Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/72

 5o HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. The right hand seems to have held a sceptre or weapon of some kind, the point being directed over the Shoulder ; the left hand was apparently closed. The appendages to the feet do not seem, as in the primitive bronzes (Fig. i), to be merely the metal which has cooled in the channel to the mould after the latter was full. The whole execution of the figure speaks of a time when such unneces- sary lumps might easily have been removed. They must have been deliberately contrived and preserved so as to afford means of affixing the statuette to some piece of furniture ; perhaps to the lid of a bronze vase. A careful examination confirms this idea. The soles of the feet have been planed with a file to make them stand fairly upon the surface for which they were intended ; on the front of each lump there is a gentle hollow, also made no doubt to facilitate the attachments of the figure. These descriptions and comparisons will enable our readers to understand why we have ascribed the bronze from Marach to FIG. 44. Head of the above statuette, seen in profile. Phoenicia, although it was found in the country which has lately yielded so many things bearing those still undeciphered characters that are supposed to be Hittite. 1 These characters are always, or nearly always, accompanied by artistic features not to be found here. Not only is the workmanship more summary and less advanced, there is another and more certain criterion : in the Hittite monuments every detail of costume differs from what we find in this statuette, 2 which is, moreover, so small and portable that the actual spot where it happens to have been found is no 1 See the short report presented to the Archseological Society of Berlin by Herr OTTO PUCHSTEIN, the head of the scientific mission sent to the Commagene in the summer of 1883 by the Berlin Academy (Philologische Wochenschrift, 1883, No. 48, pp. 1-4). 2 The present writer was, perhaps, the first to point out the features which, as a rule, distinguish the monuments now known as Hittite. See G. PERROT, Memoires d' Archeologie, d'Epigraphie et d 1 Histoire (1875, 8vo, Didier), IV. ; I' Art de fAsie Mixture, ses origines, son influence.