Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/219

 176 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. or Mycense. If in the islands preference was given to marble in fashioning idols and vases nearly always found alongside of the dead, it Is because there was a plentiful supply of that fine re- sisting substance. The simultaneous presence of marble statuettes and marble cups in these graves points to the sepulchral furniture having been formed out of the products of local industry. To me it is inconceivable how anybody could ever have attributed the fabrication and import of these idols to the Phcenicians,* who Fig. 3»I.— Idols of Paros marble. Two-thirds of actual siw. were unaccustomed to work it, for the simple reason that none exists in their country. Moreover, the idols in question have not been met with in Phcenicia itself, or on the track of the Sidonian traders, which is always recognizable by the objects they have sown on it On the other hand, we find no remains of Phoenician wares in the prehistoric necropoles of the Cyclades. The shapes of these idols are practically identical, be their material clay or marble. The most archaic and strange-looking specimens are made of the latter substance ; a fact which ' The conjecture referred to above as coming from F. I-enorniant, is somewhat surprising {Rei>ue archlolo^que).