Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/212

192 enriched by many specimens of the same kind. The collation was then made with great care and precision by a young official who was too soon lost to science, M. Aucapitaine, and there can now be no doubt that in this monument we have the granite lid of a sarcophagus like those from Sidon. The head is freely disengaged from the shoulders, a detail which is only to be found in those sarcophagi which seem latest in date.

These anthropoid sarcophagi belong to two different types; the simpler of the two is that to which we have drawn attention by several examples (Figs. 124, 126, 128, and 129). Here the head alone is figured on the lid, sometimes with the neck and the roundness of the shoulders slightly indicated. This is by far the commonest pattern; but the excavations of M. Renan at Saida have brought another to light, in which the sculptor has not

hesitated to attempt a much more detailed rendering of the human form. This precious monument is now in the Louvre; it was recovered piece by piece from the earth, so often disturbed, of the cave of Apollo. The head alone is missing (Fig. 132). In this coffin the legs and hips are still buried in the mass of the lid, but the arms are shown, one on either side of the body, and the left hand grasping a small perfume-bottle. These arms are bare, as the tunic only covers the shoulders. The feet, too, stood out formerly beyond the robe, but they have been broken off.