Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/51

ICONIC SCULPTURE. 29 influence. The Sidonian by whom it was made went to Egypt for a costume, and thus gave to his client the outward appear- ance of one of those great Theban conquerors by whom Syria was so often overrun. The head is wanting. Most likely it was crowned by one of those lofty caps worn by Egyptian kings ; we find such a head-dress upon a gem in the Museum of Florence, on which the name of Abibaal is engraved in Phoenician letters. In the figure accompanying this inscription, we ought, perhaps, to recognize a contemporary of David, namely, that King of Tyre who, the Bible tells us, was the father of Hiram. 1 The figure is standing ; it wears the schenti and a crown like that of Pharaoh, and holds a sceptre tipped with a disk and reversed crescent. This symbol is repeated on the field. It is possible that both this intaglio and the torso from Sarepta date from the time of the first kings of Judah. It may be suggested that the princes of Phoenicia never wore any such costume as this, which is very unlike anything we find in monuments of a later, and perhaps, more certain date. May not the sculptor have given the royal uniform of Pharaoh to these petty sovereigns as a piece of flattery ? just as, in later years, the sculptors of Rome used to make their imperial statues nude, to bring their emperors into the same class as gods and heroes ? There is, no doubt, some truth in this idea. The Phoenician kings caused themselves to be represented with the uraeus on their brows and on their robes in order to be like Pharaoh. But it would seem that towards the time when Thothmes and Rameses sat on the throne of Egypt, the schenti, or short petticoat about the loins, was the ordinary costume on the Syrian coast. Upon Egyptian monuments the natives of Keft, in which all Egypt- ologists agree to recognize the Phoenicia of classic writers, 2 are always figured as wearing the schenti. As an instance we may name the paintings in the tomb of Rhekmara, at Thebes, where we see them bringing gifts to Thothmes III. (Fig. 27). The garment in question is here shown as white in the ground with a decoration of brilliant colours ; in front a wide band hangs down beneath its lower edge. High boots with upturned toes 1 DE LUYNES, Niimismatique des Safrapies, 1849, p. 69, plate xiii. N'o. r. We reproduce this intaglio in our chapter on engraved gems. 2 FR. LENORMANT, Histoire ancienne de ? Orient, 9th edition, vol. ii. p. 173.