While Egyptian sculpture was losing its individuality, and Assyrian was wearing itself out in excessive ornamentation, there was a new art growing up in the isles and on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The early centuries of its growth are hidden from our knowledge. The remains are so scanty, so imperfect, that it is with difficulty that we trace the influences which were molding the art, and the extent to which it was taking hold of the people. Of this primitive period but one single work of sculpture is preserved. “At Mycenæ, once perhaps in the days of Homer (850-800? B. C.) the most important city of Greece, there are sculptural works in the remains of two lions over the entrance gate. The height of these is about ten feet, and the width fifteen feet. The stone is a greenish limestone. The holes show where the metal pins held the heads, long since decayed. Fragments as they are, they show an Assyrian rather than an Egyptian influence in the strong marking of the muscles and joints, softened though it is by decay, and in the erect attitude, which denotes action, such as is not seen in Egyptian art of this kind. Of this gate of the lions, which has long been known as the most ancient work of early Greek sculpture, it must be noticed that it is not in the round, but only in high relief. And this is the case with all the earliest works, just as it is with the Assyrian sculptures. They tend to show therefore that the Greek sculptor had not yet learnt to model and carve in the round in marble and stone.” In the objects found by Cesnola in Cyprus, and consisting of statues and other sculptures, incised gems, and metal work of the hammered-out kind, the resemblance to the art of Assyria is remarkable. Three hundred years later than the “gate of lions” are the reliefs discovered at Xanthus in Lycia. “They belong to the Harpy monument—a pier-shaped memorial, along the upper edge of which is a frieze ornamented in relief.” The archaic is still visible in the figures. The drapery falls in long straight folds, with zigzag edges. There is the stiff, inevitable smile of the Egyptian statue. The figures are in motion, but both feet are set flat on the ground. Though in profile the eyes are shown in full. In spite of these primitive absurdities, and the fact that the subjects represent foreign myths, the statues are Greek.