The words that are wanting in the document have been partially supplied from the fragments of another copy of the tariff found among the ruins of Carthage. It will be observed that there is no mention in it of the sacrifice of children, which, as we know, once played a large part in the ritual of the Phoenicians. This is explained by the fact that the tariff belongs to that later age, when Greek and Roman influence had prevailed upon the Phoenician colonists in the west to give up the horrible practice. The place of the child is taken by the _'ayyâl_ or stag.
The tariff of Marseilles and Carthage has lately been supplemented by some Phoenician texts found in the island of Cyprus, and written in black and red ink upon small pieces of marble. One of these has both faces inscribed, and a translation of its contents is worth giving. On the first face we read: "Expenses of the month Ethanim: On the new-moon of the month Ethanim, for the gods of the new-moon two.... For the architects who have built the temples of Ashtoreth, for each house.... For the guardians of the sanctuary and the overseers of the temple of Resheph 20.... For the men (who tend) the cattle in the presence of the Holy Queen on this day.... For two boys two ... For two sacrifices ... For two bakers who have baked the cakes for the (Holy) Queen.... For the barbers, for their work, two.... For the ten masons who have built the foundations and the temples of the Sun-god ... To Ebed-Ashmun, the principal scribe, who has been sent on this day, three.... For the dogs and their young...." On the other face we have: "On the new-moon of the month Peûlat: For the gods of the new-moon two.... For the masters of the days, incense and peace-offering.... For the images of the temple of the Sun-god and the other gods.... For Ebed-Bast of Carthage.... For the man who has bought the withered plants(?).... For the shepherds of the country two.... For the _'almâth_ and the 22 _'alâmôth_, with a sacrifice.... For the dogs and their young three...."
Here we evidently have an account of the payments disbursed by the priests of a temple on particular days. Resheph was a title of the Sun-god, and M. Clermont-Ganneau has pointed out that his name still survives in that of Arsûf, a ruined town to the north of Jaffa. The cakes baked for Ashtoreth, "the Holy Queen," are the same as those which the Jewish men and women who had fled to Egypt after the destruction of Jerusalem and the murder of Gedaliah declared to Jeremiah that they would still continue to offer to "the queen of heaven" (Jer. xliv. 19). What is meant by the "dogs" is best explained by Deuteronomy xxiii. 18, while the barbers mentioned in the text were required to shave the priests. Mention is also made of them in the Assyrian inscriptions (see Lev. xix. 27, xxi. 5). The _'almâth_, or "maiden"--a word which has acquired a special significance in the Christian Church in consequence of its having been used in Isaiah's prophecy of "the Virgin" (Isa. vii. 14)--here seems to mean the chief singer attached to the temple of Ashtoreth. The _'alâmôth_ are described in the sixty-eighth Psalm (ver. 25) as similarly employed in the worship of Israel. As for the "Masters of the Days," they are the gods who, as among the Assyrians, were believed to preside over the months of the year. The month Ethanim, to which the first account refers, is mentioned, it will be remembered, in 1 Kings viii. 2, as being the month in which the feast of the dedication of Solomon's temple was held. That temple had been built with the help of Phoenician workmen, and it was therefore natural that the names of the Phoenician months should have become known to the Israelites in connection with it. The Israelites themselves were still contented to speak of the months of the year according to the order in which they came. It was not until after the return from the Babylonish exile that special names for the months were definitely adopted, and that the Jews henceforth called them by the Assyrian names they had heard in Babylonia.