Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/289

 PHOENICIAN CERAMICS. 265 and then either dried in the sun or half burnt in a fire of green twigs ; they were not water-tight, while they cracked and broke up if exposed to too strong a flame. Between such things as these and the instruments offered by a superior industry the rivalry must have beerx, short. Vessels which would neither hold a liquid nor resist a moderate fire must soon have gone down before those which would do both. Phoenicia soon learnt to make things on which a profit was assured. The potter's wheel and oven were known in Egypt many centuries before the first town arose on the Syrian coast j 1 and even Chaldsea had long understood the fashioning and firing of clay when the ancestors of the Syrian merchants crossed her plains to establish themselves beyond the Lebanon. 2 Along the whole coast, from Arvad to Tyre, the industry of the potter must have been one of the first to be developed ; as each spring came round, cargoes of jars and dishes must have left all those ports to be spread over every coast of the Mediterranean, and even beyond the pillars of Hercules. Each campaign saw the circle of clients enlarged. Even now some of the islands of the Levant in which the deposits of plastic earth are especially rich, supply pottery to their less fortu- nate neighbours. The people of Melos and Anaphi, for instance, carry boatloads of jars, jugs, and dishes, all over the neighbouring archipelago, covering every beach and jetty with little heaps of shining red earthenware. Things went on in the same way thousands of years ago, but the ships were then Phoenician ; but where is the Phoenician pottery, the pottery that superseded the native productions by virtue of its solid beauty ? Where are we to look for it, and how are we to figure it if it escape our search ? Of course the first idea that strikes us is to turn to the grave- yards, but these had been used so often and, in more recent times, had been so often rifled before any modern explorer had seen them, that hardly a vase has been found in them ; if they once held such things, which is likely, the latter have long ago disap- peared and left not even fragments behind. Where buildings and the stones of which they were built have been reduced almost to dust, it is not surprising to find but little traces of pottery. The few vases or pieces of vases picked up by M. Renan are either 1 Art in Ancient Egvpt, Vol. II. Chapter IV. 2. 2 Art in Chaldcca and Assyria, Vol. II. Chapter IV. i. VOL. II. M M