Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/338

 3io HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. vessel, and in spite of childish weaknesses of design, it gives them the peculiar and never-failing interest attached to everything by which light is cast upon a vanished world. History tells us that in the fifth century the Cypriot chiefs were already mounted in war-chariots, like the heroes of Homer; the reliefs on the sarcophagi as well as a large number of terra-cottas bear witness to the frequent use of chariots both for war and pleasure (Figs. TI 7> T 39> 1 4> T 45); finally we have some elaborately executed earthenware models of these same vehicles. In a collection recently dispersed there was a beautiful little model, in first-rate preservation, in which all the details of their construction could be FIG. 248. Terra-cotta chariot. Height 7J inches. 1 surely followed ; the solid wheels with their salient hubs, the pole socket with its support, the metal bands by which the walls of the chariot were strengthened and supported (Fig. 248). Chariots are figured in many of the most archaic paintings, and their details do not always accord with those of their terra-cotta model. In the latter the wheels are solid. On the sarcophagi and on a vase from Amathus (Fig. 249) they have spokes. In the latter picture, too, the body is much longer from back to front than in the model. On the other hand, it is quite short in another painting of the same class (Fig. 250), but here again the wheels have spokes. The 1 From the Albert Barre collection. Catalogue, p. 20.