Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/60

 :8 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. way the toes are placed on the ground and in the vigour of the thigh muscles. The loss of the head and upper part of the body is much to be lamented, for, judging from the part preserved, this must have been one of the finest works turned out by Phoenicia. Its execution is far superior to that of the lions in the round which come from the same town or from other points on the coast. At Byblos a pair of couchant lions were found with the stele of lehaw-Melek ; their backs were grooved longitudinally to support an altar or slab. 1 Their execution is heavy and commonplace. Another mediocre work is the lion in black granite found at Beyrout and purchased for the Louvre from M. Peretie (Fig. 34); it is very like those lions produced in such numbers in the Nile FIG. 33. Fragment of a relief. Frcm Renan. valley, during the Saite period, of which many examples have been brought from the Serapeum to the Louvre. 2 The animal is lying down, its left fore-paw crossed over the right, which is turned palm upwards. M. Longperier came to the conclusion that this lion was carved in Phoenicia from an Egyptian model ; the details of its execution seemed to show that it was not an original work. In this opinion he was confirmed by the exam- ination of an engraved stone found by M. Oppert at Babylon 1 See Corpus Inscrip. Semit. Pars. I. pp. i and 2, for a reproduction of these two lions. The Louvre possesses a lion brought from Byblos by M. Renan, in which the attitude of the basalt lion is reproduced with but slight variations. It is of stone, and much worn.