There were other peculiarities about ‘these unknown sepulchres,’ as Sir Gardner calls even the more storied Dalmatian monuments. On many appeared a crescent moon with star or stars, and on others an arm holding a sword. Now it is a curious fact that, of these two devices, one—the moon and star—is the emblem of Illyria occurring in the middle of the old Bosnian escutcheon;[191] the other—the arm of offence—is the ensign of Primorie, the Serbian coast-land. These sepulchral devices seem, therefore, to have been badges of nationality or clanship; unless, indeed, anyone prefers to suspect that the moon and star possessed a superstitious, before they acquired a heraldic, import.[192] In the lonely gorge of the Želesnica, to the south-west of Serajevo, we found one of these lunar monuments, which I mention here as it further illustrates the connection between the Bosnian and Dalmatian tombs. It was a sarcophagus of the same kind as those at Podove, but with a crescent rudely engraved at one end. In juxtaposition with this was an upright slab, I can scarcely call it a cross, about six feet high and much mutilated. But there is another point of resemblance even more important than the half moon, to connect the sepulchres we saw with those described by Sir Gardner. Out of a large number of these Bosnian monuments which we examined here and elsewhere, there was not one on which we could detect the remotest semblance of a cross. Sir Gardner Wilkinson notices, with reference to the Dalmatian tombs, that ‘it is singular that the cross should occur so rarely,’ and supposes that those few monuments on which he found it belong to a later date, when, owing to the Turkish conquests, there was more reason to introduce the distinguishing emblem of Christianity. For my part I cannot think this account satisfactory; but it seems to me that an explanation lies at hand which will make the absence of the cross on these monuments at once intelligible, and may serve as a clue towards unravelling the mystery of their origin. [Illustration: Ancient Monuments in Želesnica Valley.]