Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/381

 METALLURGY. 343 eludes the other. Even on those examples which have a most clearly marked pictorial scene on their outer bands, the more con- ventional images are also employed. Here and there we find scenes from actual life in the same compartment with all kinds of monsters, sphinxes, genii and griffins. So that it is not easy to separate one category from the other. We must attempt to do so, however, for such distinction is the only thing to which we can turn to bring something like order into the long list of these metal bowls. We may take as a type of the first category (the class of bowls on which the images have a real sense of their own) one of those found at Palestrina, the ancient Prceneste, in 1876. The hypogeum, probably a tomb, in which they were found, contained a veritable treasure composed of numerous objects in gold, in electrum, in silver plated with gold, in ivory, amber, glass, bronze, and iron. There were cups, bowls, a tripod, jewels, arms, and various utensils. 1 The cup of Esmunjai'r belongs to this treasure (Vol. I.- Fig. 36). The bowl we here reproduce is no less interesting, although, as it is without inscription, its interest is of a different kind. It owes its importance mainly to the ingenious and subtle criticism of which it has been made the object by M. Clermont- Ganneau, by whom the meaning of the figures on its principal zone has been divined and explained. 2 We shall be content with summarising his explanation, which can, we think, be contested only in a few minor points. The cup in question consists of a thin plate of silver overlaid with gold ; its greatest diameter is seven inches and three-fifths. The under or outside is without ornament ; the interior is covered with small subjects in slight relief. In the centre, and surrounded by a circle of beads, there is a subject to which we. shall presently have to return. The zone immediately without the medallion is 1 The first details of this discovery were given by MM. HELBIG and CONESTABILE (Bullettino deW Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica, 1876, pp. 117-131; Scavi di Palestrinae ; notizie degli scavidi antichita communicate alia reale accademia dei Lincei, August, 1876, p. 113). See also M. Helbig's Cenni sopra larte fenicia, lit/era al Signor Senatore G. Spano (Annali dell' Institute, 1876). This paper is accompanied by four plates (Monumenii, vol. x. plates xxxi. xxxi a, xxxii. xxxiii.). 2 CLERMONT-GANNEAU, Etudes d 'arch'eologie orientalt. L Image rie Phcnicienne et la Mythologie iconologique chez les Grecs. Part I. La Coupe Fhenicienne de Palestrina, 8vo, xxxix., 156 pages and eight plates. E. LEROUX, 1880. Why has M. Clermont- Ganneau left an undertaking so full of promise unfinished ?