Fig. 237.—Phœnician ear-rings.
If we had in Phœnicia bas-reliefs like those of Assyria, and paintings like those of Egypt, we should be able to give some account of those brilliant stuffs of dyed purple, described by classical antiquity with so much enthusiasm. It was to the Tyrian god, Melkarth, that tradition assigned the invention of this dye, obtained, as it is well known, from the juice of a marine shell, the murex, which is found especially on the coast of Phœnicia. We can only affirm, according to literary testimony, that the workshops of Tyre and Sidon produced stuffs in abundance, the colour of which, as the ancients remarked, instead of being altered and deteriorated by a bright light, was only rendered more vivid and brilliant by it.
§ IX. Engraved Gems.
Fig. 238.—Cylinder in the De Clerq collection (after Menant).