Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/254

 230 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. j at random in the field. We may see this in an example already given (Fig. 146) : in the one here figured it is no less conspicuous (Fig. 149). Above a group composed of two griffins and a winged man the name Harkhon may be read in Aramaean letters. The Phoenicians were not the people to stop there. As soon as they saw that any industry would yield a profit they turned their hands to it. They saw workmen cutting cylinders in Chaldaea and scarabs in Egypt : they procured the required tools and materials, and before long, if they did not rival their masters in the nobility of their designs and the elegance of their work, they at least had a new industry ; their workshops delivered seals of all shapes and prices, and in such varied materials as stone, glass, and glazed faience, in any quantity that might be required. We know FIG. 149. Cylinder in the British Museum. From De Vogiie. from a text of Ezekiel that gem-cutting flourished at Tyre in the sixth century. The prophet thus addresses the Tyrian king : " Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God ; Every precious stone was thy covering, The sardius, topaz, and the diamond, The beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, The sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold ; The workmanship of thy tabrets and thy pipes was prepared, Was prepared in thee on the day that thou wast created." l 1 EZEKIEL xxviii. 13. The French translation of the Bible gives the same sense to these last two lines as our Authorized Version ; the words are : " Tes tambourins et les flutes etaient a ton service, prepares pour le jour oil tu fus cree" If we had to accept these renderings we should have to believe that the prophet did not follow his thought to the end of the passage. But M. DE LUYNES (Numismatique des Satrapies, p. 71) has remarked that this long enumeration of the stones employed in the king's adornment naturally suggests another interpretation of the words trans- lated in the Vulgate by ''opera tympanorum tuorum at foraminum tuorum." The