Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/213

 MEN. 189 of birth, sculptors went to more trouble and expense. Their figures were modelled in clay or chiselled in stone, on a scale which equalled or even surpassed that of life. Take for instance the statue called the Priest with a dove (Fig. 73). The high tiara and rich ample robe, the nobility of the attitude and the gesture of the hand with the gift, all combine to give probability to this hypothesis. The more careful and majestic statues found on this temple site at Athieno, are no doubt portraits of members of the Fin. 126. Sacrificing Priest. Limestone statuette. New York Museum. old pontifical families of Cyprus. 1 And they are not restricted, perhaps, to the figures on which this lofty tiara appears. When a Greek approached the altar he bound a garland of leaves about his forehead, and as time passed on the same decoration may have 1 M. FR. LENORMANT was so struck by the si/.e and finished execution of this Priest with a dore as to suggest that it might be a statue of Cinyras himself, the legendary ancestor of the high priests of Astarte (Gazette Arehhlogique, 1878, p. 199).