Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/293

PHCENICIAN CERAMICS. 269 which we call geometrical. We might have foreseen this result, for if there be one fact more sure than another about Phoenicia it is that everything we find there had previously existed in Egypt or Mesopotamia. Phoenicia invented no types and motives for herself. Now the common unglazed red pottery of Egypt is almost always without ornament, while that of Mesopotamia hardly shows a motive that is not geometrical ; with the exception of a few fragments on which the figures of birds and lions may be traced, there is nothing to show that the decorator ever felt any desire to break the mono- tony of his work by introducing animal forms. We are as yet without any proof that in this respect the Phoenician potters fol- lowed those of Nineveh. Such proof may of course come to light some day, but at present we may conclude that in Syria nothing but geometrical ornament was used upon the common unglazed FIG. 205. Terra-cotta disk. From Cre=pi.' pottery. On one of those bowls which are commonly allowed to be Phoenician (Fig. 206) we see two vases or jugs standing upon a table. It is difficult to decide whether they are of metal or earthen- ware, but in any case their ornament is purely geometrical. But the Phoenicians had another kind of pottery, more carefully manufactured and, no doubt, more expensive, I mean that which both by its appearance and constitution belongs to the same class as what is called Egyptian faience. 2 In this manufacture the surface decoration is not given by colours spread upon the clay with the brush, but by powdered glass variously coloured by metallic oxides. These powders are mixed with gum and spread upon the 1 Catalogo, plate E, figs, i and 2. 2 See Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. II. pp. 369'373-