the field is filed with detached objects, scattered at random--two human
forms, a griffin, two heads of oxen, a bird, two balls, three crosses,
a sceptre, &c. The forms are, all of them, very rudely traced. No. 4
resembles in general character No. 3, but is even ruder. Three similar
robed figures hold each other’s hands and perhaps execute a dance around
some religious object. Two heads of oxen or cows, with a disk between
their horns, occupy the spaces intervening between the upper parts of
the figures. In the lower portion of the field, the sun and moon fill
the middle space, the sun, moon, and five planets the spaces to the
right and to the left. Another cylinder from the same place (No. 5)[793]
is tolerably well designed and engraved. It shows us two persons, a
man and a woman, in the act of presenting a dove to a female, who is
probably the goddess Astarté, and who willingly receives it at their
hands. Behind Astarté a seated lion echoes the approval of the goddess
by raising one of his fore paws, while a griffin, who wholly disapproves
of the offering, turns his back in disgust.
On another cylinder, which is certainly Phoenician, a rude
representation of a sacred tree occupies the central position. To the
left stands a worshipper with the right hand upraised, clad in a very
common Assyrian dress. Over the sacred tree is a coarse specimen of
the winged circle or disk, with head and tail, and fluttering ends of
ribbon.[794] On either side stand two winged genii, dressed in long
robes, and tall stiff caps, such as are often seen on the heads of
Persians in the Persepolitan sculptures, and on the darics.[795] In the
field is a Phoenician inscription, which is read as {...} or _Irphael
ben Hor’adad_, “Irphael, the son of Horadad.”[796]
Phoenician cylinders are in glass, green serpentine, cornaline, black
hæmatite, steatite, and green jasper.[797] They are scratched rather
than deeply cut, and cannot be said ever to attain to any considerable
artistic beauty. Those which have been here given are among the best;
and they certainly fall short, both in design and workmanship, of many
Assyrian, Babylonian, and even Persian specimens.
The gems, on the other hand, are in many cases quite equal to the
Assyrian. There is one of special merit, which has been pronounced “an
exquisite specimen of Phoenician lapidary art,”[798] figured by General
Di Cesnola in his “Cyprus.”[799] Two men in regular Assyrian costume,
standing on either side of a “Sacred Tree,” grasp, each of them, a
branch of it. Above is a winged circle, with the wings curved so as
to suit the shape of the gem. Below is an ornament, which is six times
repeated, like the blossom of a flower; and below this is a trelliswork.
The whole is cut deeply and sharply. Its Phoenician authorship is
assured by its being an almost exact repetition of a group upon the
silver patera found at Amathus.[7100]
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