Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/273

 Furniture and Ornament about the Temple. 247 Strictly conventional, therefore, should be the treatment of foliate and floral forms about the temple under notice ; it should bear a strong family likeness to similar arrangements in Assyrian art, where we see patterns set out in simple combinations of full blown blossoms and buds or leaves of the same plant. 1 Fig. 159. — Fragment of Lid of Sarcophagus. Kbur Moluk. De Saulcy, Voyage. Atla Plate XXXII. The wood carver and metal engraver, who decorated the house of Lebanon, drew their inspirations, like their Tyrian or Sidonian confrères, from traditional methods rather than nature. For the " Jewish style," as it is sometimes called, displayed on the coins, in the hypogées and tombs alluded to, was yet unborn. It arose from the fact that the native artist, being debarred by his tenets to portray animal and human forms, was compelled to study his 1 Does not this arrangement belong to a comparatively late period ? — Editor.