The seven other Cabeiri, or “Great Ones,” equally with Esmun the sons of Sydyk, were dwarfish gods who presided over navigation,[1174] and were the patrons of sailors and ships. The special seat of their worship in Phoenicia Proper was Berytus, but they were recognised also in several of the Phoenician settlements, as especially in Lemnos, Imbrus, and Samothrace.[1175] Ships were regarded as their invention,[1176] and a sculptured image of some one or other of them was always placed on every Phoenician war-galley, either at the stern or stem of the vessel.[1177] They were also viewed as presiding over metals and metallurgy,[1178] having thus some points of resemblance to the Greek Hephæstus and the Latin Vulcan. Pigmy and misshapen gods belong to that fetishism which has always had charms for the Hamitic nations; and it may be suspected that the Phoenicians adopted the Cabeiri from their Canaanite predecessors, who were of the race of Ham.[1179] The connection between these pigmy deities and the Egyptian Phthah, or rather Phthah-Sokari, is unmistakable, and was perceived by Herodotus.[1180] Clay pigmy figurines found on Phoenician sites[1181] very closely resemble the Egyptian images of that god; and the coins attributed to Cossura exhibit a similar dwarfish form, generally carrying a hammer in the right hand.[1182] An astral character has been attached by some writers to the Cabeiri,[1183] but chiefly on account of their number, which is scarcely a sufficient proof. Several Greek writers speak of a Phoenician goddess corresponding to the Grecian Athene,[1184] and some of them say that she was named Onga or Onca.[1185] The Phoenician remains give us no such name; but as Philo Byblius has an “Athene” among his Phoenician deities, whom he makes the daughter of Il, or Kronos, and the queen of Attica,[1186] it is perhaps best to allow Onca to retain her place in the Phoenician Pantheon. Philo says that Kronos _by her advice_ shaped for himself out of iron a sword and a spear; we may therefore presume that she was a war-goddess (as was Pallas-Athene among the Greeks), whence she naturally presided over the gates of towns,[1187] which were built and fortified for warlike purposes. The worship of a goddess, called Tanath or Tanith, by the later Phoenicians, is certain, since, besides the evidence furnished by the name Abd-Tanith, i.e. “Servant of Tanith,”[1188] the name Tanith itself is distinctly read on a number of votive tablets brought from Carthage, in a connection which clearly implies her recognition, not only as a goddess, but as a great goddess, the principal object of Carthaginian worship. The form of inscription on the tablets is, ordinarily, as follows:--[1189] “To the great [goddess], Tanith, and To our lord and master Baal-Hammon. The offerer is ...., Son of ...., son of ....”