Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/445

 FURNITURE AND OBJECTS OF THE TOILET. 405 colour the wings of the four monsters which defile across the field ; these are griffins of a very curious kind and of a kind that we have never yet encountered. The body and paws are those of a lion, but the animal as a whole is far more slender, is far higher on the leg, than usual ; its neck has all the length and suppleness of a crane's neck, but its head is not that of a bird. In its general proportions it is perhaps more like a giraffe or camel than anything else. This fantastic beast is the only motive by which these egg decorations are to be distinguished from those on the metal bowls. The analogy between the two is obvious in everything but the actual workmanship, which is much less careful in the case of the eggs ; the value of these consisted in the rarity of the material. The distant purchasers were attracted by the enormous size of the eggs and by the fabulous tales that were told of the unknown birds that laid them ; so that the Phoenician trader was safe in confiding their decoration to mediocre workmen. There is no reason to suggest that the work was done in Etruria. The tomb in which the eggs were found contained many other things of Oriental manufacture, scarabs of glass and glazed earthenware, one with the name of Psammeticus I ; aryballoi in Egyptian faience with hieroglyphic inscriptions, alabastrons of the same manu- facture, terra-cotta statuettes, and an ivory spoon of thoroughly Phoenician appearance, bands of chiselled and repousse bronze, figures recalling those of the metal bowls and even of our eggs. 1 Among the curiosities sprinkled all over the western world by the Phoenicians, we may also quote shells brought from distant coasts. In Cameiros, as in Chaldaea, engraved fragments of the Tridacna squamosa, a native of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, have been picked up. 2 In one the central boss is skilfully carved into the semblance of a human head. At the edge, on the inside, there are designs traced with the point. The Phoenician jeweller seems to have made no great use of coral. In Sardinia it is very rare to find objects in that material 1 All these objects are now in the British Museum ; they were acquired in 1850. They are described and figured in MICALI, Monumenti inediti de^li antichi popoli italiani (Florence, 1884, i vol. 8vo and a folio), plates iv.-viii. Micali reproduces four of the eggs (plate vii. figs. 1-3), but his plates seemed to us unsatisfactory, and we have therefore had our engravings made from new and careful drawings of the originals. 2 These fragments belong to the British Mi'scum.