Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/336

 314 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DKPF.NDEXCIKS. slightly salient band or fillet hangs a conical or egg-shaped excrescence llankecl on either side by a pendant spiral like the hook of a pastoral staff (Fig. 227). In this, too, a symbol has been discovered, and some have pretended to see in it a figurative representation of the world springing from an egg. 1 If that were his meaning we can hardly congratulate the stone-cutter on the clarity with which he has expressed his thoughts. Why was he satisfied with half an egg, and why did he hide that half between those two eye-filling volutes ? To us it seems to be nothing more than an ornamental motive ; a roiifrhlv-su"ested G( rcr between o ^ oo oo two of those huge spirals which play such a conspicuous part in all primitive systems of decoration ; we shall meet it in force in the art of Mycenae FIG. 227. Decorated stone, from Hagiar Kim. From Caruana. The second monument found in this hall is an altar of very singular shape (Fig. 228). The most curious thing about it is the vertical concavity which takes up so much of its anterior face. In this hollow a not unskilful chisel has carved a sort of shrub with leaves symmetrically arranged, which seems to spring from a box. The Maltese decorator, probably a village mason, has copied some familiar plant, just as the ceramists of Thera, lalysos and Mycense were wont to do ; and yet the mystic speculations of a Philo and a Damascius have been ransacked to discover some profound mean- ing in his work, and to turn his humble but effective ornament into a sacred tree. In the same enclosure, and not far from the altar we have described, several more of much simpler form were discovered. Of one we catch a glimpse in Fig. 226 ; it is mushroom-shaped, 1 CARUANA Report, pp. 10, u.