Nevertheless the term “Graeco-Phoenician,” which has been adopted to describe the art of this period, is convenient, and can hardly be improved upon, if we bear in mind that the term “Phoenician” really represents the combination of Egyptian and Assyrian elements of art which filtered through that race into Cyprus, and in which sometimes the one, sometimes the other has the predominance. This is seen perhaps more clearly in the sculpture, metal-work, and terracottas, as for instance in the incised bronze and silver bowls,[848] than in the pottery. Painted pottery was never a feature of Oriental art, and the Phoenician influence in the pottery is confined to borrowed motives of Oriental character, like foreign words in a language. Another proof that Cyprus resisted the Phoenician domination is afforded by the curious fact that though the Greeks of the mainland adopted the Phoenician alphabet entirely, in Cyprus, on the other hand—where, above all, we should have expected to find it—its place is taken by a syllabary, the forms of which appear to bear some relation to the Lycian, Carian, and Pamphylian alphabets. That this syllabary, which is universally employed for inscriptions down to the fourth century, is of a very high antiquity is shown by its close affinities with the newly-discovered Cretan script, and by the fact that single characters of a similar type are often found engraved on the handles of Mycenaean vases in Cyprus. Each character represents a syllable, not a letter (except in the case of vowels), and the dialect is thought to be largely influenced by Aeolic.