_h._ The letter _he_ corresponds to the "mæander" and the "knotted cord." The hieratic forms show that the former must be taken as the prototype. In the _Papyrus Prisse_ there are two of this character; one, which is comparatively rare, is open at the bottom, [Symbol], and corresponds to the Moabite [Symbol]. It is much more usual, however, to find the character completely closed. The name of the Semitic letter, which is generally supposed to mean a "window," would indicate that the previous form of the letter agreed with the more usual hieratic trace. This conjecture is curiously confirmed by the evidence afforded by the early inscriptions of Corinth, which, as we have seen in the case of _beta_, occasionally preserve alphabetic forms of a more archaic type than those found on the Moabite Stone itself. Now, in the primitive alphabet of Corinth we find, instead of the usual form of _epsilon_, a closed character [Symbol] which is nearly identical with the form of the "mæander," most usual in the _Papyrus Prisse_. (Taylor, i. pp. 102, 114.) Among the more important Semitic inscriptions, other than that on the Eshmunazar sarcophagus, are: (1) the inscription on fragments of sacred vessels of bronze from the temple of Baal Lebanon, which is assigned to the eleventh century B.C.; (2) the inscription of Mesha, king of Moab, on a slab of black basalt, known as the Moabite Stone, which is assigned to the ninth century B.C.; (3) the lion weights from Nineveh, bearing the names of Assyrian kings who reigned during the second half of the eighth century B.C.; and (4) the inscription on a tablet in a tunnel which conveys water from the Virgin's Pool in the Kedron Valley to the Pool of Siloam in the Tyropæon. The date of this inscription lies between the eighth and the sixth centuries B.C. [Illustration: Fig. 52.--Inscription on Sacred Bowls (Baal Lebanon)] 1. _The Baal Lebanon Vessels._ In 1876 M. Clermont-Ganneau bought from a Cypriote dealer some fragments of bronze plates bearing Phœnician characters (fig. 52). They were traced to a peasant who had found them when digging, and who had broken up the metal in the hope that it was of gold. The industry and skill of MM. Renan and Clermont-Ganneau pieced the fragments together in such wise as to warrant the inference that they were portions of sacred bowls, an inference confirmed by the longest of the inscriptions, which declared that "this vessel of good bronze was offered by a citizen of Carthage, servant of Hiram, king of the Sidonians, to Baal Lebanon, his Lord," whose temple was one of the "high places" dedicated to the god. [Illustration: Fig. 53.--The Moabite Stone]