latter may have been in great measure a development, and
not, as is often assumed, a complete misunderstanding of the
later Egyptian cult.

(2) _C.I.S._, II. i, tab. XI, No. 122.

(3) A very similar monument is the Carpentras Stele
(_C.I.S._, II., i, tab. XIII, No. 141), commemorating Taba,
daughter of Tahapi, an Aramaean lady who was also a convert
to Osiris. It is rather later than that of Abbâ and his
wife, since the Aramaic characters are transitional from the
archaic to the square alphabet; see Driver, _Notes on the
Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_, pp. xviii ff., and
Cooke, _North Semitic Inscriptions_, p. 205 f. The Vatican
Stele (op. cit. tab. XIV. No. 142), which dates from the
fourth century, represents inferior work.

If our examples of Semitic art were confined to the Persian and later
periods, they could only be employed to throw light on their own
epoch, when through communication had been organized, and there was
consequently a certain pooling of commercial and artistic products
throughout the empire.(1) It is true that under the Great King the
various petty states and provinces were encouraged to manage their own
affairs so long as they paid the required tribute, but their horizon
naturally expanded with increase of commerce and the necessity for
service in the king's armies. At this time Aramaic was the speech of
Syria, and the population, especially in the cities, was still
largely Aramaean. As early as the thirteenth century sections of this
interesting Semitic race had begun to press into Northern Syria from
the middle Euphrates, and they absorbed not only the old Canaanite