Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/156

 136 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. Finally, the Mesopotamia!) origin of the stepped ornament (Fig. 77) is no less certain. Ve have seen that it was employed at Nineveh as a border for enamelled bricks and frescoes ; l we have also met with it about the summit of an altar. 2 In Phoenicia it was used in the same way, to vary the aspect of a wide surface of stone and to give it a fitting crown. 3 Two slabs of alabaster now in the Louvre, but once in all probability part of the great temple at Byblos, are thus adorned (Fig. 77). This feature came into such universal use that we find it persisting even to the Roman period FIG. 78. Altar with stepped ornament. From Renan. on such things as the altar inscribed with the name of the goddess Nesepteitis, which we reproduce (Fig. 78). 4 The rosette, too, which appears beneath these steps is of Assyrian origin. We give it on a larger scale in Fig. 79, so that the elegance of its lines may be better seen. 1 Art in Chaldaa and Assyria, Vol. I. Fig. 118 ; Vol. II. plate xiv. 2 Ibid. vol. i. fig. 107. 3 RENAN, Mission, pp. 72, 162-164, I 75> &c., and plates xi., xii., xiii., xx. and xxii. 4 Ibid. p. 201, and plate xxii. No. n.