|
CAMAHUÏUM.
|
143
|
||
|
|
|||
|
has been added a figure of the Abraxas-god surrounded by the legend—
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
which
supports the derivation of " Cameo," now the most popular, from a
supposed Hebrew or Arabic word, " Camea," a spell. Such additions
testify to the feeling with which such works were regarded when the
night of barbarism was spreading over the old Roman world.
The
original " Camaut " became in mediaeval mouths the ugly-Teutonic
Gammahuia, Camahuia, the soft Italian Cameo (to be found in Cellini and
Vasari), and the fantastic French Camayieu, in which form it first
appears in English. But from the very first Cameo signifies the
work itself, not the stone ; for De Boot, at the end of the
Cinque-cento period (1609) notes " that the Italians term the Onyx,
when engraved with figures in relief, Cameo, and Camehuia, as if the latter were a different substance."
This
list of etymologies may be concluded by the novel and ingenious one
(the latest propounded) of Von Hammer's, from the Arabic of the same
sound signifying either "a flower" or the " top of the camel's hump."
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||