Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/333

 CERAMICS IN CYPRUS. 305 that no mistake as to its religious and symbolic character should be possible. From geometrical forms the ceramic decorator advanced to the treatment of animals, and from them again he progressed to humanity. How long it took him to conceive this ambition, and to put his conception in practice, we cannot say ; all that we can tell with any certainty is that the human figure appears upon vases which belong to the very oldest products of this industry. Here, for instance, is a spherical jug, on which those horizontal bands and vertical circles which the potters of the ancient school repre- sented by the objects from Alambra lavished on their works FIG. 244. (Enochoe. From Cesnola. 1 (Fig. 244). These designs occupy the major part of the sur- face, but between them and under the lip of the spout, room is found for a standing human figure, whose left hand seems to be raised in adoration, while the right clasps a stem of lotus. The execution is very clumsy, and various details show that the motive was not taken directly from nature, but was copied from some work of foreign origin. The lotus stem suggests Egypt ; the same country appears in the drawers or loin-cloth, a garment which seems never to have been worn in Cyprus. Between the 1 Cyprus, plate xlii. VOL. II.