MEON. Woman and man, to the left, in an attitud of adoration ? them, a chest, within which, man and woman, to the left ; upon the side of the chest, Nf2E, the third letter indistinct : above, dove? flying to the right, bearing branch : upon the chest, a similar bird. 2. Copper coin of Philip the Younger. Obv. ATT. K. IOTA. CIAIIIII0C ATP. Bust of Philip, laureate and wearing paludamentum and cuirass, to the right. Rev. EIL M. ATP. A AEXIAN APOT B. APXI. AlIAMEHN. The same type : the letters on the chest are illegible. Of the genuine ness of these coins we are assured, on the excellent authority of Mr. Waddington, and his opinion, as well as an examination of the casts from which the engraving was made, convince us that the idea we formerly entertained, that the letters NI2E may be a modern addition, or can be explained otherwise than as the name of the patriarch, must be aban doned (Enc. Brit. Numismatics, p. 378). The latter is a point of great importance, for upon it depends the nature of the reference to the Noachian Flood, which must therefore be held to be direct, and not an indirect reference through the story of Deuca lion. It must be remembered that the traditions and myths of this part of Asia are not of a strictly Greek character. The tradition of Annacus or Nannacus at Iconium, not unreasonably supposed to refer to Enoch, of the line of Seth, is especially to be noted. The supposition that a Jewish or Christian community could have struck these coins is wholly untenable, and therefore we can only consider that there was at Apamea a tradition of the Deluge. The second name, Cibotus, by which it was distin guished, 'Arriurta KLpan-or, or 'Arcipeta K49wr6s, from other cities called Apamea, is an important point, since that very word is used by the LXX. for Noah's Ark, and the latter is represented in the form of a chest on the Apamean coins. It is pro bable that Cibotus was the name of an earlier city on the same site as Apamea, which was called after Apame, the wife of Seleucus I. The extra ordinary agreement with the Biblical account of all the particulars in the subject upon the Apamean coins is not less striking than the main agreement, of the narrative of Berosus. Whence, it may be asked, was this knowledge of the Apameans de rived ? If it be supposed to have been borrowed from the Jews or the Christians, or their Scriptures, we must imagine the same of the account given by Berosus. It is more reasonable to hold that
both were very ancient traditions, independent of the narrative of the sacred historian.
The traditions of the Noachian Deluge which make the place where the Ark rested, or that of the new settlement of mankind, distant from what is indicated by the Biblical narrative, form too wide a subject to be here dikussed. [DELUGE.] There are, however, some matters of great importance which must not be passed by. As we have before remarked, the extraordinary extent of these tradi tions, both as to races and as to territory, proves the magnitude of the catastrophe, a point which the increasing conviction that the Flood was partial as to the earth has tended to throw into the back ground. The Ark, or a raft, or boat, is found in many of these traditions, and when such is the case they may be regarded as more probably refer ring solely to Noah's Flood, than as records of local inundations to which some particulars of the great Cataclysm had been attached by the natural con fusion of tradition. The absence of any mention of the Deluge in the history and mythology of Egypt is a remarkable exception, on which, how ever, the advocates of more than one origin of the human race cannot lay stress, since the Egyptians were unmistakeably connected with the Semitic race in their language and physical characteristics. The probable reason is to be found in the absence of tradition in the Egyptian annals, which pass from the darkness of mythology to the light of history, as though the Noachian colonists had suppressed in Egypt their recollections of Shinar to assume the character of autochthons.
With the traditions of the Flood and the Ark, we do not connect those architectural works which have been fancifully assigned to such an origin, such as the Celtic kist-vaens (cut 72), which have no more resemblance to an ark than to a rude chest or house. The idea of connecting the Ark with the Pagan religions of antiquity is now also exploded by the advance of criticism. Those who wrote in favour of these and like theories ex pended labour and learning in pursuits which could only lead them astray.—R. S. P.