Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/257

 Bronzes and Jewels. 239 justify us in assigning a remote antiquity to the statue in question. If not the work of the warlike Khetas, it was executed by the Phrygians estabHshed around Sipylus. At any rate, it is much older than the tombs which another branch of the same stock excavated on the banks of the Sangarius, in the vicinity of Seid-el-Ghazi ; for the inscriptions which accompany them, as stated, were all written in letters taken from the Phoenician alphabet. The Buyuk Souret, rightly considered by Pausanias as the most ancient image of Cybele, dates from a time when the influence of Syro-Cappa- docian culture was paramount in the peninsula. Compared with the bas-reliefs reviewed in this chapter, it testifies to greater effort, a higher standard, and decisive progress ; it is not a bas-relief, but a veritable statue ; the last and most important rupesque sculpture of Asia Minor.^ § 5. — Bronzes and Jewels. Wherever a sculptor exists who boldly cuts stone in the human or animal form, with its real dimensions — a sculptor who does not recoil before the execution of colossal figures — artificers, such as goldsmiths, stone engravers, smelters and potters, forthwith reproduce the types created by statuary, and reduce them to pro- portions in harmony with their special handicrafts, so as to satisfy diversity of needs, scattering countless exemplars broadcast among their customers at home and abroad. The industrial artist of Syro-Cappadocia had an abundance of mineral ores, notably silver and copper ; the latter he early learnt to mix with an alloy of tin, derived first from Chaldaea and subse- quently from Phcenicia ; and he worked it into instruments of peace and war, or representations of national heroes and deities (Fig. 367). This piece, presented to the Louvre by De Saulcy, is supposed to have been found near Angora (ancient Ancyra).^ It is the figure of a man standing on a living animal, like the chief akin to the Karabel figures. M. Solomon Reinach reports a monument of the same nature, said to exist on the road which runs between Magnesia and Myrina. Although his efforts to find it proved abortive, he is none the less convinced of the correctness of the information received from the natives (Poitier and Reinach, La Necropole de Myrina^ in 4°, Thorin, 1887, pp. 20, 21). " The figure under notice was published and described by me in the Rci^ue Archi- ologiqucy etc. (" Un bronze d'Asie Mineure," etc. pp. 25-40-
 * We may expect that fresh researches in that region will bring to light sculptures