Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/262

 238 HISTORY OF ART IN PHCENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. more than point out these resemblances ; before any conclusions can be drawn from them, better acquaintance must be made with a system of writing and a series of monuments which have only begun very lately to attract the attention of scholars. With the mention of one more example we must leave this question of cylinders. The specimen here figured (157) is interesting for the way in which the three birds are treated. In the motive as a whole we may recognize one of the earliest made use of by decorators of pottery when they grew tired of geometrical forms. We have already encountered it on a potsherd from Assyria, 1 and we shall meet it again in ancient vases from Mycenae and Attica; its occurrence on a seal is curious. From the examples we have given and the remarks they have suggested, it would seem to follow that by far the greater number of the cylinders found in the island are only pasticcios, and pasticcios of no particular merit ; but it is difficult to go farther and explain FIG. 157. Cylinder of green glazed earthenware. From A. di Cesnola. 2 how they came there, how this fashion of a cylindrical seal got itself established in Cyprus at all when nothing of the kind is to be observed at any other point in the Phoenician world. And the fashion seems to have had no slight duration, because, although some examples are rude enough, in others we can trace the influence of Hellenic archaism (Fig. 155). It is strange that the islanders, who were farther from Mesopotamia than their cousins on the Syrian mainland, should have thus adopted a form neglected by the latter on account, no doubt, of its inconvenience. The matter is rendered all the more curious when we recollect that these cylinders were found in such a Hellenic district as that about Salamis. Must we believe that before being colonized by the Greeks, this part of the island was occupied by a population deriving from those Hittites of Northern Syria whose history has yet to be studied ? The 1 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. II. Fig. 187. 2 Salaminia, plate xii.