek, the form of which, not less than the contour and carved band of this vase, indicates its considerable ancientness. Two other vases have Cyprioteletters in relief, being probably the name of the owner or the maker.The accompanying figure represents an alabastron of remarkable form, with three ears, each for a loop to pass through when it was carried. There are in this case also three Cypriote letters, which read " Pa . ve . ο", and may, perhaps, be rendered φάιyeo, i.e., " Of Phaveos". The height of this vase is 4 inches (fig. 123). The plate here introduced gives figures of several alabaster vases and unguentaria of interesting and noteworthy types.

CHAPTER XI.

SERPENTINE AND CRYSTAL ANTIQUITIES.

VERY elegant vase, measuring five inches in height, and carved out of serpentine stone (fig. 124), comes from the district of Salamis. It is of pear shape, with stripes down the side, which commence from a double circle of a kind of cabled pattern running round the middle of the vase. There are two pierced handles for securing a cover with a tie. The circular base of this perfume vase is inscribedwith three Cypriote characters—"ko. la. pa", which Professor Sayce reads παλaxoυ, i.e., "[The vase or bottle] of Palakhos". Crystal antiquities are excessively rare throughout the island of Cyprus. During the whole of my sojourn there, the number of such relics hardly exceeded ten or twelve; so that I may be considered fortunate in obtaining during the progress of my investigations three crystal objects. Of these, the first (fig. 125) is about an inch and a half in height, carved or turned in a very elegant manner, in form of a little vase or pendant. The base is square, the body ovoid and the top carries a small silver ring, by which it was, no doubt, attached to a necklace or chain. Another piece of crystal (fig. 126), of somewhat smaller height, is attached by a gold wire ring, upon which is a small scarabǽus in gold-foil, to a necklace (fig. 17), described at pages 31, 32. On page 32, I have given particulars of the third crystal object (fig. 127) in the Lawrence-Cesnola collection, which, from its form and general appearance, must also be taken as a pendant or personal ornament. Dr. Birch informs me, in a note which he has kindly supplied with respect to these pendants:— " The use of crystal is of considerable antiquity, and although it rarely appears to

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