Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/122

 io4 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ea. adoration. 1 The attitude is the same: the hand is outstretched, holding- a patera or some object he is about to offer, or raised in token of homage ; all the difference lies in the execution, which is bad throughout and objectionable in some of the details, such as undue enlargement of hand and shapeless offering. Certain rites, too, observable here, appear to have been borrowed from Punic usages. Thus the stags stuck up on the point of a sword, as a remembrance of one or more animals sacrificed at the god's altar, were of frequent occurrence in the Phoenician ritual, whose every detail was minutely defined and jealously observed. 2 To the same order of ideas belong those doves furnished with a hook for suspension set up on small columns, as well as most votive boats (Fig. 83). 3 With the Phoenicians, the dove was an emblem of Astarte; 4 whose Punic name was " Meleket has Sama'im," " queen of heaven ; " 5 supposed to be particularly favourable to mariners, as she was later among the Greeks under the name of Aphrodite. These touches testify to the migration of ideas and religious practices ; the same conclusion is arrived at by study of the shapes of ordinary objects, as well as the few forms, necessarily simple, such as plaiting and interlacing ; in which the effort of the artist towards onward progress is apparent throughout (Fig. 94). 6 We have stated earlier how extensively plaiting entered into Phoenician ornament ; 7 of which beautiful examples may be seen in the mosaics lining the walls of one of the staircases in the British Museum. Again, one of the Teti pedestals seems to have been decorated by mouldings, similar in outline to those we noticed on the stelae of Punic maritime cities (Fig. 73). 8 Before we finish this enumeration, we will bring two more facts difficult to explain, save on the assumption that Sardinian art was due to the unaided effort of native artists long before they met the Carthaginians. The first is a bronze representing a soldier holding a palm in his 1 Hist, of Art, torn. iii. pp. 257, 258. 2 Clermont-Ganneau, L Imagerie Phénicienne, § 5, Le Sacrifice du cerf dans le ritual Carthaginois. 8 Bollettino, Arch. Sardo, 1884, Plate IL figs. 16, 18, and 22. 4 Hist, of Art, torn. iii. pp. 69, 70. 6 The Aphrodite worshipped at Cnidos, as Eu7rAoia, " she who ensures a good passage," was a Punic deity brought there by the Phoenicians, who preceded the Greeks. 6 Besides our own engraving, Pais has several more examples. 7 Hist, of Art, torn. iii. p. 131. 8 Ibid., torn. iii. p. 310, fig. 233.