Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/86

 64 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. their decorations are carried out with a much firmer hand than those of Carthage. The most interesting stele in the collection appears to represent a portion of the facade of some building (Fig. 61). Two columns support a rich and complex entablature. These columns have a campaniform base crowned by a kind of circular cushion, above which the shaft springs from a bouquet of leaves, apparently those of the acanthus. The shaft is deeply fluted in its lower part, and modelled above into the bust of a woman with an Egyptian head- dress : the bust has arms which are folded on the chest and [ FIG. 59. Detail from Carthaginian stele. French National Library. support the disk and crescent ; on the head a globe between two horns. The composition of the whole member is skilful and pleasing. The acanthus-leaves provide a happy transition between the circular base and the rectangular shaft above it, while the vertical brought to France and given to the Louvre by the Abbe' Trihidez, chaplain to the expeditionary force in Tunis ; of some of those left behind the Abbe made sketches, while the finest of all seems to have been carried off by Daux in 1869. In spite of all his efforts M. Berger could not discover what had become of all these. Accord- ing to the Abbe" Trihidez, about sixty steles were found altogether, most of them repeating the same motives.