Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/416

 378 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. arms of a crux ansata (Fig. 3O6), 1 and those copied from a chrysalis (Fig. 307). 2 Cypriot jewels are characterized by a broader and more sustained elegance, as our readers may see by glancing over those reproduced on our page 381, and comparing them with the two earrings here figured (Figs. 308 and 309). 3 The poorest inhabitants of the tombs have simple circlets of gold and plain finger-rings, which can be identified by the places they occupy on the sepulchre floors. Bronze earrings are rare, but at Tharros not a few have been found which consist of a bronze core overlaid with gold. 4 We now come to the necklaces which fall, often in triple rows, over the breasts of so many Phoenician statuettes. There are also one or two statues on which the ornament in question is rendered in considerable detail. Here is a good example (Fig. 310). Here there are four rows, varying in the size of their elements from the small beads about the throat, to the large acorns which hang low upon the chest. Such a necklace as this could be readily restored from the originals found at Curium and in the. Phoenician ruins of Sardinia. From these we know that such jewels were made up of gold, of brilliant glass beads, and of such stones as carnelions. One of the necklaces from Curium is composed of seventy gold beads and of twenty large acorns of the same metal ; a medusa's head forms the centre (Fig. 300, B). In this last-named detail we scent the influence of Greece, but in another parure from the same place nothing but Oriental motives are to be found ; a head with an Egyptian coiffure is flanked with round and oval beads and with lotus buds and flowers (Fig. 300, A). The same collection includes many more things of equal excellence. In one pomegranates and other fruits form the pendants ; in the middle appears a small phial with half-open lid ; it must have held some subtle perfume, perhaps that attar of roses which is still so dear to eastern women. 5 In other examples carnelion, onyx, and rock crystal are also introduced ; pendants consist of such things as a cone, the symbol of Astarte, in gold, of a little 1 Earrings of this type are encountered at every step in the tombs of Tharros (CRESPI, Catalogo, p. 143). 2 Another golden trinket from Tharros represents a caterpillar with a diminutive snake rolled about it (Bullettino archeologico Sardo, vol. iii. p. 21). 3 See also CESNOLA, Cyprus, plate xxvii. 4 Bulleltino archeologico Sardo, vol. ii. pp. 57-62. CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 315, and plate xxiv.