Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/268

24^ HISTORY or ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. As for things meant for use, such as jewels and earthenware vessels, we shall find another opportunity for describing them. The cemetery of Tharros has furnished several fine vases painted in the Greek style, and a considerable number of black glaze vases which seem to be of Etruscan manufacture. 1 But these are fewer in number than the vessels of grey pottery decorated with stars and parallel bands of red paint. This decoration recalls that of the Cypriot vases, which the vessels on which it is used also greatly resemble in shape." Asiatic art is again suggested in the motives and executive details of the jewelry. The more closely we examine the objects found in the grave- yards of Sardinia the more certain do we become of the profound influence exercised by the Shemites of Yestern Asia over their production. Sardinia became, and remained for ages, more thoroughly Phoenician even than Cyprus, in spite of the situation of the latter island close to the coast of Syria. The Greeks never won a footing in it. About the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. commerce may, indeed, have introduced a few objects of luxury bought in Greece or Etruria ; but such imports were few and far between, and had little or no effect upon the tastes and habits of the Sardinian population. All that the latter had of civilization, of art and industry, they drew, first from Tyre, secondly from Carthage, and these intimate relations endured for a thousand years. The important place we have here given to Sardinia need, therefore, cause no surprise ; she would, indeed, have filled a much larger space in our inquiry had we possessed more copious and more accurate information. Down to the Roman conquest Sardinia was hardly more than a dependency, a prolongation, so to speak, of Asiatic Phoenicia. And this character she only lost very slowly under the rule of the Roman praetors. Even now, we are told, human head. It is published by EUTING, in plate xxxvii. of the important study contributed by him to the Mcnwires de r Academic de Saint-Petersbourg, seventh series, vol. xvii. An object of the same kind was found at Malta (P,is, La Sai-Jt-gna, &c., p. 88, No. 3). RKNAX mentions some very similar objects found at Saida. " On these," he says, " Hebrew characters of a debased period may be read ; they repeat the names of the deity, probably with some Cabalistic intention" (Mission, p. 393). Even at Rome objects very like these, at lenst in external shape, have been discovered (Bullet tino di Correspondenza Archeologico, 1880, p. 114). Their use seems therefore to have been very widespread, and to have lasted very long. 1 PAIS, La Sardegna, p. 90 and No. 3. - Ibid. p. 90.