The Greatest Empires & Civilizations of the Ancient East: Egypt, Babylon, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Assyria, Media, Chaldea, Persia, Parthia & Sasanian Empire. George Rawlinson
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flight from left to right across the scene.
A bronze bowl, discovered at Idalium (Dali) in Cyprus,770 is, like these specimens, Egyptian in its motive, but is more ambitious in that it introduces the human form. On a throne of state sits a goddess, draped in a long striped robe which reaches to the feet, and holding a lotus flower in her right hand and a ball or apple in her left. Bracelets adorn her wrists and anklets her feet. Behind her stands a band of three instrumental performers, all of them women, and somewhat variously costumed: the first plays the double pipe, the second performs on a lyre or harp, the third beats the tambourine. In front of the goddess is a table or altar, to which a votary approaches bringing offerings. Then follows another table whereon two vases are set; finally comes a procession of six females, holding hands, who are perhaps performing a solemn dance. Behind them are a row of lotus pillars, the supports probably of a temple, wherein the scene takes place. The human forms in this design are ill-proportioned, and very rudely traced. The heads and hands are too large, the faces are grotesque, and the figures wholly devoid of grace. Mimetic art is seen clearly in its first stage, and the Phoenician artist who has designed the bowl has probably fallen short of his Egyptian models.
Animal and human forms intermixed occur on a silver patera found at Athiénau, which is more complicated and elaborate than the objects hitherto described, but which is, like them, strikingly Egyptian.771 A small rosette occupies the centre; round it is, apparently, a pond or lake, in which fish are disporting themselves; but the fish are intermixed with animal and human forms—a naked female stretches out her arms after a cow; a man clothed in a shenti endeavours to seize a horse. The pond is edged by papyrus plants, which are alternately in blossom and in bud. A zigzag barrier separates this central ornamentation from that of the outer part of the dish. Here a marsh is represented in which are growing papyrus and other water-plants. Aquatic birds swim on the surface or fly through the tall reeds. Four boats form the chief objects in this part of the field. In one, which is fashioned like a bird, there sits under a canopy a grandee, with an attendant in front and a rower or steersman at the stern. Behind him, in a second boat, is a band consisting of three undraped females, one of whom plays a harp and another a tambourine, while the third keeps time with her hands. A man with a punt-pole directs the vessel from the stern. In the third boat, which has a freight of wine-jars, a cook is preparing a bird for the grandee’s supper. The fourth boat contains three rowers, who possibly have the vessel of the grandee in tow. The first and second boats are separated by two prancing steeds, the second and third by two cows, the third and fourth by a chariot and pair. It is difficult to explain the mixture of the aquatic with the terrestrial in this piece; but perhaps the grandee is intended to be enjoying himself in a marshy part of his domain, where he might ride, drive, or boat, according to his pleasure. The whole scene is rather Egyptian than Phoenician or Cypriot, and one cannot help suspecting that the patera was made for an Egyptian customer.
There is a patera at Athens,772 almost certainly Phoenician, which may well be selected to introduce the more elaborate and complicated of the Phoenician works of art in this class. It has been figured,773 and carefully described by MM. Perrot and Chipiez in these terms:—“The medallion in the centre is occupied by a rosette with eight points. The zone outside this, in which are distributed the personages represented, is divided into four compartments by four figures, which correspond to each other in pairs. They lift themselves out of a trellis-work, bounded on either side by a light pillar without a base. The capitals which crown the pillars recall those of the Ionic order, but the abacus is much more developed. A winged globe, stretching from pillar to pillar, roofs in this sort of little chapel; each is the shrine of a divinity. One of the divinities is that nude goddess, clasping her breasts with her hands, whom we have already met with in the Phoenician world more than once; the other is a bearded personage, whose face is framed in by his abundant hair; he appears to be dressed in a close-fitting garment, made of a material folded in narrow plaits. We do not know what name to give the personage. Each of the figures is repeated twice. The rest of the field is occupied by four distinct subjects, two of them being scenes of adoration. In one may be recognised the figure of Isis-Athor, seated on a sort of camp-stool, and giving suck to the young Horus;774 on an altar in front of the goddess is placed the disk of the moon, enveloped (as we have seen it elsewhere) by a crescent which recalls the moon’s phases. Behind the altar stands a personage whose sex is not defined; the right hand, which is raised, holds a patera, while the left, which falls along the hip, has the ankh or crux ansata. Another of the scenes corresponds to this, and offers many striking analogies. The altar indeed is of a different form, but it supports exactly the same symbols. The goddess sits upon a throne with her feet on a footstool; she has no child; in one hand she holds out a cup, in the other a lotus blossom. The personage who confronts her wears a conical cap, and is clothed, like the worshipper of the corresponding representation, in a long robe pressed close to the body by a girdle à cordelière; he has also the crux ansata, and holds in the right hand an object the character and use of which I am unable to conjecture. We may associate with these two scenes of homage and worship another representation in which there figure three musicians. The instruments are the same as usual—the lyre, the tambourine, and the double pipe; two of the performers march at a steady pace; the third, the one who beats the metal(?) disk, dances, as he plays, with much vigour and spirit. In the last compartment we come again upon a group that we have already met with in one of the cups from Idalium.775 . . . A beardless individual, clothed in the shenti, has put his foot upon the body of a griffin, which, in struggling against the pressure, flings its hind quarters into the air in a sort of wild caper; the conqueror, however, holds it fast by the plume of feathers which rises from its head, and plunges his sword into its half-open beak. It is this group, drawn in relief, and on a larger scale, that we meet with for a second time on the Athenian patera; but in this case the group is augmented by a second personage, who takes part in the struggle. This is an old man with a beard who is armed with a formidable pike. Both the combatants wear conical caps upon their heads, similar to those which we have noticed as worn by a number of the statues from Cyprus; but the cap of the right-hand personage terminates in a button, whereto is attached a long appendage, which looks like the tail of an ox.” The Egyptian character of much of this design is incontestable. The ankh, the lotus blossom in the hand, the winged disk, are purely Egyptian forms; the Isis Athor with Horus in her lap speaks for itself; and the worshipper in front of Isis has an unmistakably Egyptian head dress. But the contest with the winged griffin is more Assyrian than Egyptian; the seat whereon Isis sits recalls a well-known Assyrian type;776 one of the altars has a distinctly Assyrian character, while the band of musicians, the Astarté figures standing in their shrines, and the pillars which support, and frame in, the shrines are genuine Phoenician contributions. Artistically this patera is much upon a par with those from Dali and Athiénau, which have been already described.
Our space will not admit of our pursuing this subject much further. We cannot give descriptions of all the twenty pateræ,777 pronounced by the best critics to be Phoenician, which are contained in the museums of Europe and America. Excellent representations of most of these works of art will be found in Longpérier’s “Musée Napoléon III.,” in M. Clermont-Ganneau’s “Imagerie Phénicienne,” and in the “Histoire de l’Art dans l’Antiquité” of MM. Perrot et Chipiez. The bowls brought from Larnaca, from Curium, and from Amathus are especially interesting.778 We must, however, conclude our survey with a single specimen of the most elaborate kind of patera; and, this being the case, we cannot hesitate to give the preference to the famous “Cup of Præneste,” which has been carefully figured and described in two of the three works above cited.779