Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/28

 io A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.-ea. for many centuries Sardinia was inhabited by two distinct races, which lived side by side on a friendly footing with each other, but which never mixed or amalgamated into one. If the coasts, except towards the east, and the extensive plain towards the south-west, were occupied by Carthaginian and African colonists in the full enjoyment of the highest civilization then known, the centre, east, and north of the island were in the hands of a people of whose origin and language we have no positive knowledge. But how- ever rude, and although possessed of neither books nor inscriptions, they have left us specimens of their work in their architecture and sculptured objects. Hence the monuments anterior to the Roman occupation should be ranged in two categories. In the first, as mustering stronger, should be placed Phoenician documents due to commerce, as they might be elsewhere, as well as those manu- factured on the spot by the settlers. Drawings of many of these objects will be found in the two chapters containing a list of works which best illustrate the genius and activity of the Punic race. We have refrained, in that portion of our work, to describe in any way the industrial monuments of the native tribes, because they seem to deserve being ranked by themselves, as the products of national development, which, though restricted to a narrow sphere, is never- theless all there is to show of their individual invention and in- genuity. In connection with the peculiarities observable in these monuments, it should be recollected that the Phoenicians were the only people with whom the islanders had amicable and continuous intercourse ; the only one apparently from whom they could derive sufficient technical knowledge to enable them to model diversified figures, and raise architectonic monuments, many of which are still standing. In our estimation these works form a fitting sequel to the history of Phoenician art, but from the nature of the case the pages treating of them must of necessity come in as an appendix. We are ignorant, and probably will never know to what stock belonged the tribes which the early Phoenician settlers found already in possession of the island when they arrived there ; nor do we know what language they spoke. Some have imagined that they were Iberians from Spain and Gaul. 1 But the sugges- 1 W. von Hunboldt, Priifung der Untersuchungen uber die Urbewohner Hispaniens. Berlin, 1821, 1845, p. 168; Diefenbach, Celtica, p. 18, and Origines Europeœ, p. 99; Niebuhr, Rômische Gesehichte, vol. ii. p. 585; D'Arbois de Jubainville, Les Premiers Habitants de l'Europe. Paris, 1877, p. 43, etc. Read also the valuable and