Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/135

 CONDITIONS AND MATERIALS. 113 with the discovery of the copper mines, with the invention of pincers, of the hammer, of the lever, of the anvil, 1 he was associated in the national legends with the rise of the ceramic industry. " Not only did he start the manufacture of tiles ; he made use of his skill to play a practical joke on the Greeks, sending them a terra-cotta fleet, oarpdicivov a-roXov, manned by terra-cotta sailors, yijlvovs avSpas instead of the squadron he had promised for the siege of Troy. Here we find an allusion to the multitudes of terra-cotta soldiers, sailors, war chariots and galleys (Fig. 76) which have been found in the Cypriot tombs." 2 F IG. 75. Bronze statuette. Actual size. Piot Collection. Long practice made the Cypriots familiar with all the secrets of ceramics ; they learnt how to model and fire pieces of quite exceptional size ; their taste and their handling are to be recognized in some life-size figures found at Dali, in which the details of the head-dress, the face, and the costume, are made out by touches of 1 PLINY, Nat. Hist. vn. Ivii. 4. 2 HEUZEY, Catalogue, p. 116. The text to which M. Heuzey here cal is to be found in the commentary of Eustathius, against line : book of the Iliad. VOL. II.