Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/37

 FIGURES OF DEITIES. we find a detail which is peculiarly Phoenician, namely, the group of disk and crescent which appears just above the head of the principal figure. Lastly, we must notice a detail peculiar to this particular monument, the cord which hangs down from the point of the helmet. In the main idea and in the choice of accessories we find, then, the influence of two different schools ; but in the actual carrying out of his figure the sculptor seems to have been inspired by Assyrian models ; this is chiefly evident in the treatment of the nude, in the shape of arm, knee, and shoulder ; the bones and muscles are there indicated with a vigour which betrays the teaching of Nineveh rather than that of Thebes or Memphis. If the remains of Phoenician sculpture were more numerous, we should be sure to find that the motives just described were often repeated. Their popularity is proved by the fact that we find them on coins of much later date than this stele of Amrit. A FIG. 9. Coin of Tarsus. FIG. 10. Coin of a Phoenician FIG. n. Coin of the Silver. From De satrap. Silver. From Balearic Islands. Luynes. De Luynes. From Gerhard. coin of Tarsus, struck under Hadrian and bearing his effigy, has on one side a personage wearing a long robe and a high tiara, whose feet are placed on the back of a horned lion (Fig. 9). We know from its language and form of worship that Tarsus, like nearly the whole of Cilicia, remained Semitic down to a very late date. Another piece which is believed to have been struck in Phoenicia by a Persian satrap shows a god about to strike a lion with his sword, while he holds the animal by the tail (Fig. lo). 1 These coins belong to a period in the history of art to which we here only refer incidentally for the sake of helping to give a true idea of an earlier stage and of showing the persistence of certain traditions. For similar reasons we here reproduce two or three more Phoenician types, in which the work of artists whose 1 DE LUYNKS attributes this coin to a certain Boges, in whom he recognizes the Bagfcos of Herodotus (Numismatique dcs Satrapies, pp. 40-41).