Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/207

 SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 187 but if we look more closely we shall find still stronger points of likeness to the work of Greek artists. In the example which we incline to believe is the oldest of them all (Fig. 128), the undulating masses of hair are chiselled, and the planes of the face established with a skill that could never have been learnt in the school of Assyria. If we attempt, like M. Renan, to class these monuments chronologically according to their workmanship, we find the heads becoming ever more and more Hellenic at the same time as the shape of the coffin-lid was steadily modified. In the example which appears the most modern of all, judging from the arrangement of the hair and the characteristics of its style as a "/,//; ' 'ui!n''iiii/-wm^ ! ^^:^^, - , ,, , , t , , I n Y*'ii*A^gi=a*"""" , ^ "-^ llliM^ FIG. 128. Sarcophagus from Siclon. Length 7 feet 1 inch. whole, the head belongs to a type which is commonly supposed to have been created by Lysippus, the type of the Apollo Belvedere (Fig. 129). Moreover, this head, instead of being buried, and, as it were, lost in the mass of the sarcophagus, is almost " in the round," while the receptacle itself has become nearly rectangular, and has lost most of the peculiar features of the primitive type. We have, in fact, arrived at the last member of the series. How long a time must we suppose this series of remains to have covered ? We admit willingly that they go back as far as the reigns of the first Seleucids, to the third century before our era, but we are not inclined to believe that any of them date from