Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/442

 4O2 HISTORY OF ART IN PHCENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. to discuss these things more fully. On this plaque from Prseneste three personages are in adoration before a divinity in front of whose throne stands an altar and a table for offerings ; the whole scene takes place on a long Egyptian boat managed by two boatmen in the stem and stern. 1 Other ivory fragments found during these excavations must have formed part of a little box or casket ; among other motives with which they are carved, papyrus stems, lotus flowers, horsemen, charioteers, musicians and bearers of offerings, may be distinguished. They still show traces of colour and of gold, while some of the hollows seem to have been filled in with enamels. 2 Finally we may notice as one of the most curious remains of the class an ivory bucket from a tomb at Ckiusi, or Clusium. 3 It is hollowed in the lower side of a block cut from a tusk, and the outside is covered with figures in several stages going round the tooth. The motives are all familiar enough except one, and this FIG. 347. Ivory plaque. Length 7-i inches. 4 is a group of two rams going towards a ship, each with a man under his belly and tightly clasping his neck. One is inclined to ask whether this may not be an attempt to illustrate the passage in the Odyssey where the companions of Ulysses escaped from 1 Discoveries like this had been made at Palestrina ten years before the famous find of 1876 (On the Discovery of Sepul.hral Remains at Veii and Prtzneste, by the Padre RAPHAELE GARRUCCI ; communicated and translated by W. M. Wylie, &c. in the Archaologia, vol. xli.). The ivories then discovered are described at pp. 202 and 204, and figured in plates v. (figs, i and 2) and viii. (figs, i, 2, 3). They include couchant and passant lions, and lions with wings. See also HELBIG, Cenni sopra F arte fenicta, p. 249 (Annali, 1876). 2 HELBIG, Oggetti trovati in una tomba prenestina, seconda serie, pp. 6-9 (Annali, 1879, and Monumenti, xi. plate . figs, 1-6). 3 W. HELBIG, Oggetti trwati in una tomba Chiusina (Annali, 1877, pp. 398-405, and Monumenti, x. plate xxxviii.a, figs, i and ia). 4 From the Monumenti delf Institute, plate xxxi. fig. 3.