Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/228

 2O4 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. copied Asiatic models ; in dwelling upon this hitherto unnoticed monument from Chaldaea, we have merely wished to show that the first idea of the centaur like that of pegasus, the griffin, and the sphinx may have been suggested to Greek artists by things of eastern origin. We have yet, however, to find the form of centaur preferred by archaic Greek art on some monuments from Phoenicia or Mesopotamia. '<///] i /*/ .'"/ f.r < V, ' ' ' ' ' ' ! -// '// "',"," '. '"!/''"'* FIG. 136. Chaldsean centaur. Relief in grey limestone. Length from the point of the arrow to the tip of the tail 8 inches. British Museum. The models for another class of figures, those with human bodies joined to animals' heads, must have come from Egypt alone. In fact the Egyptian costume may be at once recognized in one of the strangest of such figures, a statuette robed like those in which we have recognized Cypriot royalty (Fig. 137). This personage wears a tunic and schenti ; his apron is ornamented with two uraei, and his head is covered with a klaft, but that head is the head of a frog.