In addition to the actual ornaments, special value attaches also to
Phoenician sculptures, principally busts, both from Phoenicia itself
and from its colonies, owing to the care with which personal ornaments
and details of dress are represented. Several striking examples of these
are preserved in the galleries set apart for Cyprian and Phoenician
antiquities in the British Museum. The most famous of similar works,
which include the sculptures from the "Cerro de los Santos," near Yecla
in the province of Albacete in Spain, now in the museum at Madrid, is
the remarkable stone bust of a woman in the Louvre, known as the "Lady
of Elché," from a town of that name in the province of Alicante, where
it was discovered in 1897 (Pl. II, 9). The majestic character of this
figure, its sumptuous coiffure with clusters of tassels suspended by
ten chains, the wheel-like discs cover the ears, the triple row of
necklaces with their urn-shaped pendants--all unite to produce an effect
unequalled by any known statue of antiquity. Especially noticeable among
these ornaments is the diadem which encircles the forehead and hangs
down from each side in long pendants upon the shoulders. With this may
be compared the chains hung at the ends of the golden fillet at Berlin,
discovered by Schliemann at the pre-Mycenæan city of Hissarlik in the
Troad, the ornate tasselled appendages at St. Petersburg, found with the
famous Greek diadems in the tombs of the Crimea, and the elaborate head
ornaments with pendent ends worn by Algerian women at the present day.
The Phoenicians, as seen also by their sculptures, were addicted to
the barbaric practice of piercing the upper parts of the ears, as well
as the lobes, and attaching to them rings bearing drop-shaped pendants.
Rings were also attached to the hair on each side of the face. They
consist of a double twist which could be run through a curl of the hair,
and are ornamented at one end with a lion's or gryphon's head.
Of ordinary earrings worn by the Phoenicians the simplest is a plain
ring. In the majority of cases the simple ring was converted into a hook
and served to suspend various ornaments, of which baskets or bushels
with grain in them afforded favourite motives. Examples of earrings of
this kind, from Tharros in Sardinia, are in the British Museum.
[Illustration: _PLATE II_ PHOENICIAN JEWELLERY]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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