In 1253 Lewis IX. rebuilt it, and fortified it with high walls and towers, and afterwards sold it to the Templars, who very soon had to relinquish it to the Mongols. Destroyed by the latter, it was taken possession of by Sultan Ashraf in t 291. In i321--at the time of Abulfeda—it had, in conse quence of all these troubles and successive de structions, lost almost all vestiges of its former grandeur, and was hardly deemed worthy of men tion. In the middle of the isth century it reap pears again as a port of Damascus. A new era dated for this city from the time of the Emir Fachr Ad-din, who for nearly half a century took up his abode there, and besides restoring it to somewhat of its pristine splendour, also maae it the link between Europe and Asia, its commerce and ideas. For here it was that Europeans, to whom the Emir was particularly favourable, first estab lished themselves after the failing of the Crusaders' expeditions, and thence spread over the whole ot the Fost. Of the gorgeous buildings erected by European architects whom he drew to his court, nothing but ruins now remain, but some bridges over the river at Beirut and Saida, constructed by Tuscan masters (Fagmi and Cioli), exist to this day.
Factories and khans (campi) of magnificent pro portions aided the reawakened trade and industry not a little, and European merchants, especially French and Italian, again crowded the streets and markets of ancient Zidon. After Fachr Ad-dIn's sudden downfall the commerce began to wane ; but such was its importance still, that the French trade alone brought an annual revenue of 200,000 crowns into the Turkish treasury. In the constant warfare between the Druses and the Turks that ensued, Saida suffered terribly ; yet up to the end of the 18th century it remained the central point for export and import, which chiefly consisted of cotton, silk, rice, drugs, spices, cloth, etc. N'Vhen, however, Jezzar Pasha was appointed Pasha of Saida (1775), he at once assumed the attitude of a rebel towards the Porte, held the whole or Syria for a quarter of a century in a state of abject terror, and finally turned against the French merchants, who offered a spirited resistance to his cruel and ruinous decrees. He expelled the French consulate in rry9o, and ended by driving the French merchants themselves from the country.
Ever since Saida has lost all and everything, and has once more become a poor miserable place, without trade or manufactures worthy of the name. To add to its desolation, an earthquake, which took place in 1837, destroyed about one hundred of its insignificant houses. Yet such is its favourable natural position, and the fruitfulness of the, sur rounding country, that in 184o the district of Saida contained about 7o,000 inhabitants (above 36,000 Christians and Jews), whose annual tax amounted to about 4t14,000. It only requires some favour. able turn in the tide of its affairs to make it once more lift up its head again as of yore.
Saida, however, possesses another most vital interest, apart from its faded historical memories. It is the only spot in Phoenicia where Phoenician monuments with Phcenician inscriptions have been found as yet. While the great bulk of pakeo graphical relics of this most importal t people had been found in its colonies, Saida alone has fur nished no less than three of the most ancient and lengthy inscriptions extant. On the t9th of January 1855 one of the many sepulchral caves near the city was opened by chance, and there was discovered in it a sarcophagus of black syenite, the lid of which represented the form of a mummy with the uncovered face of a man : evidently of Egyptian workmanship. Twenty-two lines of Phoenician
writing were found engraved upon the chest of the royal personage—King Ashmanezer II.—whom it represents. A smaller, abbreviated, inscription nins round the neck. The age of this monument, now in the Louvre, has variously been conjectured as of the rith century B. C. (Ewald)—which is un questionably wrong—further as of the 7th, 6th, or 4th respectively, by Hitzig, the Duc de Luynes, Levy, and others. The inscriptions contain prin cipally a solemn injunction, or rather an adjura tion, not to disturb the royal remains. Besides this there is an enumeration of the temples erected by the defunct in honour of the gods.
The following is a portion of the most remark able (larger) inscription divided into words (there is no division even of the letters in the original) according to the sense—in some instances merely conjectured—and transcribed into Hebrew charac ters,* to which is subjoined a translation, princi pally following IvIunk and Levy, but occasionally differing from either :— (r.) In the month of Bul, in the year 14 (XIV.) of my reigning [I], King Ashmanezer, King of the Zidonians (2.), Son of King Tabnith, King of the Zidonians : Spake King Ashmanezer, King of the Zidonians, saying : I have been stolen away (3.) before my time—a son of the flood [?] of days. The whilom Great is dumb—the Son of God is dead. And I rest in this grave, even in this tomb, (4.) in the place which I have built.—My adjura tion to all the Ruling Powers, and all men : Let no one open this resting-place, and (5.) not search with us for treasure, for there is 110 treasure with us and let him not bear away the couch of my rest, and not trouble (6.) us on this resting-place by dis. turbing the couch of my slumbers. Even if people should persuade thee, do not listen to their speech. For all the Ruling Powers and (7.) all men who should open the tomb of this my rest, or any man who should carry away the couch of my rest, or any man who trouble me or (8.) this my couch :—Unto them there shall be no rest with the departed ; they shall not he buried in a grave, and there shall be to them neither son nor seed (9.) in their stead, and the Holy Gods will send over them a mig,hty king who will rule over them, and (to.) cut them off with their Dynasty. If any human being should open this resting-place, and any man should carry away (t I.) this tomb—be he of Royal Seed or a man of the people :—there shall be unto them neither root below nor fruit above, nor honour among the living under the sun' . . .
The shorter inscription—round the king's neck —contains 7 lines, as follows :— The third inscription vve mentioned was dis covered a few years ago by Consul Moore on another locality near Saida. It is found on a block 69 centimetres in height, 38 in length, which evi dently was once used for building purposes. It is now in the possession of Count de Vogue. The inscription reads as follows :— The fragmentary nature of this inscription allows of little certainty in its deciphering, save with respect to a few proper names.
The coins of Zidon in its Greek (Seleucidian, from Antiochus IV.) and Roman times are by no means rare. The most common emblem is a ship, in allusion to the maritime importance of the city.
Is it necessary that we, in conclusion, once more urge the infallible certainty of the most precious archmological and palxographical treasures await ing the spade of the excavator, on this as on many another spot of ancient Canaan ? [PncENrcrA ;