Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/64

 42 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. of drawings of animals and other objects, and its employers deserve to be the subjects of a separate study, which we shall combine with that of the nations of Asia Minor. The Hittites occupied the two slopes of the Amanus, and as they were hemmed in on the south and east by the two great oriental empires, their Influence found its chief field to the northwards, in the interior of the peninsula. As for the other races between whom the vast territory whose limits we have just given was shared, there is but one to whom a separate place in our history seems due, and that is the Jews ; we shall give an account of their artistic achievement after we have finished with the Phoenicians and their dependent races. Not that it is either very rich or very original, but Jerusalem has played too great a part in the world of ideas to allow the art-historian to pass over its famous temple without some attempt to determine its size and arrangement. Neither in the Philistines, nor in the Moabites, nor in the Aramaeans of northern Syria can we take the same interest ; moreover, so far as we can tell from the little we know about the methods of their industry and the characteristics of their art, there is nothing in either which cannot be explained by the combined influence of Egypt and Assyria. In this region no really ancient monuments of architecture have been found. No one of the buildings whose often imposing remains have been examined and described by travellers, dates from before the Graeco-Roman period. The only things to which an earlier date can be given are little objects of uncertain origin, pots, glass phials, jewels and engraved stones, and a few broken statues and bas-reliefs. Sculptures are less easily moved than vases or the cylinders and cones which were used as seals, and the probabilities are that they were made in the countries where they ar^ found. We shall, therefore, mention such things of Phoenician origin in their geographical order, advancing from the frontiers of Egypt to those of Assyria. In spite of its barbarous appearance, the monument to which we shall first refer is later, perhaps, than the Christian era. In every detail of its execution, and especially in the treatment of the hair, there are sure but indescribable signs of a debased epoch (Fig. 38). This slab of grey marble was bought at Ascalon by M. de Saulcy. Ascalon was a city of the Philistines in which the great local divinity, called Atargatis, Athara and Derketo by the Greek