Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/231

 SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 2 1 1 which were gently hinted at in earlier representations ; their first germ existed in our little Phoenician chariots of terra-cotta. 1 Gods, goddesses, chariots, all these terra-cotta figures, embellished here and there with touches of colour, are the peculiar property of Phoenicia ; but side by side with them, in the cemeteries on the coast, we find amulets and statuettes of glazed earthenware, or " Egyptian fayence." Was this fayence imported from Egypt or made in the workshops of Tyre or Sidon ? This question will have to be answered at length elsewhere ; here we must be content with stating the fact that many of the Phoenician dead had figures of the jackal-headed Anubis and other Egyptian objects of the same class, such as scarabs, symbolic eyes, &c., placed with them in their tombs. Among the booty he won from Sidonian tomb-chambers M. Renan mentions a small silver statuette of Anher or Onouris (Nofre-toum) ; another of the same material of the ram-headed god Chnouphis; a third, in blue fayence, of the god Amen. He found necklaces made of separate pieces, each representing either a god or some sacred animal of Egypt. 2 One might almost fancy oneself in Egypt ; but on account, no doubt, of the greater dampness of the soil, the white, green, and blue enamels have not kept their lustre so well as in that country. They are often half destroyed, and even where the surface still remains the tints have faded. Another custom borrowed from Egypt by Phoenicia was that of placing leaves of gold over all the openings in the body, and especially over the eyes. These golden spectacles are by no means rare in Phoenicia. 3 Golden masks have also been found there. M. Louis le Clercq has two in his collection, they are about half life size ; one reproduces the features of a woman, the other those of a bearded man. Of all the objects we have enumerated, some, like the leaves of gold and the bottles of perfume, were meant to ward off the final dissolution of the corpse; others, like the amulets and statuettes, were intended to insure for the dead, by their magic virtues, a protection against the terrible but unknown dangers of the 1 HEUZEY, Catalogue, pp. 65, 66. 2 RENAN, Mission, pp. 487, 488. The small objects found at Byblos were of the same character (Mission, p. 214). In the collection of M. Louis le Clercq, which is in some respects richer in Phoenician antiquities even than that of the Louvre, a whole case is filled with small objects of Assyrian earthenware statuettes, scarabs amulets all of which were found in Syria. 3 KENAN, Mission, pp. 421, 422.