having Deen discovered among the remains of Assyria. We are
compelled, therefore, to dismiss the idea that Phoenician art was a
development of Egyptian style, and must infer that the Shemites
borrowed their artistical forms from the neighboring nations. Thus
the so-called Moabite relief, from Redjom el-Aabed, published by
De Saulcy,108 is closely allied in style to the Assyrian reliefs ; and it
might he taken for the work of
the proud conquerors of Palestine,
were not the type of the face, and
the absence of the characteristi-
cal long-flowing Assyrian tresses
rather Shemitic. Again, the
lost Scriptural and mysteriously-
engraved gems Urim and Thum-
mim, which adorned the breastplate
of the Hebrew high-priest,109
hear philologically such an affinity
to the Egyptian Urseus and
Thmei, judicial symbols of power
and truth, that, as some Egyptologists
have suggested, they might
have been borrowed from Egypt. Without laying too great stress
on this suggestion, which cannot he either proved or disproved, we
must admit, that at the latest period of the Hebrew monarchy, the
imagery of the prophets, ^sfor instance, the vision of Ezekiel, .— is
entirely Assyrian. The eagle, the winged lion, lull and man, which
finally became the symbols of thè four Evangelists,110 are now pretty
familiar to us by the Assyrian reliefs of the Louvre and of the British
Museum. So are the revolving winged orbs of the prophets ; evidently
the same symbolical emblems which, among the Egyptians, designated
H or-h a t , the celestial sun,m and were transferred to Nineveh and
Persepolis as the symbol of the Feruers or Guardian Angels.
108 Voyage dans.les Terres bibliques, 1853, Atlas, pi. XVIII: — Types of Mankind, p. 530.
109 L a n c i , La Sagra Scrittura illustrala, Roma, 1827; pp. 209-235, and Plates:— Idem,
Lettre à M.Prisse, pp. 84-5.
n° Est vitulus Lucas, leo Marcus, tm'sque Johannes,
Est homo Matthsens, quatuor ista Deus ;
Est homo nascendo, vitulus mortem patiendo,
Est leo surgendo, sed avis ad summa petendo.”
(S joberg, Pa’ A rchdologisska Sdllskapets kostnad och Forlag, Stockholm, 1822, p. 43) :—
Munter (Sinnbilder und Kunsivorstellung der alien Christen, Altona, 1825, p. 25, pp. 44-5,)
gives the patristic citations from Irenseus, Augustine, Jerome, &c. “ Rident autem Judasi et
Arabes,” adds old Gaffarelli.— G. R. G.]
j”1 [ Olia ¿Egyptiaca, pp. 95-6:—Types of Mankind, p. 602. I re-allude to this because I
find in B asnage [Hist, of the Jews, p. 24 8 ) that the texts o f Isaiah and Malachi were
explained by the sun “ with wings” as far back as 1701. — G. R. G.]
But the Phoenicians had no peculiar predilection for the forms qf
art connected with the civilization of hieroglyphics, or of the cuneiform
character. Unable themselves to create a national style of art,
they adopted Grecian art instead. The types of all the coins of
Phoenicia and Cilicia, whether 1 autonomous ” or inscribed with the
name of the Persian Satraps, are Greek as regards the style; so too
are the medals of the Carthaginian towns of Sicily, vying in beauty
with the best Syracusan medals. “ Their elegance,” according to
Gerhard,111 “ is a proof, not of proficiency, but of the absence of
national art, since there only can a foreign style be introduced, where
it has no national forms to displace.” Even the C£priot~head, discovered
by Ross and published by Gerhard 112 ¡||m i+o "'■'""'"“i
-U .J AD A l l AUD J J A A l A U I j j a i IU A A 1A O
entirely Greek, reminding us of the
earliest Hellenic style; and it is therefore
classed by Gerhard among the specimens
of archaic Greek sculpture, although
found on an originally Phoenician island,
because we know of no other instance of
a similar style of Shemitic art, at the
same time that the Greek reliefs of Seli-
nus are analogous to it.
The soil of Carthage and of northern
Africa, over which Punic domination
extended, has not yielded any monuments
of Carthaginian art, all such traces
of Punic civilization having been completely
Fig. 21.
Cypriot V enus.
swept away by the Roman conquest
and its superimposed civilization. Accordingly, it is to Spain
and to Sardinia that we have to look for specimens of Carthaginian
art. But the bronze statuettes disinterred from the Punic- mounds of
Sardinia (Nuraghe) 113 are so barbarous and unartistical, that we might
have ascribed them to indigenous tribes, had we not found entirely
analogous idols on some islands of the Archipelago,114 and at Mount
Lebanon. David Urquhart, M. P., the well-known oriental traveller
and diplomatist, brought five such statuettes from among the
Maronites, discovered during his stay in Syria, which now enrich
my collection of antiquities. Similar monuments were procured
from ancient Tyre by the late M. Borel, French Consul at Smyrna.
111 Uber die Kunst der Phcenicier, Berlin, 1848, p. 21.
112 Ibidem, pi. VIII. 2, “ Kyprische Venusidole.”
113 Cf. D e l a M a rm o ra ( Voyage en Sardaigne de 1829 & 1836,) for plates and descriptions.
114 Gerhard, loco citato.