Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/443

FURNITURE AND OBJECTS OF THE TOILET. 403 Polyphemus, or at least, whether the Phoenicians had not some popular tale of which Homer made use. The use of ivory allowed of a vast number of effects ; it was inlaid in wood, 1 it was painted and gilded ; it afforded a matrix in which gems and enamels could be set. 2 Amulets and pendants were also made of it. Among the things from Tharros in the British Museum there are a number of very small figurines in ivory, Hathor, Bast, Horus, winged syhinxes, etc. They each have a small suspension hole at the top. Rooms and their furniture were adorned with large ivory plaques and the chips made in cutting them were used for small objects. On the whole the consumption must have been great. For a long time ivory must have been carried westwards only in the form of manufactured objects, but as the years passed on the rough material must have been imported by the Greeks and Italiots and worked at home. In another bucket- shaped vessel from a tomb at Veii, we should willingly recognize a work executed on the soil of Etruria. 3 There are no figures, the field is divided into vertical compartments by bronze cloisons filled in with amber. It is in this use of amber that we see an Etruscan hand ; that material was practically unknown to the old Oriental civilisation ; we find no trace of it either in Egypt or Assyria. On the other hand it was commonly employed throughout antiquity by the tribes of the west. Homer mentions indeed the sale of a necklace of amber and gold beads by a Phoenician merchant. 4 Nothing of the kind has been found, however, either in Syria or Cyprus. 5 On the other hand it constantly occurs in 1 EZEKIEL, xxvii. 6. 2 From the Assyrian excavations many ivories have been obtained in which these enrichments were still in place (Art in Chaldita and Assyria, Vol. I. p. 301). 3 It is described by GARRUCCI in the article above cited (ArcJueolcgia, vol. xli. p. 197, plate iv. fig. 4). 4 HOMER, Odyssty, xv. 460. See the apparently conclusive reasons given by Helbig for taking the poet to mean amber, and not the alloy of gold and silver, in the following passage : /ACTO. 8' rjXfKTpoiviv lepro (Das Homerische Epos aus dtn Denkmalern erlautert, p. 83, 84). HELBIG agrees with LEPSIUS in thinking that a distinction should be drawn between 6 ^AcK-rpos, electrum, and TO ^Xorrpoi', amber ; f/XeKTpa are grains of amber. 5 MM. RENAN and Louis ni CESNOLA say not a word of amber, while M. ALEX- ANDRF. DI CESNOLA declares in so many words that he never encountered any (SaJamiru'a, pp. 28, 29).