Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/260

 242 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.^a. Fig. 368, also in the Louvre, belongs to the same class. Like the preceding symbolic objects, now disappeared, were carried in the hands ; a bracelet encircles the right arm ; and the circular- hiked dagger of the Hittite warrior is about his waist. The salience on the legs shows how deep they entered the back of the animal which served as living support to the figure.^ Rough outline and rigid make are the character- istics of the next bronze (Fig. 369), representing a bull, doubtless an idol, akin to the Eyuk example (Fig. 330) ; for it is self-evident that he could never have stood on his bent-legs, and was not intended as a living animal ; proved by the appendages below the -hoofs which could only have been fixed on to a curved surface. The want of artistic skill which distinguishes devotional objects was not extended to personal ornaments ; such as armlets, rings for the ear and fingers, necklaces, or collars ; such would be a gold bracelet from. Aleppo ; a city described in Assyrian and Egyp- tian documents as the capital of a Hittite principality (Fig. 370). Its vigorous workmanship and frankly Eastern ornamentlon forbid its being dated from the Seleucidae, an epoch which more than any other has left abundant traces of its artistic activity, and which may be studied In all local collections. If this piece of jewellery did not originate in the valley of the Euphrates, It certainly came out of a Hittite workshop. As with the artist of Northern Syria and Cappadocia, here also, the form selected as a means of enrichment is the usual lion, the fore-parts being ^ This figure was recovered at Kara-Sheher, near Koutahia, and presented to the Louvre, together with Figs. 369, 370, 371, 382, 386, from the same country, by M. Sorlin-Dorigny. Fig. 368. — Bronze Statuette. Actual size. Louvre. Drawn by St. Elme Gautier. 1