Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/32

 io HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. disk between a pair of cow horns which was a common attribute of Isis or Hathor. This is a motive of which Egyptian art never grew weary. 1 High up on the slab is figured, in excellent hieroglyphs, a legend of which only the last word, " eternally," is now visible. This is the usual conclusion of these dedicatory inscriptions, but in this case the letters are of such a size that even granting the inscription to have been as short as possible, the slab on which it appears must have formed part of the ornament of some considerable building, decorated throughout by an Egyptian hand. 2 Perhaps we have in this slab a fragment from the Giblite temple of Isis, whose existence is attested by the author of that treatise On Isis and Osiris in which the fables told FIG. 6. Fragmentary relief. Louvre. Height 22 inches. by the priests to all those who visited the sanctuary are repeated at length. 3 Egypt is present all over Phoenicia, sometimes in objects bought in the Nile Valley, sometimes in sculptures executed on the spot by Egyptians in the employment of the princes of Byblos or Sidon ; so that there is nothing strange in the fact that many things attributable to Phoenician artists bear strong traces of Egyptian influence. In some cases we may well hesitate before deciding whether the Delta or the Syrian coast is to be credited 1 Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. I. Fig. 255. 2 RENAN, Mission, pp. 179-180. 3 PLUTARCH, On Isis and Osiris, xv. and xvi.