Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/406

 3QO HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. coins (see tailpiece, end of chapter). One thing to be noted is that the Chimsera, so often met with in Cyprus, is conspicuously absent in Lycia, where we might expect it would crop up in bas-reliefs and monetary types. On the other hand, the man- headed bull of Assyria and Persia is not rare. 1 A habit that should be very ancient in Lycia, since it has never been out of fashion, is the use of colour to give point to the decoration. Vestiges of pigments have certainly been discovered about mortuary towers, acknowledged on all hands as among the archaic types of Lycian tombs. Thus the panels of one of them were tinted, whilst elsewhere we find them ornamented by carving unrelieved by colour. 2 Again, the ground, in more than one bas- relief of subsequent ages, was painted blue or red, and the dress yellow or violet. 3 It was the same with architecture, where, over numerous rock-graven inscriptions, the brush of the painter has been drawn, and the lettering picked out in red or blue. 4 And so it happens that in the pure light which recalls that of Attica, man took pleasure in adding here a little and there a little to the wealth and variety of brilliant harmonies that charm the eye ; the light yet vivid tints he applied to sculptures and edifices, stood out from the dull white of the limestone, their point and sparkle being enhanced by the sombre green of pines, the azure of sky and sea, and the dazzling splendour of snowy peaks on distant Taurus, glorified by the rays of the sun. 1 Six, Monnaies lyciennes, Nos. 90, 93, 95, 143, 144, 2 BKNNDORF, Reisen, torn. i. p. 87. 3 FELLOWS, An Account, etc., plate opposite p. 199; TEXIER, Description, torn. iii. pp. 208, 239, 240. 4 DE GOBINEAU, in his "Catalogue d'une collection d'intailles asiatiques" (Rtvue archeologique, N.S., 1874, p. 239), assigns to Lycia an intaglio picked up in Meso- potamia ; in so doing he is entirely guided by the device figured upon it, in which he thinks he recognizes Pegasus and Bellerophon. But inasmuch as the inscrip- tion is in the Aramaic language, we incline to ascribe the stone to Lycia. Mdnant has included among Persian intaglios a cylinder in Le Clercq's collection, which represents the offering of a dove to a seated goddess, by a personage whom he identifies with an Achsemenid prince, because of his head attire and dress (Recherches sur la glyptique orientale, torn. ii. Plate IX. Fig. 2, pp. 174, 175). Yet the male figure is wanting in some of the attributes that would define it with absolute certainty, such as spear and bow ; whilst the pose of dove and goddess, and, indeed, the execution throughout, recall the bas-reliefs on the Tomb of the Harpies at Xanthus. One is tempted to ask, with M. Heuzey, whether we are not confronted here by a Lycian monument, in which case the male figure would naturally be a dynast of Lycia. An inscription in Lycian characters could alone confirm the conjecture, but that is sadly to seek.