Those who have had the good fortune to visit Andalusia, that
privileged land of the sun, of light, songs, dances, beautiful girls,
and bull fighters, preserve, among many other poetical and pleasing
recollections, that of election to antique and smiling Cadiz--the
"pearl of the ocean and the silver cup," as the Andalusians say in
their harmonious and imaginative language. There is, in fact, nothing
exaggerated in these epithets, for they translate a true impression.
Especially if we arrive by sea, there is nothing so thrilling as the
dazzling silhouette which, from afar, is reflected all white from the
mirror of a gulf almost always blue.
The Cadiz peninsula has for centuries been legitimately renowned, for,
turn by turn, Phenicians, properly so called, Carthaginians, Romans,
Goths, Arabs and Spaniards have made of it the preferred seat of their
business and pleasure. In his so often unsparing verses, Martial,
even, celebrates with an erotic rapture the undulating suppleness of
the ballet dancers of _Gades_, who are continued in our day by the
_majas_ and _chulas_.
[Illustration: PHENICIAN TOMBS DISCOVERED AT CADIZ.]
For an epoch anterior to that of the Latin poet, we have the
testimony, among others, of Strabo, who describes the splendors,
formerly and for a long time famous, of the temple of Hercules, and
who gives many details, whose accuracy can still be verified,
concerning various questions of topography or ethnography. Thus the
superb tree called _Dracæna draco_ is mentioned as growing in the
vicinity of _Gadeira_, the Greek name of the city. Now, some of these
trees still exist in certain public and private gardens, and attract
so much the more attention in that they are not met with in any other
European country. However, although historically Cadiz finds her title
to nobility on every page of the Greek and Latin authors, and although
her Phenician origin is averred, nowhere has such origin, in a
monumental and epigraphic sense, left fewer traces than in the
Andalusian peninsula. A few short legends, imperfectly read upon
either silver or bronze coins, and that was all, at least up to recent
times. Such penury as this distressed savants and even put them into
pretty bad humor with the Cadiz archæologists.
To-day, it seems that the ancient Semitic civilization, which has
remained mute for so long in the Iberic territory, is finally willing
to yield up her secret, as is proved by the engravings which we
present to our readers from photographs taken _in situ_. It is
necessary for us to enter into some details.
In 1887 there were met with at the gates of Cadiz, at about five
meters beneath the surface of the earth, three rude tombs of shelly
limestone, in which were found some skeletons, a few small bronze
instruments and some trinkets--the latter of undoubted oriental
manufacture.
In one of these tombs was also inclosed a monolithic sarcophagus of
white marble of the form called anthropoid and measuring 2.15 m. in
length by 0.67 in width. This sarcophagus is now preserved in the
local museum, whose director is the active, intelligent and
disinterested Father Vera. Although this is not the place to furnish
technical or scientific explanations, it will be permitted us to point
out the fact that although it is of essentially oriental manufacture,
our anthropoid has undoubtedly undergone the Hellenistic influence,
which implies an epoch posterior to that of Pericles, who died in 429
B.C. The personage represented, a man of mature age with noble
lineaments and aquiline nose, has thick hair corned up on the forehead
in the form of a crown, and a beard plaited in the Asiatic fashion. As
for the head, which is almost entirely executed in round relief, that
denotes in an undoubted manner the Hellenistic influence, united,
however, with the immutable and somewhat hierarchical traditions of
Phenician art. The arms are naked as far as to the elbow, and the
feet, summarily indicated, emerge from a long sheath-form robe. As for
the arms and hands, they project slightly and are rather outlined than
sculptured. The left hand grasps a fruit, the emblem of fecundity,
while the right held a painted crown, the traces of which have now
entirely disappeared. It suffices to look at this sarcophagus to
recognize the exclusively Phenician character of it, and the complete
analogy with the monuments of the same species met with in Phenicia,
in Cyprus, in Sicily, in Malta, in Sardinia, and everywhere where were
established those of Tyre and Sidon, but never until now in Spain.
On another hand, for those of our readers who are interested in
archæology, we believe it our duty to point out as a source of
information a memoir published last year by our National Society of
Antiquaries. Let us limit ourselves, therefore, to fixing attention
upon one important point: The marble anthropoid was protected by a
tomb absolutely like the rude tombs contiguous to it.
The successive discoveries since the third of last January at nearly
the same place, and at a depth of from 3 to 6 meters beneath the
surface, of numerous _Inculi_ absolutely identical as to material and
structure with those of which we have just spoken, is therefore a
scientific event of high importance. Those discoveries, which were
purely accidental, were brought about by the work on the foundations
of the Maritime Arsenal now in course of construction at the gates of
Cadiz. Our Fig. 1 represents the unearthing of the _loculi_ on the
14th of April, and on the value of which there is no need to dwell. As
to the dimensions, it is easy to judge of these, since the laborer
standing to the left of the spectator holds in his hand a meter
measure serving as a scale. It will suffice to state that the depth of
each tomb is about two meters, and that upon the lower part of three
of the parallelopipeds there exist pavements of crucial appearance.
Finally, nothing denoted externally the existence of these sarcophagi
jealously hidden from investigation according to a usage that is
established especially by the imprecations graven upon the basaltic
casket now preserved in the Museum of the Louvre, and which contained
the ashes of Eshmanazar, King of Sidon.
[Illustration: ANTHROPOID SARCOPHAGUS DISCOVERED AT CADIZ.]
Space is wanting to furnish ampler information. Our object is simply
to call attention to a zone which is somewhat neglected from a
scientific point of view, and which, however, seems as if it ought to
offer a valuable field of investigation to students of things Semitic,
among whom, as well known, our compatriots hold a rank apart, since it
is to them that falls the laborious and very honorable duty of
collecting and editing the inscriptions in Semitic languages.
On another hand, although in the beginning the sepulchers were taken
to pieces and carried away (two of them imperfectly reconstructed may
be seen in the garden of the Cadizian Museum), there will be an
opportunity of making prevail the system of maintaining _in situ_ the
various monuments that may hereafter be discovered. Thus only could
one, at a given moment, obtain an accurate idea of what the Phenician
necropolis of Cadiz was, and allow the structures that compose it to
preserve their imposing stamp of rustic indestructibility.
The excavation is being carried on at this very moment, and a bronze
statuette of an oriental god and various trinkets of more or less
value have just enriched the municipal collection. Let us hope, then,
as was recently predicted by Mr. Clermont Ganneau, of the Institute,
that some day or another some Semitic inscription will throw a last
ray of light upon the past, which is at present so imperfectly known,
of Phenician Cadiz.--_L'Illustration._
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