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It has often been said that the inscriptions of the ancient Sumerians are without much intrinsic value, that they mainly consist of dull votive formulæ, and that for general interest the best of them cannot be compared with the later inscriptions of the Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia.
To the right of the main altar a group of tiny votive candles were burning; an old nun in a kind of white sunbonnet, draped with a black gauze veil, dropped her rosary with a little clatter to the wooden floor. There were only a dozen or so people in the church, but this made no difference. The priest would not feel slighted, as an Anglican curate might.
I regret to see photography being introduced for votive purposes, and also to detect in some places a disposition on the part of the authorities to be a little ashamed of these pictures and to place them rather out of sight. The question is, how has the falling-off in Italian painting been caused? And by doing what may we again get Bellinis and Andrea Mantegnas as in old time?
She bore her burden of humiliation bitterly for several days, until she was suddenly comforted by a realization that Cyrus had ceased to persecute her. He wrote no more letters, he gazed no longer in rapt adoration, he brought no more votive offerings of gum and pencils to her shrine.
On sailing between the Pillars of Hercules into the wide Atlantic they were visited, not by Hercules himself, but by his representative priests, to whom they were wont to deliver certain votive offerings that the propitiated divinity might protect them on their perilous voyage.
"Servant of Tanith," 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: The offerer is ...., Son of ...., son of ...."
That Ja-don never entered the temple was well known, and that his high priest never entered the palace, but the people came to the temple with their votive offerings and the sacrifices were made night and morning as in every other temple in Pal-ul-don. The warriors knew these things, knew them better perhaps than a simple warrior should have known them.
Many folk-customs linger around wells and springs, the haunts of nymphs and sylvan deities who must be propitiated by votive offerings and are revengeful when neglected. Pins, nails, and rags are still offered, and the custom of "well-dressing," shorn of its pagan associations and adapted to Christian usage, exists in all its glory at Tissington, Youlgrave, Derby, and several other places.
To Marduk, his lord Bel-epush for the preservation of his life Made and presented. Kings, however, do not appear to be the only ones for whom these votive offerings were prepared. A dedication to a personage otherwise unknown and to all appearances a layman reads: To Ea, his lord, Bel-zir, Son of Ea-Bân, For the preservation of his life Made and presented.
In the Celestins' church is a votive column to Francis II., which says, that it is one assurance of his being immortalized, to have had the martyr Mary Stuart for his wife. After this long digression, I return to the burial, which was a most vile thing. A long procession of flambeaux and friars; no plumes, trophies, banners, led horses, scutcheons, or open chariots; nothing but
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