On this page
-
Text (1)
-
346 NOTICES OF BOOKS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Excavations " Carthage At Carthage A...
appearance of a natural mound . The soil accumulates , vegetation ensuesand the whole is so completely covered up , that with time
not a , vestige appears aboveground , while the more solid pavements and the lower -walls are Buried at a depth proportionate to
the previous height of the house . In one instance Dr . Davis laid bare the foundation of eight chambersall on the same level ; one
, measured thirty-five feet by thirty ; and when its pavement , so far as it was completewas cleaned and washed it called forth universal
admiration . About , twenty feet from this building the excavators found a circular wellof exquisite construction and great solidity .
It was emptied , and , sweet water found at a depth of 110 feet . At the opposite extremity of the line of chambers , in a small room
measuring only eight feet square , and paved with black and white geometrical designs— -were three gravesneatly let into the wall at
, its base , containing human remains , but no other relics . In remote antiquity the dead were sometimes buried in their own houses , and
this appears to have been-the case among the illustrious men of Carthagefor we are told that Asdubala general commanding
troops during , the second Punic war , being , mobbed by the incensed populace on the ground of some supposed treachery , was concealed
in hy the Senate house he , when took p hearing oisonand that the retired charge into the being sepulchre discussed pf his
father" whence , he was dragged , , murdered , and his body exposed to the greatest indignities .
We must observe that throughout the whole of the book the natural desire of Dr . Davis , as it would be of every excavator , is to
prove that what he discovered was of Punic rather than Roman origin . Mr . Blakesleyhoweverbelieves that the mosaics at all events
, , are Roman . He says in one passage of his interesting -narrative : — " I found Dr . Davis hard at work'with half a dozen Arabsengaged in
, the task of removing a mosaic which , he had recently laid open in the lower floors of a dwelling-house which had _apjoarently belonged
to an ordinary citizen of the Roman " town , though one well to do in the world . The great merchants of Punic Carthage , like the
millionaires of London , had their magnificent country seats , sumptously furnishedseveral miles out of the city . The discoveries now
making relate , , I apprehend , to a much later period , and tell the story of a class coming * as little into competition with their
predecessors as the shopkeepers of Genoa or Venice do with the owners of the argosies which lay in those ports 400 years ago . "
We must not conclude without noting that Dr . Davis cleared many funeral chambers in the hill of Camart , outside the ancient
town . They contained holes cut in the side for the reception of bodies ; but though the catacombs appeared to be vastand one of
, the workmen was nearly lost among them , they could for a long time discover no traces of bodies ; and whether the tombs were new ,
or had been devastated by the conquerors , or by hyenas ( one of whom
was surprised by Dr . Davis sheltering herself from the rain under
346 Notices Of Books.
346 NOTICES OF BOOKS .
-
-
Citation
-
English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1861, page 346, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071861/page/58/
-