The clay of Cyprus lends itself better than that of Phœnicia to moulding and to baking, therefore in very early times it could be utilised for this purpose; and a considerable number of its productions take us back to a very primitive stage of art. The most ancient of the Cypriote figurines follow oriental and Asiatic traditions. They represent Astarte, the goddess of fecundity; they are modelled with the thumb, with lines traced with a point, and bands of black or red for all their ornament. “The head is almost formless,” says M. Perrot;[95] “a curved, beak-like nose, a pair of large round eyes, and monstrous ears may be distinguished, each of the latter pierced with two holes at the place of attachment of the heavy elaborate earrings worn by Phœnician and Babylonian women. The arms are bent round horizontally, so that the hands lie either on the chest or the stomach.... The extreme width of the hips seems to give a promise of maternity. The scratches on the clay may be meant to represent a loin-cloth. The legs are held tightly closed; they taper rapidly downwards, and end in feet scarcely large enough to give stability.” To the same period belong those vases in the form of animals or human heads, those strange statuettes of foot-soldiers, of riders covered with speckled armour, and of war-chariots, which one might suppose to be modelled by children. Cypriote figurines are so numerous, however, that they can be arranged in a scale so as to mark without gaps the gradual stages in the progress of the art. [Illustration: Fig. 226.--Cypriote terra-cotta. (Louvre.)] In Cyprus the grotesque god Pygmæus, whom we noticed in Phœnicia, is often met with, and he offers the same characteristics here as on the coast. We have always the mixture of the pseudo-Egyptian and pseudo-Assyrian styles combined in different degrees with the archaic Greek style. We will cite, following M. Heuzey, some statuettes of women with their hair dressed in Egyptian fashion, and marked by the gesture of the divine mother, holding her hand to her breast, and by the gesture of the goddess of generation (fig. 227); this last, which reminds us of the Aphrodite of Cnidos, is not found in purely oriental art. Here we catch in the very act the fusion of Asiatic traditions with Hellenic ideas. Such was the skill of Cypriote artists in pottery that they manufactured terra-cotta statues of life-size; in this case they have all the characteristics that we noticed in statuary. [Illustration: Fig. 227.--Cypriote terra-cotta. (Louvre.)] Phœnician vessels carried far away into the whole basin of the Mediterranean the products of Phœnician, Rhodian, and Cypriote pottery. At Corinth, for instance, a small aryballus in the form of a helmeted head, of pseudo-Egyptian style and of Phœnician workmanship, was found. The helmet covers the whole head, except the eyes, nose, and mouth. There is an Egyptian cartouche containing the name of the king Uahabra (Apries), B.C. 599--569.