The field of study offered by Phœnician sculpture is remarkably limited: it consists of the bas-reliefs of certain sarcophagi, of votive stelæ and of meagre fragments of stone statues. The sarcophagi in human form, of which we have already spoken, though not of an earlier date than the Hellenic epoch, show us very clearly the Egyptian and Assyrian influences at work in Syria. If the form of the troughs is Egyptian, if the finest of them have actually been imported from Egypt, the sculptures with which they are decorated are altogether Assyrian. The symmetrically undulating curls of the beard are like those of the Ninevite colossi; only it is to be observed that the artist can handle his chisel like a Greek. From the time of the Seleucids, the physiognomy of these heads which stand out in high relief on the lid of the sepulchral trough, grows more and more Hellenic, and is modified in accordance with Greek models; so that if a chronological classification of all these monuments is undertaken, the most ancient would be those in which Egyptian and Assyrian influence is most marked; the most recent are those in which the Greek style finally prevailed.
Fig. 209.—Phœnician slab at Amrith (after Renan).
In the rare fragments of buildings anterior to the Macedonian epoch, observed in Phœnicia, the elements of decorative sculpture are borrowed from Egypt and Assyria: nowhere has an original motive of indigenous inspiration been found. The gate of a structure described by M. Renan at Umm el-Awamid has a lintel on which two small figures of Egyptian appearance are sculptured in adoration before the winged disk supported by uræi.[92] The Phœnicians imported this solar globe, even more ancient in Egypt than in Assyria, into every coast. It is found in Cyprus, Malta, Sardinia and Carthage, where it is carved on the votive stelæ of Tanit and Baal-Hammon. The sphinx is also one of the principal elements of Phœnician sculptures: not only its form, but even its posture, is copied from the sphinxes of the Egyptian temples; it reclines on a pedestal, and has upon its head the pshent and the uræus; but it has more than the Pharaonic sphinx—namely, wings borrowed from the Assyrian and Persian genii. Other fragments of architecture show us the motives of their decoration,—rosettes, palmettes, guilloches and denticulated designs of Assyria.
Astarte, on the stela of the king of Gebal, Jehaw-melek, has the costume, attitude, and attributes of the Egyptian Isis, while the king, standing before her, resembles the Ninevite monarchs in adoration before their favourite deities, or Darius and Xerxes on the bas-reliefs of Persepolis. A stela at Amrith represents a deity standing on a lion, an Assyrian subject already reproduced in Hittite bas-reliefs; a still greater similarity is seen in the lion’s cub held by the figure as by the hero Izdubar, and the energetic modelling of his limbs bears witness that the artist was educated at the school of Nineveh. And yet the god’s head-dress, and the winged disk placed above his head, are Egyptian in form.[93]
The study of sculpture in the round leads to the same conclusions. The Phœnician patœci, images of the god Pumai (a word from which Pygmy and Pygmalion are derived), were only copies of the Egyptian gods Bes or the embryo Ptah: this type of ugliness united to strength was carved in wood at the bows of the ships, in order to terrify the enemy. While statues found in Phœnicia are clothed with the Egyptian shenti, lions forming the doorposts at Umm el-Awamid are only half sculptured in the round: the head, fore-quarters and front paws are the only parts carved. Nothing could more directly recall the lions of the Assyrian palaces.
If the Chaldæans, as early as the time of Gudea, were accustomed to erect in their temples statues of kings, of pontiffs, or even of private individuals, whose image thus remained always present before the eyes of the deity, the Phœnicians took care not to renounce this habit. M. Renan relates that in an underground chamber near the maabed of Amrith a considerable number of fragments of white limestone statues was discovered; they were also found at Cyprus ([fig. 210]). These statues are iconic in character; they are portraits of the “masters of the sacrifices,” as the Phœnician texts call the devotees who had themselves represented in the very act of accomplishing their vows, in order that the deity might not forget them. The archaic statues lately found on the Acropolis at Athens seem also to have, if not the same iconic character, at any rate the same symbolic meaning.