Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/235

 RELIEFS ON SARCOPHAGI. 211 horses wear the fan-shaped plumes which we meet with in Assyria and Lycia. 1 The lid was shaped like a hipped roof; it was broken into many pieces, and, as some of those escaped all search, it can- not be entirely restored. 2 There is enough to show, however, that the palmettes of the side ornament reappeared on the lid ; there are, too, the remains of several sphinxes, which seem to have been set up in pairs, facing each other at each end of the sarcophagus. In this, again, we find Asiatic influence. The Assyrian ornamentists loved, as we have seen, to set animals face to face. FIG. 142. Sarcophagus from Amathus. Second short side. The date of this sarcophagus cannot, however, be a very remote one, because its material is marble, proving that it was made after intimate relations had been established between Cyprus and the Grecian islands. 3 Even the use of war-chariots does not point to any great antiquity ; they were not abandoned by the Cypriots 1 See RAWLINSON, The Five Great Monarchies, 4th edition, vol. i. pp. 407 and 414; and CESNOLA, Cyprus, plate xvi. (reproduction of a bas-relief from Xanthus). 2 A restoration in perspective of this lid may be seen at p. 267 of Cesnola's work. It was our intention to give it here, but the frank statement of its author that it was too hasty and too full of conjecture to deserve reproduction caused us to change our minds. 3 In the Amathus graveyard sarcophagi of plain white marble were found (CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 269).