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Show I 134. THE ART OF TIIE SIIE!t!ITES. having been diAcovcrcd among the remains of Assyria. We are compelled, th rcforc, to dismiss tho idea that Phamician art was a development of l~gyptian style, and must infer that the Shcmites borrowed tll ir artistical forms from tho neighboring nations. Thus, tho so-called MoabHc relief, fl'Om Redjom el-Aabed, published by De Saulcy,108 is closely allied in style to tho Assyrian reliefs; and it might be taken for the work of Fig. 20. the proud conquerors of Palestine, MOADITll. were not the type of the face, anc.l the absence of the characteristical long-flowing Assyrian tresses rather Shemitic. Again, the lost Scriptural and mysteriouslyengraved gems U1·irn and Thummim, which adorned tbo breastplato ofthe llcbrew high-priest,]()!) bear philologically such an affinity to th~ Egyptian Urwus and Tltmei, judicial symbols of power and truth, that, as some Egyptologists have suggested, they might have been borrowed from Egypt. Without laying too great stress on this suggestion, which cannot be either proved or disproved, we must admit, that at the latest period of tho Hebrew monarchy, the imagery of the prophets,- for instance, the vision of Ezekiel,- is entirely Assyrian. 'l'he eagle, the win()'ed lion, bull and man, which finally became the symbols of tho four Evangelists, no are now pretty familiar to us by tbe Assyrian reliefs of the Louvre and of the British Museum. So arc the revolving winged orbs of the prophets; evidently the same symbolical emblems which, among the Egyptians, designated lion-HAT, the celestial sun, 111 and were transferred to Nineveh and Per opolis as the symbol of the lleruers or Guardian Angels. 108 Voyage dan8 le8 Terre& bibliques, 1853, A tins, pl. XVIII: -1ljpC8 of Jfanki11d, p. 580. 100 LANOI, La Sagra Scrittura iUuatrata, ltomn, 1827; pp. 209-235, n.nd l,lntes: -Idem, Lettre a M.J>rim, pp. 84-5. 110 ["Est vitulus I.ucns, leo Mnrcus, aviaque Johnnnes, Est llomo Mattbrous, quntuor iRtn Deus; Est homo nascendo, vitulus mortem patiendo, Est leo surgcndo, sod nvis ad summa pctendo." (S~limmo, l!a' .Archaolngiaska San,kapets koatnad ocll Forlag, Stockholm, 1822, p. 48) :~ UN'l'ER (Smn.bil.der.un~ J(unatvoratelltmg der allen Christen, Altona, 1825, p. 25, pp. 44-5,) givos th,~ pntnsho oltn.t1ons from Irenoous, Augustine, Jerome, &o. "Rident autem Judroi et Arnbos, ndds old GAnAn•JLLt.-G. R G.] 111 _[ Otia .!Egyptiaco, pp. ll5-G :-'l'ypea of llfanki11d, p. 602. I ro-nllude to this because I find m DAANAOFI (mat. of the Jew8, p. 248) thn.t the texts oflaainh o.ud Malnoh1 were explniood by tho au11 "with wings" ns fn.r bnck as 1701. -G. R. G.] TilE ART OF TilE SIIEMITES. 135 But the Phamic.ians had no peculiar predilection for the forms of art connected with tho civilization of hieroglyphics, or of the cuneiform character. Unable themselves to create a national style of art, they adopted Grecian art instead. Tho types of all the oins of Phronicia and Cilicia, whether "autonomous" or inscribed with tho name of tho Persian Satraps, arc Greek as regards the style; so too arc tho medals of the Carthaginian towns of Sicily, vying in beauty with the best Syraeusan medals. "Their elegance," according to Gerhard, 111 "is a proof, not of proficiency, but of tho absence of national art, since thoro only can a foreign style be introc.luccd, where it has no national forms to displace." Even the Cypriot-head, discover d by Ross and published by Ocrhard,m is in its principal forms entir·oly Greek, reminding us of tho earliest llcllenic style; and it is therefore Fig. 21. classed by Gerhard among the specimens of archaic Greek sculpture, although found on an originally Phronician island, because we know of no other instance of a similar style of Shemitic art, at the same time that the Greek reliefs of Solinus arc analogous to it. Tho soil of Carthage and of northern Africa, over which Punic domination extended, has not yiolc.led any monuments of Carthaginian art, all such traces of Punic civilization having been completely swept away by the Roman conCYPmo ·r VENUS. quest and its superimposed civilization. Accordingly, it is to Spain and to Sardinia that we have to look for specimens of CarLhaginian art. But the bronze statuettes disinterred from the J)unic mounds of Sardinia (Nuraglte) 113 arc so barbarous anc.l unartistical, that we might have ascribed them to indigenous tribes, had we not found entirely analogous idols on some islands of the Archipelago, 111 and at Mount Lebanon. David Urquhart, M. P., the well-known oriental traveller and diplomatist, brought :five such statuettes from among the Maronites, discovered during his stay in Syria, which now enrich my collection of antiquities. Similar monuments were procured from ancient Tyre by tho late M. Borel, French Consul at Smyrna. 111 Uha dio Kunat der J>hamicicr, Dorlin, 1848, p. 21. m Ibidem, pl. VIIL 2, "Kyprisoho Venusidolo." 113 Cf. Dl'l r.A MARMORA (Voyage en Sardaigne de 1821) a 1836,) for plntcs and dosoriplions. m GEI\IlAILD, loco citato. |