History of Phoenicia Part 6

Our s.p.a.ce will not admit of our pursuing this subject much further. We cannot give descriptions of all the twenty _paterae_,[777] p.r.o.nounced by the best critics to be Phoenician, which are contained in the museums of Europe and America. Excellent representations of most of these works of art will be found in Longperier's "Musee Napoleon III.," in M.

Clermont-Ganneau's "Imagerie Phenicienne," and in the "Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquite" of MM. Perrot et Chipiez. The bowls brought from Larnaca, from Curium, and from Amathus are especially interesting.[778]

We must, however, conclude our survey with a single specimen of the most elaborate kind of _patera_; and, this being the case, we cannot hesitate to give the preference to the famous "Cup of Praeneste," which has been carefully figured and described in two of the three works above cited.[779]

The cup in question consists of a thin plate of silver covered over with a layer of gold; its greatest diameter is seven inches and three-fifths.

The under or outside is without ornament; the interior is engraved with a number of small objects in low relief. In the centre, and surrounded by a circle of beads, there is a subject to which we shall presently have to return. The zone immediately outside this medallion, which is not quite an inch in width, is filled with a string of eight horses, all of them proceeding at a trot, and following each other to the right.

Over each horse two birds fly in the same direction. The horses' tails are extraordinarily conventional, consisting of a stem with branches, and resembling a conventional palm branch. Outside this zone there is an exterior and a wider one, which is bounded on its outer edge by a huge snake, whose scaly length describes an almost exact circle, excepting towards the tail, where there are some slight sinuosities. This serpent, whose head reaches and a little pa.s.ses the thin extremity of the tail, is "drawn," says M. Clermont-Ganneau, "with the hand of a master."[780]

It has been compared[781] with the well-known Egyptian and Phoenician symbol for the {kosmos} or universe, which was a serpent with its tail in its mouth. "Naturally," he continues,[782] "the outer zone by its very position offers the greatest room for development. The artist is here at his ease, and having before him a field relatively so vast, has represented on it a series of scenes, remarkably alike for the style of their execution, the diversity of their subject-matter, the number of the persons introduced, and the nature of the acts which they accomplish. . . . The scenes, however, are not, as some have imagined, a series of detached fantastic subjects, arbitrarily chosen and capriciously grouped, a mere confused _melee_ of men, animals, chariots, and other objects; on the contrary, they form a little history, a plastic idyll, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is a narrative divided into nine scenes." (1) An armed hero, mounted in a car driven by a charioteer, quits in the morning a castle or fortified town.

He is going to hunt, and carries his bow in his left hand. Over his head is an umbrella, the badge of his high rank, and his defence against the mid-day sun. A quiver hangs at the side of his chariot. He wears a conical cap, while the driver has his head bare, and leans forwards over the front of the car, seeming to shake the reins, and encourage the horses to mend their pace. (2) After the car has proceeded a certain distance, the hunter espies a stag upon a rocky hill. He stops his chariot, gets down, and leaving the driver in charge of the vehicle, ensconces himself behind a tree, and thus screened lets fly an arrow against the quarry, which strikes it midway in the chest. (3) Weak and bleeding copiously, the stag attempts to escape; but the hunter pursues and takes possession of him without having to shoot a second time. (4) The hour is come now for a rest. The sportsman has reached a wood, in which date-bearing palms are intermingled with trees of a different kind. He fastens his game to one of them, and proceeds to the skinning and the disembowelling. Meanwhile, his attendant detaches the horses from the car, relieves them of their harness, and proceeds to feed them from a portable manger. The car, left to itself, is tilted back, and stands with its pole in the air. (5) Food and drink having been prepared and placed on two tables, or altars, the hunter, seated on a throne under the shadow of his umbrella, pours a libation to the G.o.ds. They, on their part, scent the feast and draw near, represented by the sun and moon--a winged disk, and a crescent embracing a full orb. The feast is also witnessed by a spirit of evil, in the shape of a huge baboon or cynocephalous ape, who from a cavern at the foot of a wooded mountain, whereon a stag and a hare are feeding, furtively surveys the ceremony.

(6) Remounting his chariot the hunter sets out on his return home, when the baboon quits his concealment, and rushes after him, threatening him with a huge stone. Hereupon a winged deity descends from heaven, and lifting into the air chariot, horses, charioteer, and hunter, enfolds them in an embrace and saves them. (7) The ape, baffled, pursues his way; the chariot is replaced on the earth. The hunter prepares his bow, places an arrow on the string, and hastily pursues his enemy, who is speedily overtaken and thrown to the ground by the horses. (8) The hunter dismounts, puts his foot upon the prostrate ape, and gives him the _coup de grace_ with a heavy axe or mace. A bird of prey hovers near, ready to descend upon the carcase. (9) The hero remounts his chariot, and returns to the castle or city which he left in the morning.[783]

We have now to return to the medallion which forms the centre of the cup. Within a circle of pearls or beads, similar to that separating the two zones, is a round s.p.a.ce about two inches in diameter, divided into two compartments by a horizontal line. In the upper part are contained three human figures, and the figure of a dog. At the extreme left is a prisoner with a beard and long hair that falls upon his shoulders. His entire body is naked. Behind him his two arms are brought together, tied by a cord, and then firmly attached to a post. His knees are bent, but do not reach the ground, and his feet are placed with their soles uppermost against the post at its base. The att.i.tude is one which implies extreme suffering.[784] In front of the prisoner, occupying the centre of the medallion, is the main figure of the upper compartment, a warrior, armed with a spear, who pursues the third figure, a fugitive, and seems to be thrusting his spear into the man's back. Both have long hair, but are beardless; and wear the _shenti_ for their sole garment.

Between the legs of the main figure is a dog of the jackal kind, which has his teeth fixed in the heels of the fugitive, and arrests his flight. Below, in the second compartment, are two figures only, a man and a dog. The man is prostrate, and seems to be crawling along the ground, the dog stands partly on him, and appears to be biting his left heel. The interpretation which M. Clermont-Ganneau gives to this entire scene lacks the probability which attaches to his explanation of the outer scene. He suggests that the prisoner is the hunter of the other scene, plundered and bound by his charioteer, who is hastening away, when he is seized by his master's dog and arrested in his flight.

The dog gnaws off his right foot and then attacks the left, while the fugitive, in order to escape his tormentor, has to crawl along the ground. But M. Clermont-Ganneau himself distrusts his interpretation,[785] while he has convinced no other scholar of its soundness. Judicious critics will be content to wait the further researches which he promises, whereby additional light may perhaps be thrown on this obscure matter.

In its artistic character the "cup of Praeneste" claims a high place among the works of art probably or certainly a.s.signable to the Phoenicians. The relief is high; the forms, especially the animal ones, are spirited and well-proportioned. The horses are especially good. As M. Clermont-Ganneau says, "their forms and their movements are indicated with a great deal of precision and truth."[786] They show also a fair amount of variety; they stand, they walk, they trot, they gallop at full speed, always truthfully and naturally. The stag, the hare, and the dog are likewise well portrayed; the ape has less merit; he is too human, too like a mere unkempt savage. The human forms are about upon a par with those of the a.s.syrians and Egyptians, which have evidently served for their models, the a.s.syrian for the outer zone, the Egyptian for the medallion. The encircling snake, as already observed, is a masterpiece.

There is no better drawing in any of the other _paterae_. At best they equal, they certainly do not surpa.s.s, the Praenestine specimen.

The intaglios of the Phoenicians are either on cylinders or on gems, and can rarely be distinguished, unless they are accompanied by an inscription, from the similar objects obtained in such abundance from Babylonia and a.s.syria. They reproduce, with scarcely any variation, the mythological figures and emblems native to those countries--the forms of G.o.ds and priests, of spirits of good and evil, of kings contending with lions, of sacred trees, winged circles, and the like--scarcely ever introducing any novelty. The greater number of the cylinders are very rudely cut. They have been worked simply by means of a splinter of obsidian,[787] and are barbarous in execution, though interesting to the student of archaic art. The subjoined are specimens. No. 1 represents a four-winged genius of the a.s.syrian type, bearded, and clad in a short tunic and a long robe, seizing with either hand a winged griffin, or spirit of evil, and reducing them to subjection. In the field, towards the two upper corners, are the same four Phoenician characters, twice repeated; they designate, no doubt, the owner of the cylinder, which he probably used as a seal, and are read as _Harkhu_.[788] No. 2, which is better cut than No. 1, represents a king of the Persian (Achaemenian) type,[789] who stands between two rampant lions, and seizes each by the forelock. Behind the second lion is a sacred tree of a type that is not uncommon; and behind the tree is an inscription, which has been read as _l'Baletan_--i.e. "(the seal) of Baletan."[790] This cylinder was found recently in the Lebanon.[791] Nos. 3 and 4 come from Salamis in Cyprus, where they were found by M. Alexandre Di Cesnola,[792] the brother of the General. No. 3 represents a robed figure holding two nondescript animals by the hind legs; the creatures writhe in his grasp, and turn their heads towards him, as though wishing to bite. The remainder of the field is filed with detached objects, scattered at random--two human forms, a griffin, two heads of oxen, a bird, two b.a.l.l.s, three crosses, a sceptre, &c. The forms are, all of them, very rudely traced. No. 4 resembles in general character No. 3, but is even ruder. Three similar robed figures hold each other's hands and perhaps execute a dance around some religious object. Two heads of oxen or cows, with a disk between their horns, occupy the s.p.a.ces intervening between the upper parts of the figures. In the lower portion of the field, the sun and moon fill the middle s.p.a.ce, the sun, moon, and five planets the s.p.a.ces to the right and to the left. Another cylinder from the same place (No. 5)[793]

is tolerably well designed and engraved. It shows us two persons, a man and a woman, in the act of presenting a dove to a female, who is probably the G.o.ddess Astarte, and who willingly receives it at their hands. Behind Astarte a seated lion echoes the approval of the G.o.ddess by raising one of his fore paws, while a griffin, who wholly disapproves of the offering, turns his back in disgust.

On another cylinder, which is certainly Phoenician, a rude representation of a sacred tree occupies the central position. To the left stands a worshipper with the right hand upraised, clad in a very common a.s.syrian dress. Over the sacred tree is a coa.r.s.e specimen of the winged circle or disk, with head and tail, and fluttering ends of ribbon.[794] On either side stand two winged genii, dressed in long robes, and tall stiff caps, such as are often seen on the heads of Persians in the Persepolitan sculptures, and on the darics.[795] In the field is a Phoenician inscription, which is read as {...} or _Irphael ben Hor'adad_, "Irphael, the son of Horadad."[796]

Phoenician cylinders are in gla.s.s, green serpentine, cornaline, black haemat.i.te, steat.i.te, and green jasper.[797] They are scratched rather than deeply cut, and cannot be said ever to attain to any considerable artistic beauty. Those which have been here given are among the best; and they certainly fall short, both in design and workmanship, of many a.s.syrian, Babylonian, and even Persian specimens.

The gems, on the other hand, are in many cases quite equal to the a.s.syrian. There is one of special merit, which has been p.r.o.nounced "an exquisite specimen of Phoenician lapidary art,"[798] figured by General Di Cesnola in his "Cyprus."[799] Two men in regular a.s.syrian costume, standing on either side of a "Sacred Tree," grasp, each of them, a branch of it. Above is a winged circle, with the wings curved so as to suit the shape of the gem. Below is an ornament, which is six times repeated, like the blossom of a flower; and below this is a trelliswork.

The whole is cut deeply and sharply. Its Phoenician authorship is a.s.sured by its being an almost exact repet.i.tion of a group upon the silver patera found at Amathus.[7100]

Of other gems equally well engraved the following are specimens. No. 1 is a scarab of cornaline found by M. de Vogue in Phoenicia Proper.[7101]

Two male figures in a.s.syrian costume face each other, their advanced feet crossing. Both hold in one hand the _ankh_ or symbol of life. One has in the left hand what is thought to be a lotus blossom. The other has the right hand raised in the usual att.i.tude of adoration. Between the figures, wherever there was s.p.a.ce for them, are Phoenician characters, which are read as {...}, or _l'Beka_--i.e. "(the seal) of Beka."[7102] No. 2, which has been set in a ring, is one of the many scarabs brought by General Di Cesnola from Cyprus.[7103] It contains the figure of a hind, suckling her fawn, and is very delicately carved. The hind, however, is in an impossible att.i.tude, the forelegs being thrown forwards, probably in order to prevent them from interfering with the figure of the fawn. Above the hind is an inscription, which appears to be in the Cyprian character, and which gives (probably) the name of the owner. No. 3 introduces us to domestic life. A grand lady, of Tyre perhaps or Sidon,[7104] by name Akhot-melek, seated upon an elegant throne, with her feet upon a footstool, and dressed in a long robe which envelops the whole of her figure, receives at the hands of a female attendant a bowl or wine-cup, which the latter has just filled from an _oenochoe_ of elegant shape, still held in her left hand. The attendant wears a striped robe reaching to the feet, and over it a tunic fastened round the waist with a belt. Her hair flows down on her shoulders, while that of her mistress is confined by a band, from which depends an ample veil, enveloping the cheeks, the back of the head, and the chin. We are told that such veils are still worn in the Phoenician country.[7105] An inscription, in a late form of the Phoenician character, surrounds the two figures, and is read as {...} or _l'Akhot-melek ishat Joshua(?)_--i.e. "(the seal) of Akhot-melek, wife of Joshua."[7106] No.

4 contains the figure of a lion, cut with much spirit. MM. Perrot et Chipiez say of it--"Among the numerous representations of lions that have been discovered in Phoenicia, there is none which can be placed on a par with that on the scarab bearing the name of 'Ashenel: small as it is, this lion has something of the physiognomy of those magnificent ones which we have borrowed from the bas-reliefs of the a.s.syrians. Still, the intaglio is in other respects decidedly Phoenician and not a.s.syrian.

Observe, for instance, the beetle with the wings expanded, which fills up the lower part of the field; this is a _motive_ borrowed from Egypt, which a Ninevite lapidary would certainly not have put in such a place."[7107] The Phoenician inscription takes away all doubt as to the nationality. It reads as {...}, or _'Ashenel_, and no doubt designates the owner. No. 5 is beautifully engraved on a chalcedony. It represents a stag attacked by a griffin, which has jumped suddenly on its back. The drawing is excellent, both of the real and of the imaginary animal, and leaves nothing to be desired. The inscription, which occupies the upper part of the field to the right, is in Cyprian characters, and shows that the gem was the signet of a certain Akestodaros.[7108]

There are some Phoenician gems which are interesting from their subject matter without being especially good as works of art. One of these contains a representation of two men fighting.[7109] Both are armed with two spears, and both carry round shields or bucklers. The warrior to the right wears a conical helmet, and is thought to be a native Cyprian;[7110] he carries a shield without an _umbo_ or boss. His adversary on the left wears a loose cap, or hood, the {pilos apages} of Herodotus,[7111] and has a prominent _umbo_ in the middle of his shield.

He probably represents a Persian, and appears to have received a wound from his antagonist, which is causing him to sink to the ground. This gem was found at Curium in Cyprus by General Di Cesnola.

Another, found at the same place, exhibits a warrior, or a hunter, going forth to battle or to the chase in his chariot.[7112] A large quiver full of arrows is slung at each side of his car. The warrior and his horse (one only is seen) are rudely drawn, but the chariot is very distinctly made out, and has a wheel of an a.s.syrian type. The Salaminians of Cyprus were famous for their war chariots,[7113] of which this may be a representation.

The island of Sardinia has furnished a prodigious number of Phoenician seals. A single private collection contains as many as six hundred.[7114] They are mostly scarabs, and the type of them is mostly Egyptian. Sometimes they bear the forms of Egyptian G.o.ds, as Horus, or Thoth, or Anubis;[7115] sometimes cartouches with the names of kings as Menkara, Thothmes III., Amenophis III., Seti I., &c.;[7116] sometimes mere sacred emblems, as the winged uraeus, the disk between two uraei,[7117] and the like. Occasionally there is the representation of a scene with which the Egyptian bas-reliefs have made us familiar:[7118]

a warrior has caught hold of his vanquished and kneeling enemy by a lock of his hair, and threatens him with an axe or mace, which he brandishes above his head. Or a lion takes the place of the captive man, and is menaced in the same way. Human figures struggling with lions, and lions killing wild bulls, are also common;[7119] but the type in these cases is less Egyptian than Oriental.

Phoenician painting was not, like Egyptian, displayed upon the walls of temples, nor was it, like Greek, the production of actual pictures for the decoration of houses. It was employed to a certain extent on statues, not so as to cover the entire figure, but with delicacy and discretion, for the marking out of certain details, and the emphasising of certain parts of the design.[7120] The hair and beard were often painted a brownish red; the pupil of the eye was marked by means of colour; and robes had often a border of red or blue. Statuettes were tinted more generally, whole vestments being sometimes coloured red or green,[7121] and a gay effect being produced, which is said to be agreeable and harmonious.[7122] But the nearest approach to painting proper which was made by the Phoenicians was upon their vessels in clay, in terra-cotta, and in alabaster. Here, though, the ornamentation was sometimes merely by patterns or bands,[7123] there were occasionally real attempts to depict animal and human forms, which, if not very successful, still possess considerable interest. The n.o.ble amphora from Curium, figured by Di Cesnola,[7124] contains above forty representations of horses, and nearly as many of birds. The shape of the horse is exceedingly conventional, the whole form being attenuated in the highest degree; but the animal is drawn with spirit, and the departure from nature is clearly intentional. In the animals that are pasturing, the general att.i.tude is well seized; the movement is exactly that of the horse when he stretches his neck to reach and crop the gra.s.s.[7125] In the birds there is equal spirit and greater truth to nature: they are in various att.i.tudes, preening their feathers, pecking the ground, standing with head erect in the usual way. Other vases contain figures of cows, goats, stags, fish and birds of various kinds, while one has an attempt at a hippopotamus. The attempts to represent the human form are certainly not happy; they remind us of the more ambitious efforts of Chinese and j.a.panese art.

CHAPTER VIII--INDUSTRIAL ART AND MANUFACTURES

Phoenician textile fabrics, embroidered or dyed--Account of the chief Phoenician dye--Mollusks from which the purple was obtained--Mode of obtaining them--Mode of procuring the dye from them--Process of dyeing--Variety of the tints-- Manufacture of gla.s.s--Story of its invention--Three kinds of Phoenician gla.s.s--1. Transparent colourless gla.s.s--2. Semi- transparent coloured gla.s.s--3. Opaque gla.s.s, much like porcelain--Description of objects in gla.s.s--Methods pursued in the manufacture--Phoenician ceramic art--Earliest specimens--Vases with geometrical designs--Incised patterning--Later efforts--Use of enamel--Great amphora of Curium--Phoenician ceramic art disappointing--Ordinary metallurgy--Implements--Weapons--Toilet articles--Lamp- stands and tripods--Works in iron and lead.

Phoenicia was celebrated from a remote antiquity for the manufacture of textile fabrics. The materials which she employed for them were wool, linen yarn, perhaps cotton, and, in the later period of her commercial prosperity, silk. The "white wool" of Syria was supplied to her in abundance by the merchants of Damascus,[81] and wool of lambs, rams, and goats seems also to have been furnished by the more distant parts of Arabia.[82] Linen yarn may have been imported from Egypt, where it was largely manufactured, and was of excellent quality;[83] while raw silk is said to have been "brought to Tyre and Berytus by the Persian merchants, and there both dyed and woven into cloaks."[84] The price of silk was very high, and it was customary in Phoenicia to intermix the precious material either with linen or with cotton;[85] as is still done to a certain extent in modern times. It is perhaps doubtful whether, so far as the mere fabric of stuffs was concerned, the products of the Phoenician looms were at all superior to those which Egypt and Babylonia furnished, much less to those which came from India, and pa.s.sed under the name of _Sindones_. Two things gave to the Phoenician stuffs that high reputation which caused them to be more sought for than any others; and these were, first, the brilliancy and beauty of their colours, and, secondly, the delicacy with which they were in many instances embroidered. We have not much trace of Phoenician embroidery on the representations of dresses that have come down to us; but the testimony of the ancients is unimpeachable,[86] and we may regard it as certain that the art of embroidery, known at a very early date to the Hebrews,[87] was cultivated with great success by their Phoenician neighbours, and under their auspices reached a high point of perfection.

The character of the decoration is to be gathered from the extant statues and bas-reliefs, from the representations on paterae, on cups, dishes, and gems. There was a tendency to divide the surface to be ornamented into parallel stripes or bands, and to repeat along the line a single object, or two alternately. Rosettes, monsters of various kinds, winged globes with uraei, scarabs, sacred trees, and garlands or blossoms of the lotus were the ordinary "motives."[88] Occasionally human figures might be introduced, and animal forms even more frequently; but a stiff conventionalism prevailed, the same figures were constantly repeated, and the figures themselves had in few cases much beauty.

The brilliancy and beauty of the Phoenician coloured stuffs resulted from the excellency of their dyes. Here we touch a second branch of their industrial skill, for the princ.i.p.al dyes used were originally invented and continuously fabricated by the Phoenicians themselves, not imported from any foreign country. Nature had placed along the Phoenician coast, or at any rate along a great portion of it, an inexhaustible supply of certain sh.e.l.l-fish, or molluscs, which contained as a part of their internal economy a colouring fluid possessing remarkable, and indeed unique, qualities. Some account has been already given of the species which are thought to have been anciently most esteemed. They belong, mainly, to the two allied families of the _Murex_ and the _Buccinum_ or _Purpura_. Eight species of the former, and six of the latter, having their habitat in the Mediterranean, have been distinguished by some naturalists;[89] but two of the former only, and one of the latter, appear to have attracted the attention of the Phoenicians. The _Murex brandaris_ is now thought to have borne away the palm from all the others; it is extremely common upon the coast; and enormous heaps of the sh.e.l.ls are found, especially in the vicinity of Tyre, crushed and broken--the debris, as it would seem, cast away by the manufacturers of old.[810] The _Murex trunculus_, according to some, is just as abundant, in a crushed state, in the vicinity of Sidon, great banks of it existing, which are a hundred yards long and several yards thick.[811] It is a more spinous sh.e.l.l than the _M. brandaris_, having numerous projecting points, and a generally rough and rugged appearance.

The _Purpura_ employed seems to have been the _P. lapillus_, a mollusc not confined to the Mediterranean, but one which frequents also our own sh.o.r.es, and was once turned to some account in Ireland.[812] The varieties of the _P. lapillus_ differ considerably. Some are nearly white, some greyish, others buff striped with brown. Some, again, are smooth, others nearly as rough as the _Murex trunculus_. The _Helix ianthina_, which is included by certain writers among the molluscs employed for dyeing purposes by the Phoenicians,[813] is a sh.e.l.l of a completely different character, smooth and delicate, much resembling that of an ordinary land snail, and small compared to the others. It is not certain, however, that the _helix_, though abounding in the Eastern Mediterranean,[814] ever attracted the notice of the Phoenicians.

The molluscs needed by the Phoenician dyers were not obtained without some difficulty. As the Mediterranean has no tides, it does not uncover its sh.o.r.es at low water like the ocean, or invite man to rifle them. The coveted sh.e.l.l-fish, in most instances, preferred tolerably deep water; and to procure them in any quant.i.ty it was necessary that they should be fished up from a depth of some fathoms. The mode in which they were captured was the following. A long rope was let down into the sea, with baskets of reeds or rushes attached to it at intervals, constructed like our lobster-traps or eel-baskets, with an opening that yielded easily to pressure from the outside, but resisted pressure from the inside, and made escape, when once the trap was entered, impossible. The baskets were baited with mussels or frogs, both of which had great attractions for the _Purpurae_, and were seized and devoured with avidity. At the upper end of the rope was attached to a large piece of cork, which, even when the baskets were full, could not be drawn under water. It was usual to set the traps in the evening, and after waiting a night, or sometimes a night and a day, to draw them up to the surface, when they were generally found to be full of the coveted sh.e.l.l-fish.[815]

There were two ways in which the dye was obtained from the molluscs.

Sometimes a hole was broken in the side of the sh.e.l.l, and the fish taken out entire.[816] The _sac_ containing the colouring matter, which is a sort of vein, beginning at the head of the animal, and following the tortuous line of the body as it twists through the spiral sh.e.l.l,[817]

was then carefully extracted, either while the mollusc was still alive, or as soon as possible after death, as otherwise the quality of the dye was impaired. This plan was pursued more especially with the larger species of _Purpurae_, where the _sac_ attained a certain size; while with a smaller kinds a different method was followed. In their case no attempt was made to extract the _sac_, but the entire fish was crushed, together with its sh.e.l.l, and after salt had been added in the proportion of twenty ounces to a hundred pounds of the pulp, three days were allowed for maceration; heat was then applied, and when, by repeated skimming, the coa.r.s.e particles had been removed, the dye was left in a liquid state at the bottom. It was necessary that the vessel in which this final process took place should be of lead, and not of bronze or iron, since those metals gave the dye a disagreeable tinge.[818]

The colouring matter contained in the _sac_ of the _Purpurae_ is a liquid of a creamy consistency, and of a yellowish-white hue. On extraction, it is at first decidedly yellow; then after a little time it becomes green; and, finally, it settles into some shade of violet or purple. Chemical a.n.a.lysis has shown that in the case of the _Murex trunculus_ the liquid is composed of two elementary substances, one being cyanic acid, which is of a blue or azure colour, and the other being purpuric oxide, which is a bright red.[819] In the case of the _Murex brandaris_ one element only has been found: it is an oxide, which has received the name of _oxyde tyrien_.[820] No naturalist has as yet discovered what purpose the liquid serves in the economy, or in the preservation, of the animal; it is certainly not exuded, as sepia is by the cuttle-fish, to cloud the water in the neighbourhood, and enable the creature to conceal itself.

Concerning the Phoenician process of dyeing, the accounts which have come down to us are at once confused and incomplete. Nothing is said with respect to their employment of mordants, either acid or alkali, and yet it is almost certain that they must have used one or the other, or both, to fix the colours, and render them permanent. The _gamins_ of Tyre employ to this day mordants of each sort;[821] and an alkali derived from seaweed is mentioned by Pliny as made use of for fixing some dyes,[822] though he does not distinctly tell us that it was known to the Phoenicians or employed in fixing the purple. What we chiefly learn from this writer as to the dyeing process is[823]--first, that sometimes the liquid derived from the _murex_ only, sometimes that of the _purpura_ or _buccinum_ only, was applied to the material which it was wished to colour, while the most approved hue was produced by an application of both dyes separately. Secondly, we are told that the material, whatever it might be, was steeped in the dye for a certain number of hours, then withdrawn for a while, and afterwards returned to the vat and steeped a second time. The best Tyrian cloths were called _Dibapha_, i.e. "twice dipped;" and for the production of the true "Tyrian purple" it was necessary that the dye obtained from the _Buccinum_ should be used after that from the _Murex_ had been applied.

The _Murex_ alone gave a dye that was firm, and reckoned moderately good; but the _Buccinum_ alone was weak, and easily washed out.

The actual tints produced from the sh.e.l.l-fish appear to have ranged from blue, through violet and purple, to crimson and rose.[824] Scarlet could not be obtained, but was yielded by the cochineal insect. Even for the brighter sorts of crimson some admixture of the cochineal dye was necessary.[825] The violet tint was not generally greatly prized, though there was a period in the reign of Augustus when it was the fashion;[826] redder hues were commonly preferred; and the choicest of all is described as "a rich, dark purple, the colour of coagulated blood."[827] A deep crimson was also in request, and seems frequently to be intended when the term purple ({porphureos}, _purpureus_) is used.

A third industry greatly affected by the Phoenicians was the manufacture of gla.s.s. According to Pliny,[828] the first discovery of the substance was made upon the Phoenician coast by a body of sailors whom he no doubt regarded as Phoenicians. These persons had brought a cargo of natrum, which is the subcarbonate of soda, to the Syrian coast in the vicinity of Acre, and had gone ash.o.r.e at the mouth of the river Belus to cook their dinner. Having lighted a fire upon the sand, they looked about for some stones to prop up their cooking utensils, but finding none, or none convenient for the purpose, they bethought themselves of utilising for the occasion some of the blocks of natrum with which their ship was laden. These were placed close to the fire, and the heat was sufficient to melt a portion of one of them, which, mixing with the siliceous sand at its base, produced a stream of gla.s.s. There is nothing impossible or even very improbable in this story; but we may question whether the scene of it is rightly placed. Gla.s.s was manufactured in Egypt many centuries before the probable date of the Phoenician occupation of the Mediterranean coast; and, if the honour of the invention is to be a.s.signed to a particular people, the Egyptians would seem to have the best claim to it. The process of gla.s.s-blowing is represented in tombs at Beni Ha.s.san of very great antiquity,[829] and a specimen of Egyptian gla.s.s is in existence bearing the name of a Usurtasen, a king of the twelfth dynasty.[830] Natrum, moreover, was an Egyptian product, well known from a remote date, being the chief ingredient used in the various processes of embalming.[831] Phoenicia has no natrum, and not even any vegetable alkali readily procurable in considerable quant.i.ty. There _may have been_ an accidental discovery of gla.s.s in Phoenicia, but priority of discovery belonged almost certainly to Egypt; and it is, upon the whole, most probable that Phoenicia derived from Egypt her knowledge both of the substance itself and of the method of making it.

Still, there can be no doubt that the manufacture was one on which the Phoenicians eagerly seized, and which they carried out on a large scale and very successfully. Sidon, according to the ancients,[832] was the chief seat of the industry; but the best sand is found near Tyre, and both Tyre and Sarepta also seem to have been among the places where gla.s.sworks were early established. At Sarepta extensive banks of _debris_ have been found, consisting of broken gla.s.s of many colours, the waste beyond all doubt of a great gla.s.s manufactory;[833] at Tyre, the traces of the industry are less extensive,[834] but on the other hand we have historical evidence that it continued to be practised there into the middle ages.[835]

The gla.s.s produced by the Phoenicians was of three kinds: first, transparent colourless gla.s.s, which the eye could see through; secondly, translucent coloured gla.s.s, through which light could pa.s.s, though the eye could not penetrate it so as to distinguish objects; and, thirdly, opaque gla.s.s, scarcely distinguishable from porcelain. Transparent gla.s.s was employed for mirrors, round plates being cast, which made very tolerable looking-gla.s.ses,[836] when covered at the back by thin sheets of metal, and also for common objects, such as vases, urns, bottles, and jugs, which have been yielded in abundance by tombs of a somewhat late date in Cyprus.[837] No great store, however, seems to have been set upon transparency, in which the Oriental eye saw no beauty; and the objects which modern research has recovered under this head at Tyre, in Cyprus, and elsewhere, seem the work of comparatively rude artists, and have little aesthetic merit. The shapes, however, are not inelegant.

The most beautiful of the objects in gla.s.s produced by the Phoenicians are the translucent or semi-transparent vessels of different kinds, most of them variously coloured, which have been found in Cyprus, at Camirus in Rhodes, and on the Syrian coast, near Beyrout and elsewhere.[838]

These comprise small flasks or bottles, from three to six inches long, probably intended to contain perfumes; small jugs (oenochoae) from three inches in height to five inches; vases of about the same size; amphorae pointed at the lower extremity; and other varieties. They are coloured, generally, either in longitudinal or in horizontal stripes and bands; but the bands often deviate from the straight line into zig-zags, which are always more or less irregular, like the zig-zags of the Norman builders, while sometimes they are deflected into crescents, or other curves, as particularly one resembling a willow-leaf. The colours are not very vivid, but are pleasing and well-contrasted; they are chiefly five--white, blue, yellow, green, and a purplish brown. Red scarcely appears, except in a very pale, pinkish form; and even in this form it is uncommon. Blue, on the other hand, is greatly affected, being sometimes used in the patterns, often taken for the ground, and occasionally, in two tints, forming both groundwork and ornamentation.[839] It is not often that more than three hues are found on the same vessel, and sometimes the hues employed are only two. There are instances, however, and very admirable instances, of the employment, on a single vessel, of four hues.[840]

The colours were obtained, commonly, at any rate, from metallic oxides.

The ordinary blue employed is cobalt, though it is suspected that there was an occasional use of copper. Copper certainly furnished the greens, while manganese gave the brown, which shades off into purple and into black. The beautiful milky white which forms the ground tint of some vases is believed to have been derived from the oxide of tin, or else from phosphate of chalk. It is said that the colouring matter of the patterns does not extend through the entire thickness of the gla.s.s, but lies only on the outer surface, being a later addition to the vessels as first made.

Translucent coloured gla.s.s was also largely produced by the Phoenicians for beads and other ornaments, and also for the imitation of gems. The huge emerald of which Herodotus speaks,[841] as "shining with great brilliancy at night" in the temple of Melkarth at Tyre, was probably a gla.s.s cylinder, into which a lamb was introduced by the priests. In Phoenician times the pretended stone is quite as often a gla.s.s paste as a real gem, and the case is the same with the scarabs so largely used as seals. In Phoenician necklaces, gla.s.s beads alternate frequently with real agates, onyxes, and crystals; while sometimes gla.s.s in various shapes is the only material employed. A necklace found at Tharros in Sardinia, and now in the collection of the Louvre, which is believed to be of Phoenician manufacture, is composed of above forty beads, two cylinders, four pendants representing heads of bulls, and one representing the face of a man, all of gla.s.s.[842] Another, found by M.

Renan in Phoenicia itself, is made up of gla.s.s beads imitating pearls, intermixed with beads of cornaline and agate.[843]

Another cla.s.s of gla.s.s ornaments consists of small flat _plaques_ or plates, pierced with a number of fine holes, which appear to have been sewn upon garments. These are usually patterned, sometimes with spirals, sometimes with rosettes, occasionally, though rarely, with figures.

Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez represent one in their great work upon ancient art,[844] where almost the entire field is occupied by a winged griffin, standing upright on its two hind legs, and crowned with a striped cap, or turban.

Phoenician opaque gla.s.s is comparatively rare, and possesses but little beauty. It was rendered opaque in various ways. Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez found that in a statue of Serapis, which they a.n.a.lysed, the gla.s.s was mixed with bronze in the proportions of ten to three. An opaque material of a handsome red colour was thus produced, which was heavy and exceedingly hard.[845]

The methods pursued by the Phoenician gla.s.s-manufacturers were probably much the same as those which are still employed for the production of similar objects, and involved the use of similar implements, as the blowpipe, the lathe, and the graver. The materials having been procured, they were fused together in a crucible or melting-pot by the heat of a powerful furnace. A blowpipe was then introduced into the viscous ma.s.s, a portion of which readily attached itself to the implement, and so much gla.s.s was withdrawn as was deemed sufficient for the object which it was designed to manufacture. The blower then set to work, and blew hard into the pipe until the gla.s.s at its lower extremity began to expand and gradually took a pear-shaped form, the material partially coolling and hardening, but still retaining a good deal of softness and pliability.

While in this condition, it was detached from the pipe, and modelled with pincers or with the hand into the shape required, after which it was polished, and perhaps sometimes cut by means of the turning-lathe.

Sand and emery were the chief polishers, and by their help a surface was produced, with which little fault could be found, being smooth, uniform, and brilliant. Thus the vessel was formed, and if no further ornament was required, the manufacture was complete--a jug, vase, alabastron, amphora, was produced, either transparent or of a single uniform tint, which might be white, blue, brown, green, &c., according to the particular oxide which had been thrown, with the silica and alkali, into the crucible. Generally, however, the manufacturer was not content with so simple a product: he aimed not merely at utility, but at beauty, and proceeded to adorn the work of his hands--whatever it was--with patterns which were for the most part in good taste and highly pleasing. These patterns he first scratched on the outer surface of the vessel with a graving tool; then, when he had made his depressions deep enough, he took threads of coloured gla.s.s, and having filled up with the threads the depressions which he had made, he subjected the vessel once more to such a heat that the threads were fused, and attached themselves to the ground on which they had been laid. In melting they would generally more than fill the cavities, overflowing them, and protruding from them, whence it was for the most part necessary to repeat the polishing process, and to bring by means of abrasion the entire surface once more into uniformity. There are cases where this has been incompletely done and where the patterns project; there are others where the threads have never thoroughly melted into the ground, and where in the course of time they have partially detached themselves from it; but in general the fusion and subsequent polishing have been all that could be wished, and the patterns are perfectly level with the ground and seem one with it.[846]

The running of liquid gla.s.s into moulds, so common nowadays, does not seem to have been practised by the Phoenicians, perhaps because their furnaces were not sufficiently hot to produce complete liquefaction.

But--if this was so--the pressure of the viscous material into moulds cannot have been unknown, since we have evidence of the existence of moulds,[847] and there are cases where several specimens of an object have evidently issued from a single matrix.[848] Beads, cylinders, pendants, scarabs, amulets, were probably, all of them, made in this way, sometimes in translucent, sometimes in semi-opaque gla.s.s, as perhaps were also the _plaques_ which have been already described.

The ceramic art of the Phoenicians is not very remarkable. Phoenicia Proper is deficient in clay of a superior character, and it was probably a very ordinary and coa.r.s.e kind of pottery that the Phoenician merchants of early times exported regularly in their trading voyages, both inside and outside the Mediterranean. We hear of their carrying this cheap earthenware northwards to the Ca.s.siterides or Scilly Islands,[849] and southwards to the isle of Cerne, which is probably Arguin, on the West African coast;[850] nor can we doubt that they supplied it also to the uncivilised races of the Mediterranean--the Illyrians, Ligurians, Sicels, Sards, Corsicans, Spaniards, Libyans. But the fragile nature of the material, and its slight value, have caused its entire disappearance in the course of centuries, unless in the shape of small fragments; nor are these fragments readily distinguishable from those whose origin is different. Phoenicia Proper has furnished no earthen vessels, either whole or in pieces, that can be a.s.signed to a time earlier than the Greco-Roman period,[851] nor have any such vessels been found hitherto on Phoenician sites either in Sardinia, or in Corsica, or in Spain, or Africa, or Sicily, or Malta, or Gozzo. The only places that have hitherto furnished earthen vases or other vessels presumably Phoenician are Jerusalem, Camirus in Rhodes, and Cyprus; and it is from the specimens found at these sites that we must form our estimate of the Phoenician pottery.

The earliest specimens are of a moderately good clay, unglazed. They are regular in shape, being made by the help of a wheel, and for the most part not inelegant, though they cannot be said to possess any remarkable beauty. Many are without ornament of any kind, being apparently mere jars, used for the storing away of oil or wine; they have sometimes painted or scratched upon them, in Phoenician characters, the name of the maker or owner. A few rise somewhat above the ordinary level, having handles of some elegance, and being painted with designs and patterns, generally of a geometrical character. A vase about six inches high, found at Jerusalem, has, between horizontal bands, a series of geometric patterns, squares, octagons, lozenges, triangles, pleasingly arranged, and painted in brown upon a ground which is of a dull grey. At the top are two rude handles, between which runs a line of zig-zag, while at the bottom is a sort of stand or base. The shape is heavy and inelegant.[852]