In Cypriote furniture and ornaments we observe the same characteristics of a hybrid art. There are little silver vases chiselled in the Assyrian style with rare elegance, handles of sceptres, and other precious utensils like those of Nineveh. Certain ornaments, intended for women’s head-dresses, are of exquisite workmanship; so are the ear-rings, the necklaces of gold, gems and glass; with figures of lions, rams, deer, masks with curled beards in the Assyrian fashion, heads of Isis-Hathor and lotus-flowers. Some of these necklaces and bracelets end in lions’ or serpents’ heads, and form models which Greek artists needed only to copy, for they are masterpieces in their kind. We have seen that the Ninevite excavations brought to light ivory tablets carved by Phœnician artists, and imported into Mesopotamia by commerce: plaques of the same style have been obtained from Phœnicia itself: they were ornaments of precious caskets. These products of Phœnician industry were imported into all the coasts of the Mediterranean; and, at Palestrina, in Latium, an ivory tablet was found, on which a vessel manned by rowers is engraved, similar to those in the Egyptian paintings. Ostrich-eggs, found in Etruria, arranged to serve as vases, are adorned with engraved figures, the Phœnician character of which could scarcely be disputed: there are zones of warriors on foot, on horseback, and in their war-chariots; files of animals, fights of lions with bulls in semi-Egyptian style; the frame of these scenes is borrowed from Assyria; the whole is relieved by iridescent colours.[100] [Illustration: Fig. 237.--Phœnician ear-rings.] If we had in Phœnicia bas-reliefs like those of Assyria, and paintings like those of Egypt, we should be able to give some account of those brilliant stuffs of dyed purple, described by classical antiquity with so much enthusiasm. It was to the Tyrian god, Melkarth, that tradition assigned the invention of this dye, obtained, as it is well known, from the juice of a marine shell, the _murex_, which is found especially on the coast of Phœnicia. We can only affirm, according to literary testimony, that the workshops of Tyre and Sidon produced stuffs in abundance, the colour of which, as the ancients remarked, instead of being altered and deteriorated by a bright light, was only rendered more vivid and brilliant by it. § IX. ENGRAVED GEMS. [Illustration: Fig. 238.--Cylinder in the De Clerq collection (after Menant).]