Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/200

178 HISTORY OF ART IN PHCENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. recognize this deity in the figures covered sometimes with the pschent or a cloth cap, sometimes with a garland of leaves, of which we have already given more than one example ; ' but most of these, when entire, hold in their hands some such object as a bird, a bull's head, a flower, the branch of a tree, suggesting worshippers rather than gods. And their attitudes confirm this interpretation ; there is at least one statue of the series by whi ch a praying Mussulman is vividly suggested (Fig. 74.) It is impossible to say what name should be given to the personage represented in a small terra-cotta found in the cemetery at Alambra, near Dali (Fig. 116). He holds a sceptre and stands behind an altar, at the back of a niche adorned with the Phoenician symbol of a disk and crescent. The masonry of the pavilion is indicated by alternate stripes of black and red paint. The most FlG. 116. God crowned with a tiara. Height 5 J inches. Louvre. curious thing about this idol is its horned conical cap. In this we see, no doubt, a motive borrowed from Mesopotamia and a new proof of the influence over Cypriot art wielded at one time by Assyria. 2 to a triad, which must have been the triad of Tyre, composed of Astarte-Aphrodite, Melkart-Heracles, and Reshef-Apollo (Gazette archeologique, 1878, p. 194, in an article entitled, Statues iconiques du temple tfAthienau}. The hypothesis seems probable enough ; it is not within the scope of our work to dispute or attempt to confirm it. It belongs mainly to the history of religious, while our concern is with that of plastic art. CECCALDI (Monuments antiques de Cyfre, p. 75) reproduces a " sacrifice and dance to Apollo," but it is a debased production. 1 A. ENMANN, On the Origin of the Cypriote Syllabary (in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology, 1882-3, pp. 115-116. 2 HEUZEY, Catalogue, p. 151.