Fig. 204.—The sarcophagus of Eshmunazar. (Louvre.)
large monolithic troughs, provided with a convex or triangular lid. Some of them are decorated with garlands, foliage, and chaplets; the corners of the lid are sometimes provided with acroteria. The only ones which have a real artistic interest are the sarcophagi in the form of human figures, or rather of mummy-cases, the head of the dead person, and sometimes the arms also, being carved in relief on the lid. These sepulchral urns were coloured in imitation of the wooden sarcophagi of the Egyptians, which they copy in their form; while the carved work of the faces shows us that Assyrian influence was dominant in Phœnicia long after the disappearance of Nineveh. The sarcophagi of Tabnit and Eshmunazar, which only date from the year B.C. 350, disclose to us a remarkable peculiarity in the means adopted by the Phœnicians, merchants and navigators before all things, in order to furnish the tombs of their dead with stone coffins. These peculiar monuments, of black amphibolite, issue from the Egyptian quarries of Hammamat near Cosseir, and they originally contained Egyptian mummies. Phœnician sailors stole them or bought them for money; the ashes which they contained were thrown to the four winds, the hieroglyphic inscriptions and the Egyptian scenes, carved or painted upon the plaster which covered the stone, were entirely or partly removed and replaced by the epitaphs of Tabnit and Eshmunazar. A considerable number of Phœnician sarcophagi are thus borrowed coffins, and by no means the work of indigenous artists.
Fig. 205.—Sarcophagus in human form. (Louvre.)
Sarcophagi in the form of the human figure have been discovered in nearly all the countries in which the Phœnicians established their factories, in Cyprus, Sicily, and Malta, and they everywhere present the same characteristics: only the head of the dead man is in relief. At Saïda, a sarcophagus was found in which the arms are carved beside the body; the sleeve of the garment ends above the elbow, and the left hand holds an alabastron. In the museum at Palermo a sarcophagus is preserved which came from Solus, the lid of which has the form of a true reclining statue like a mediæval tomb: it is a woman clothed in a long peplos over a short tunic, the sleeves of which end at the shoulder; the left hand also holds a vase for perfume.[91] Besides stone sarcophagi, leaden and terra-cotta troughs have been found in the necropoles of the Syrian coast, and also coffins of cedar-wood, decorated with metal ornaments, generally bronze lions’ heads.