Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/19

 A HISTORY OF ART IN SARDINIA AND JUD^A. SARDINIA. CHAPTER I. NATIVE ART. § i. — Inland Tribes. Division of the Island between Aborigines and Punic Colonists. Early Inhabitants and some Hypotheses in regard to their Origin. In the plan of campaign which we have undertaken, to collect on the shores of the Mediterranean the scattered remains of Phoenician art or rather industry, we have frequently borrowed from the nécropoles of Tharros, Caralis, and other cities of Sardinia, founded by Tyre and Carthage. The objects recovered in those tombs served to supplement, in a certain degree, the insufficiency of the " finds " yielded by the Syrian explorations, and enabled us to determine the general characteristics of Punic industrial productions. To this end we paid more than one visit to Sardinia ; and its shores were made the field of our investiga- tions as likely repositories of the spoils left by Punic merchants and settlers ; for there and nowhere else do we meet with their sepulchral memorials. It seems to be pretty well established that the Phoenicians kept to the coast, and did not penetrate far into the interior ; had they done so, traces of their settlements would have been discovered.