Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/277

 GEMS. 253 The excavations made in Sardinia during the last forty years have clearly proved that down to the Roman conquest the chief cities of the island had scarcely any intercourse with Greece. Here and there, at very long intervals of time and space, a few Greek vases and terra-cottas have been found, and that is all. The great towns were founded by Tyre, and nourished to their full growth by Carthage. Their graveyards were modelled upon those of Phoenicia and Punic Africa ; the steles and figurines picked up in them sometimes bear Phoenician texts, and always represent the divine types prevailing in Syria, Cyprus, and the territory of Carthage ; and the same must be said of those seals which have been found in such prodigious quantities in the cemeteries and in the ruined cities. 1 They are nearly all scarabs ; their materials are pietra-dura, glass and enamelled faience. Inscriptions like those on the Phoenician seals are very rare, but a few isolated characters are often found. 2 Nothing would be easier than to arrange these intaglios into series which should correspond, feature for feature, with those for which the elements have been found by the discoveries in Syria. We shall not undertake to do it, because it would lead us too far ; but a few examples, chosen from among thousands, will be enough to show that we do not speak without reason. 3 Egyptian types abound in the collections formed in Sardinia. A certain number of scarabs, like most of those of Egypt itself, have no decoration beyond a short hieroglyphic legend. Among these the ovals of several Pharaohs those of Menes, of Mycerinus or Menkaura, of Thothmes III., of Amenophis III., of Seti I., &c. have been encountered. 4 But we must not suppose from imported into Sardinia ; secondly, those of quasi-Egyptian style which must have been made in Phoenicia ; thirdly, objects manufactured in the latter country after Asiatic models ; and fourthly, objects in which Greek influence may be traced. We need hardly say that he treats the idea of an Egyptian colony established in Sardinia, or of an immigration, under the Roman Empire, of Jews or Jewish Christians, with scant respect. He thinks that some of the objects in question are as old as the Theban Empire, but, like M. Helbig, he admits that by far the larger number must have been imported into the island during the Carthaginian supremacy, i.e. between the seventh and fourth centuries. 1 A single private collection, that of the Canon Spano, includes impressions from 600 different scarabs, all found at Tharros (CRESPI, Catalogo, p. 131, note i). 2 Bullettino arcJieologico Sardo, vol. vii. p. 27. 8 See M. MAN SELL, Les Pierres gravees de la Necropole de Tharros (Gazette arche- ologique, 1877, pp. 74-76; 1878, pp. 35-40, and 50-53). 4 OCCURTI, in the Bullettino anheologico Sardo, vol. ii. pp. 103, 112.