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List of Notes and Queries volumes and pages

Notes.

THE EFFIGIES OF ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS EXTANT IN FRANCE.

In the year 1816, Mr. Charles Stothard discovered in a cellar (as it is described) of one of the buildings adjoining the ruined abbey at Fontevraud, which was then used as a prison, the monumental effigies of King Henry II., Eleanor of Aquitaine his queen, King Richard I., and Queen Isabella of Angoulême. It had been feared that these monuments shared the destruction of the royal tombs from which they were torn, in the fearful outrages of the Revolution; but they were found to have escaped the general havoc, although they had suffered some mutilation. They are described to be sculptures almost coeval with the decease of the sovereigns represented, and to possess such a chaste grandeur and simplicity of character as to add great artistic value to their historical importance. Mr. Stothard represented to the English government of that day the propriety of rescuing such venerable monuments from further injury, and of bringing them to Westminster Abbey; and an application appears to have been made, through some official channel, to the French authorities; but it was not successful, though it had the effect, as it is said, of inducing the latter to direct measures to be taken for the better preservation of these effigies. About the same time, Mr. Stothard discovered the monumental effigy of Queen Berengaria in the ruins of her once-stately abbey-church of L'Espan, near Mans, which he found converted into a barn; but it was then in contemplation to place this effigy in the church of St. Julien there, when the restoration of that edifice should be completed. A memoir (which I cannot here obtain) on the sepulchral statues of English sovereigns at Fontevraud was read in 1841 in the congress of the Society for Preserving the Historical Monuments of France; and by the researches of M. Deville, a distinguished antiquary of Normandy, another effigy of King Richard "of the Lion Heart" was brought to light in 1838, from beneath the modern pavement of the choir of Rouen Cathedral, and was shortly afterwards made known in England by the very interesting communication made by Mr. Albert Way to the Society of Antiquaries of London, and published in vol. xxix. of the Archæologia.

I am not aware that attention has been otherwise drawn to these effigies since the publication of Mr. Stothard's great work, nor can I find that his suggestion has at any time been revived, or that the steps which may have been taken at Fontevraud for rescuing these monuments from the gradual demolition which seemed to threaten them, were such as are likely to insure their ultimate preservation. What those steps were, or what is the present state of these interesting memorials, I have not been able to learn; but, inasmuch as it appears that the tombs they covered have been destroyed; that in the fury of revolutionary violence the remains of the royal dead were scattered to the winds; and that the abbey church of Fontevraud itself fell into a state of ruin, if not of desecration; it will probably be agreed that the removal of these monuments to Westminster Abbey is unobjectionable, and that their deposit among the effigies of our early sovereigns in that glorious edifice would be appropriate, and is much to be desired. Being strongly impressed with that opinion, I trouble you with this note, which, if you should deem it worthy of insertion, may elicit some information, and perhaps lead to an application for leave to remove these monuments, and place them in Westminster Abbey. The present time seems favourable for such an effort; and if the object in view should have the sanction of Queen Victoria, the interference of Her Majesty would probably prevail.

W. SIDNEY GIBSON.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS—MOCATTEB MOUNTAINS.

The principle of decyphering propounded for the Nineveh inscriptions (Vol. iv., p. 220.) is available equally, and with better prospect of speedy solution, in the case of those of Mocatteb. A very interesting narrative is given of these in Laborde's Mount Sinai and Petra (p. 248). The site of them is seventy miles direct distance south-east from Suez, and they extend on the rock three miles and more in length, at a height of ten or twelve feet, and in the line of route to Sinai, which is distant fifty miles south-east from Mocatteb. They also lie not only in the usual caravan route, but almost in a direct line drawn from Ethiopia to the cities of Nineveh and Babylon. Nimrod is represented as an Ethiopian (Gen. x. 8.), "Cush begat Nimrod" = "Nimrod was an Ethiopian by descent." The whole of this invaluable monument of the most ancient geography, the tenth of Genesis, must be read with reference to nations, and not individuals.

Both the valley and the mountains are named from these "Inscriptions" = Mocatteb in Arabic; that fact alone indicates considerable antiquity, especially in a country like Arabia, where the fashion of changing any usage, especially that of names of places, has never prevailed. The vicinity of these inscriptions to that portion of the world wherein the Mosaic law had its origin, and probably, as a necessary consequence, the invention of an alphabet also; and likewise the great question of ancient intercourse between Egypt, Ethiopia, Assyria (Chaldea), and India, have rendered the interpretation of the Mocatteb inscriptions a problem of paramount interest, insomuch that Bishop Clayton offered a considerable sum of money for a copy of them. In the Royal Society's Transactions, vol. ii. part vi. 1832, are specimens of 187 of these, whereof nine are Greek and one Latin. Some of them are doubtless of the sixth century.

Coutelle and Roziere (Antiquities, vol. v. p. 57.) copied seventy-five of them, and Pococke and Montague give a few specimens. Seetzen, Burkhardt, and Henneker saw them; and Niebuhr may be said to have been sent out expressly on their account, but the result was nil. Cosmus, Montfaucon, Neitzchitz, Monconys, Koischa, and others, mention them, and they have been seen by a caravan of persons familiar with Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, Turkish, English, Illyrian, German, and Bohemian, to all of whom they were equally inexplicable. Since the discovery of Daguerre, we are placed in a position to obtain a real fac-simile of the whole of these inscriptions, at a small expense of time or money. Any person familiar with the use of the daguerrotype (the less learned the better) could now speedily furnish what the good Bishop so fervently longed after, were he only provided with the small sum of a few hundred pounds to take him thither and bring back his invaluable treasures. Although the Mocatteb are graven with an iron pen in the rock (Job xix. 24.), they are not everlasting, for the rains have had some effect in obliterating them, being cut, not on granite, as was formerly thought, but on red sandstone. It is worth remark, that although Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, he rejected entirely the hieroglyphic system of writing, and that no mention or allusion is made to the art of writing till 1491 B.C., in Ex. xvii. 14.,