Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/252

 228 HISTORY OF ART IN PHCENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. tell us to what race its owner belonged. Sometimes we shall find that it has served two owners of different races, or at least that it was made for one and used by the other. Here, for instance, is a seal quite Assyrian in style (Fig. 146). The types it bears are continually encountered in the sculpture and glyptics of Babylon and Nineveh, especially the forked symbol in the middle of the field ; this is never absent from Chaldaean land-marks on which contracts are engraved. 1 The inscription reads thus : Yrphael son (of] Horadad? The true criterion is the style and motive of the work. We can recognize a Phoenician origin in the frequent return of symbols like the disk and crescent group (Fig. 147), and in the mixture of ideas borrowed from different schools. Thus on the flat of a carnelian scarab with the inscription " to Baka" we see two figures standing and facing each other (Fig. 148). The crux ansata and lotus-flower in their hands gives them the air of Egyptian gods ; FlG. 146. Cylinder in the British Museum. From De Vogue. but their head-dress is not Egyptian, and their costume is arranged after a fashion only to be found in Chaldaea and Assyria. One leg 1 Art in Chaldcza and Assyria, Vol. I. Fig. 10, and Vol. II. Fig. 120. 2 Guided by the form of the letters M. DE VOGU (Melanges d } Archeologie orientale, p. 123) places this inscription among Aramaean texts, the name given to that form of Semitic writing which prevailed in the north and west. As the scholars who busy themselves over this question themselves proclaim, there are a number of very short texts in which the few letters by which, towards the eighth or seventh century of our era, the form of writing we call Aramaean was distinguished, do not occur ; in such cases it is impossible to say to which class they belong. Moreover, between the tribes who adopted Aramaean writing and those who made use of the form we know as Phoenician there was no real difference in language or civilization. We shall, there- fore, unite in the present chapter all those intaglios which appear to have served as seals to men of Syrian or, to employ the usual adjective, Semitic race. Unless otherwise specified, all the gems we reproduce are figured their actual size.