'Southern Arabia, by Theodore Bent, F.R.G.S., F.S.A., Author of 'The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland' 'The Sacred City of the Ethiopians' 'The Cyclades, Or Life Among the Insular Greeks' etc. and Mrs Theodore Bent' [‎27] (64/552)

THE MOUNDS OF A LI
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British Museum from Nimrud in Assyria, universally
accepted as having been executed by Phoenician artists :
those cunning workers in ivory and wood whom Solomon
employed in the building of his temple, and, before the
spread of Egyptian and Greek art, the travelling artists
of the world. The ivory fragments we found were given
into the hands of Mr. A. S. Murray, of the British Museum,
who wrote to my husband as follows: * I have not the
least doubt, judging from the incised patterns, from bull's
foot, part of a figure, &c., that the ivories are of Phoenician
workmanship.'
The pottery found in this tomb offered no very distinctive
features, being coarse and unglazed, but the numerous frag
ments of ostrich egg-shells, coloured and scratched with
rough patterns in bands, also pointed to a Phoenician origin,
or at least to a race of wide mercantile connection: and in
those days the Phoenicians were the only people likely to
combine in their commerce ostrich egg-shells and ivory. We
also found small shapeless pieces of oxidised metal, brass or
copper. There were no human bones in the upper chamber,
but those of a large animal, presumably a horse.
The chamber immediately beneath was much more
carefully constructed; it was exactly the same length, but
was higher, being 6 feet 7 inches, and the passage was wider.
It was entirely coated with cement of two qualities, the upper
coat being the finest, in which all round the walls at intervals
of two feet were holes sloping inwards and downward. In
similar holes, in one of the other tombs we opened, we found
traces of wood, showing that poles on which to hang drapery
had been inserted. The ground of this lower chamber was
entirely covered with a thin brown earth of a fibrous nature,
in appearance somewhat resembling snuff; it was a foot in
depth, and evidently the remains of the drapery which had
been hung around the walls. Prior to the use of coffins the