Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/310

 294 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. important. The lion on the right, with a ring on his back, recalls those that were discovered at Nineveh, 1 and which served as weights. We may take it as a sure sign that the pattern was most in favour and widely diffused. The singular part about it is the stick he holds between his paws. Next to Anahith, on the left, appears an altar, or four-storied tabernacle ; the two uprights at the sides spread palm-wise into six points or fingers, whilst between them protrudes a semi-circular form. Very similar taber- nacles are depicted on a certain class of Mesopotamian monuments. 2 The globular shape brings to mind the round stela which crowns the stone-cut sanctuaries in Midas city (Figs. 103, 104, 106). As to the diminutive circular shield and the rectangle that take up the rest of the field, all that can be made of them is that they are large-headed buttons, whose function was to put the finishing touch to dress or furniture. The left disc, in the lower corner, looks like a six-rayed star. 3 The divine types and subsidiary devices which accompany them so closely resemble those of Chaldsean tradition, as to challenge the query whether the mould may not, after all, have been brought from Mesopotamia to Asia Minor, by one of those strolling jewellers one often meets in the East in the present day, at long distances from their native place. 4 On the other hand, the work is so exceedingly coarse and rude, the design hard and conventional, that it would reflect the greatest discredit on the technique of Chaldsean artists to father it upon them. On the contrary, if we suppose a people inferior to the Chaldseans from a cultured standpoint, whose mediocre engravers copied mechanic- ally foreign models, coarse, heavy manipulation will no longer surprise us, but will appear quite natural. No matter what the rights of the case may be, it is none the less hard to believe that uncouth works such as these were fabricated in the age of the Mermnadae, under whose rule Lydia was in direct relationship with Egypt and Assyria on the one side, whilst on the other she was beginning to feel the influence of Ionian art, which at that time was fast progressing towards perfection. As far as work- manship will enable us to judge, the slab would seem to be many 1 Hist, of Art, torn. ii. Plate XL 2 Ibid., Figs. 68, 79, 233, 301. 8 Compare the sidereal shapes figured on Chaldaean stelas, Ibid., Fig. 10. 4 Ibid., torn. iii. p. 448.