Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/26

8 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ea. dreaded as an instrument of destruction and disorder in the com- munities against which the ambitious designs of Carthage happened at the time to be directed ; and he emerged from his strongholds only to plunder, set fire and otherwise destroy whatever came to his hand. The sharpest contests, however, have intervals of tran- quillity and enforced truces, when the novel spectacle presented by the resources and appliances of civilized life, must have struck his imagination and awakened in him a desire to imitate or adopt some of them. Certain facts, the bearing of which was at first imperfectly understood, can only be explained by the light of some such understanding be- tween the two groups. In the interior of the island, where the Phoenicians had no settle- ments, on many a point where the natives pre- served their independence down to the Roman empire, scores of statuettes of deities, men and animals, arms, implements, model boats, pottery, and other objects in bronze have been un- earthed ; which from the outset were recog- nized as differing from similar works of the Roman period met in the same region, both in conception and workmanship. All these architectural and sculptured remains exhibit features that in some respects recall Phoenician art, and include, besides the objects enumerated above, those towers of singular appearance called nuraghs, as well as figures found in the debris on the ground immediately surrounding them. But little was known of Phoenician civilization some forty years ago, for the attention of savants had not yet been directed to study it in the ruins of Syria, one of its best authenticated centres, which retains so much that is unexplored, so that the otherwise eminent archaeologist, Gerhard, assigned a Phoenician origin to the nuraghs and figures under consideration ; but recent discoveries have shown the fallacy of the views put forth by the German student. 1 Owing Fig. 3. — Spurious Sardi- nian bronze. La Mar- mora, Voyage, ii. Atlas, Plate XVIII., Fig. 3. 1 Ueber die Kunst der Phœnicier (1856), and in das Gesanwielta Akademisch e Abhandlungen, published by the Berlin Academy, at Plates xli., xliv., xlv., will be found reproductions of nuraghs and Sardinian figures, including a reprint of Gerhard's paper, in which the following words occur: "I have no hesitation in declaring that I consider the numerous round edifices of Sardinia to be monuments