Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/263

 GEMS. 239 Hittites certainly used cylindrical seals, which are found in their country and engraved with their peculiar characters and plastic types. The solution of the problem may be found in new discoveries in the fresh points of comparison they may afford ; here we can only point to the very interesting fact as it stands. Moreover these Cypriot cylinders form an isolated phenomenon, a caprice of local taste ; it is upon cones and spheroids, borrowed from Western Asia, and upon scarabs due to the example of Egypt, that we must seek for the favourite themes of the Phoenician lapidary. Cones are very numerous ; we have already figured two (tailpiece to Vol. I. Chapter II. and above, Fig. 39); we here reproduce a third for the sake of the image engraved on its base (Figs. 158 and 159). Two animals, goats perhaps, are erect on their hind-legs at each side of a column ; the motive differs little from that of the famous FIG. 158. Cone in green jasper. FIG. 159. Base of the above cone Louvre. enlarged. Lion Gate at Mycenae. Scarabs, too, are so plentiful that the only difficulty is to make a choice. We have already had occasion to figure several, both of Syrian and Sardinian origin (Vol. I. Figs. 141, 146; tail-pieces to Chapters III. and V. ; Vol. II. Figs. 19, 20, and tail-piece to Chapter II.) Many of them are scarabaeoids rather than scarabs strictly speaking ; the convex side of the stone has a distant resemblance to the sacred insect, but is not copied from it ; we can feel that the lapidary did not attach the same ideas to the shape in question as his Egyptian confrere ; he preserved it out of respect for tradition and because its flat oval base was well suited to its purpose. On the other hand there are Phoenician scarabs in which the body of the insect is as carefully made out as in any similar work from Egypt. A fine specimen of unknown provenance which has been in the British Museum for more than a century, is an instance in point (Figs. 160 and 161). Here the