Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/202

 180 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. statues approaching life size and even exceeding it. But only rich people could afford such costly gifts as these. When the worship- per belonged to the middle or lower class, his patron god had to be content with a stone or clay statuette. In the frequent absence of trustworthy information, we cannot attempt to distribute these monuments between the two classes. We may, however, classify them to some extent by their relative age, and probable signi- ficance. In such tombs as those of Alambra, which appear to date from a remote antiquity, many figures of foot-soldiers, cavaliers, and charioteers have been found (Vol. I. Fig. 149). Many of these are quite barbarous in execution ; the forms are indicated in the rudest fashion, the robe only by a few daubs of red or black paint. The workmen employed by MM. Ceccaldi, Lang and Cesnola, had a name of their own for these statuettes. When they were questioned as to the contents of this or that tomb in which, perhaps, nothing but these little figures had been encountered, they answered ; " We have found nothing but poor people, rt TTOTC irapa TTTW^OVS." These " poor people," many of which seem to have been modelled by a child with its thumb, are not without interest, how- ever ; when not quite formless, they preserve for us the costume and armament of a Cypriot soldier. They show the form and make of the conical cap so often encountered in the large statues (Figs. 73 and 75) very clearly indeed ; in one or two examples this is very summarily modelled (Vol. I. Fig. 149), but in others it is provided with those flaps which could be worn either over the ears or drawn up along the crown (Vol. I. Plate II. Figs, i and 2). Arms of offence were either not indicated at all or added in distinct pieces, for they have all disappeared. But in almost every case there is a round shield or buckler, decorated with concentric circles in red or black paint, which must be intended to represent strips of metal used to strengthen the shield, which was most likely of wood or basket-work covered with leather. In the centre there is a salient boss from which the decoration radiates. In the example we reproduce, a well known motive, the alternation of lotus leaves and flowers, occurs (Vol. I. Plate II. Fig. i). Horsemen are also introduced, the harness of their steeds being shown in colour. On one of the Louvre examples the horse has the crux ansata on that part of the neck where orientals