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Show II ; I II I 156 TilE ETRUSCANS the beetle of the Nile with its hind logs rolling a ball of mud, which contained the eggs of the insect, from the river to the desert, saw in tho scaraboous the symbol of the Creator, shaping tho ball of the earth out of wet clay, and planting in it the seeds of alllife.11J.I The Eo-ypLian artist often represented this symbol of godhead; and when ho had to carve a seal, (the sign of authenticity by which kings and citizens ratify their pledged word and engagements,) ho out it on stone, which he carved into the shape of a beetle, as if thus to place tho seal under the protection and upon the symbol of godhead, in order to deter people both from forgery and from faJschood. Placed over the stomach of a mummy, according to rules specially enjoined in the "funereal ritual," it was deemed a never-failing talisman to shield tho "soul" of its wearer against the terrific genii of Arnentlti. The ~gyptiau Rymbol, however, possessed no analogous religious mcamng for the Etruscans when they adopted the form of tho scambrous: and even after they had abandoned it, they still retained the J~gyptian cartoucl!e, which encircles nearly all the works of Etruscan glyptic. B~s~dcs the scarabroi, we find in Etruria several other EgypLian rcmuuscences,-hcad-drcsscs similar to the Pharaonic fashion 155 and ~von idols of glazed earthenware, entirely of Egyptian sha~c ; for mstance the representation of KrroNs, the Egyptian llercules ; Ioo of O:NOURI , the Egyptian Mars; or of sistrums and cats, 157 all of them most strikingly Egyptian in their style. A certain clas~ of bl.ac~( earthenware vases decorated with stamped representatiOns m rohof, many of the earliest painted vases some gems mostly of green jasper, and the marble statue of Pollcdrara now in t~c British Museum, arc by style and costume so closely connected w1th the monuments of Assyria, that it is now difficult to ~oubt o~ a connection bcbvecn Etruria and inner Asia. 1'hc disbehcvor~ m t~c Lydian i~migration explain the Oriental types of Etrun~ by mtercourse With I hmnician merchants, and by the importatJon of Babylonian tapestry,- celebrated all over the ancient world~- which might have familiarized the Etruscans with the Ass~nan style and type of art. But the use of the arch in Tuscan architecture finally disposes of this explanation, since we learned that the arch was known to tho Assyrians, but not to the eal'ly Greeks It was introduced into the states of llellas at a rather late period, abou~ IM IIonAI.'OLLO Nuous, Ilieroglypln'ca, trans!. ConY, London 1840 . _"How an only begotten," ~ X, pp. 19-22. ' ' ;: Monummti dell' Inatituto, vol. 1, pl. XLI. fig. 11-12. Mro.AJ.r, Monumenti Anticlli, tav. 45-46. 157 Idem, .Lifonum. Inediti, tav. I, II, XVII, L. • AND TTIEIR ART. 157 the times of Phidias. Had this architectural form been brought to Etmria by the 1 hmnicians, it would have roached Grecco at the same time as Italy, or cn.rlier; whereas the contrary is the case. The earliest architectural arch we know is in Egypt, and belongs to the reign of Ramcsscs the Grcat.158 Monsieur Place and Dr. La yard have discovered brick arches in the palaces of SAROON and his successors in Assyria, and on the Nincvitc reliefs we often see arched gates with regular key-stones. Ett"Uria was the next in time to make use of the arch. The Lydians, noighbort:J of Assyria, must have been acquainted with arched bui.ldin()'s, and in their new home made a most extensive usc of this architectural feature for gatos, and for sewers ; of which the celebrated Cloaca Maxima of Rome, built by the Tarquinii, is the most important still-extant example. It is, therefore, rather amusing to perceive that Sencca,I69 having before his eyes this monument of his con utl'y's early greatness, thoughtlessly alleges that Domocritus, the contemporary of Phid ias, invented the principle of the arch and of the key-stone. Indeed, the Homans were no great critics: Seneca extracted the above-mentioned ti10t(!)from the Greek authorPosidonius, and trusted his Grecian authority more than his own knowledge. Demo ·ritus was probably the man who introducccl the arch from Italy into Greece, and got the credit of its invention among his vain fellow-citizens. Of all the foreign in:fl.ucnccs on Etruscan a.rt, tho Greek was the most powerful. It soon superseded both the Egyptian and the Oriental types. But here we ought not to forget that many of the Italic colonies of Grrocia Magna came from Asia, not from European Greece, and that tho art of Ionia proper and of the neighboring conutries exercised at least an equal influence on the Italiots with that of Greece proper. Our histories of art, hitherto, have not paid sufficient attention to the development of art among the Asiatic Greeks; although the monum nts discovered and to a certain extent published by Sir Charles Fcllowcs, Tcxior, Flaudin and others, yield ample material for a comprehensive work on the subj ect, which migllt probably show that not only the poetry, history or philosophy, of the Greeks, but even their art, had its cradle in Asia Minor. At any rate the numerous colonies of Milctus, Phocroa, IIcraclia, Cyme, and othdr states of Ionia and .LEolis,carricd tho priuciplcs of Greek art further than a rocco proper. As to the Greek influence on Etruria, we have to distinguish two if not three periods: tho early Asiatic Ionian, which introduced the 168 Sm 0ARDNlm WJLl<!NSON, Ancient .Egyptian8, v. 1, p. 18, & n, p. 800: -crude brick arch s nrc, however, certainly tiS old as i'IIO'rMlJB III. 1.10 .Epiotol. !JO. |