History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

The monumental tombs of Amrith are not less important than these places of worship; the ruins known under the name El-Auamid-el-Meghazil (the spindle-columns) are truly majestic. (Fig. 95.) The first rises in three cylindrical steps upon a square platform little elevated above the ground. The lower part, 2.5 m. in height and 5.15 m. in diameter, built of two stones, is ornamented over the corners of the platform with engaged lions, which are among the most prominent works of Phœnician sculpture known, and will be considered at greater length below. Upon this first cylindrical step rests a block 7 m. high, ornamented at the base with delicately curved moulding, and at the summit with dentils and battlements. These latter are found also upon fragments from Jebeil in conjunction with squares and rosettes and a particularly characteristic frieze of straight-lined laurel branches; they show great similarity to Mesopotamian remains. In the circular plan of the structure there is no reminiscence of Egyptian methods of art; an hemispherical termination lends to the whole so marked an individuality that, although its form seems not to have been universal, or even the most common, upon the Syrian coasts, there yet may be recognized in this monument a truly original Phœnician type. In the development of memorial stones a cultured people generally expresses its fundamental artistic conceptions, as is the case with the pyramidal termination of Egyptian obelisks, and with the Assyrian piers terminated by a stepped terrace, in both of which are embodied the lines predominant in the architecture of those nations. A stairway hewn in the rock leads to the subterranean burial chambers; its entrance is at some little distance from the monument, as shown in the section Fig. 95. Only 6 m. removed from this rises a second pile, which, from a certain parallelism of position, seems to belong with it. It is simpler than the first, consisting of a cube measuring 3 m. upon the side, so roughly hewn that it appears a block taken just as it was quarried; upon it is a monolithic cylinder 4 m. high and 3.7 m. in diameter, terminated by a five-sided pyramid of steep inclination. Somewhat removed from these are two similar monuments, of which the better preserved stands upon steps and rises in two cubes, separated by a cornice of wavy outline, the upper block terminating in a four-sided pyramid, now almost entirely overthrown. It is remarkable for the monolithic horizontal covering of the entrance to the grave chambers, which is again a little distant from the base. Of the pyramidal termination of its neighbor, only traces remain. All these monuments were in part cut from the native rock and in part composed of enormous monoliths; a fifth, of considerably greater dimensions, was built of quarried stones. Of this latter, the commanding mausoleum known under the name of Burdj-el-Bezzak (Tower of the Snails), little remains beyond the platform, which measures 11 m. in height and 9 m. in the square plan. The four-sided pyramid, of obtuse inclination, placed upon this elevation, is now entirely overthrown. The blocks, 5 m. long, are hewn only upon the joints, and left with a rough face. A cornice of curved profile ran around the platform; within it are two chambers, each lighted by a small window, the existence of which rendered the otherwise customary grotto beneath the pile superfluous.

Grotto tombs, with a decorated entrance cut upon the rock wall, seem to have been most generally employed in Central Phœnicia. They are exemplified by the numerous remains of this kind at Saida (Sidon) and Jebeil (Byblus). A tomb at the latter place shows a simple but interesting façade; its ornamentation, by the heavy gable and ring-formed acroterium, is strikingly similar to forms occurring in Central Asia Minor (Phrygia). (Fig. 96.) Its flat border and plain five-leaved rosette in the tympanon triangle give no evidence of Hellenic influence. The interior of these tombs is generally a large room, with curved ceiling and niches upon three of its sides, sunk into the rock, one above another, like those of the Catacombs, to hold the rows of coffins. The finest of the sarcophagi of Jebeil is decorated with festoons, wreaths, single leaves and branches, in a naïve style of ornament betraying no knowledge of Greek sculpture. In Southern Phœnicia a monumental development of the sarcophagus seems to have been chiefly favored. The tomb known as that of Hiram (Gabr-hiram), south of Sur (Tyre), is an immense coffer, 3 m. high, with a heavy arched cover, raised upon a plinth built of hewn blocks 4.24 m. long, 2.64 m. broad, and 3 m. high, the upper part of which is formed by a monolithic slab almost one meter in thickness. Not far from this site, at Um-el-Auamid, is a large sarcophagus, 2.40 m. long and 1.24 m. broad, with a gable-shaped lid decorated by clumsy corner acroterias. Against one of its sides stands a small altar, remarkable for the corners of its battlemented termination, which must be similar to the horns of the altar which stood in the tabernacle of Solomon’s Temple.

Of the domestic architecture of Phœnicia can be mentioned only an entirely unornamented house, hewn from the rock, in Amrith, and a portal at Um-el-Auamid, where the middle block of the triple lintel is decorated with the Egyptian disk and uræos-serpents upon either side. The materials employed by the Phœnician architects seem generally to have been the cedars of Lebanon and the various metals of transmarine commerce; it is on this account that the preserved monuments are so few, and their remains so bare of carved decoration.

This explains also the lack of examples illustrating the sculpture and extended industrial art of the country. The Homeric epics constantly point to the Syrian coast as the home of all contemporary skill in metal-work, pottery, and weaving. Stone statues were rare; metal was the favorite material of Phœnician sculpture, although it was but seldom, as in the columns before the Temple of Jerusalem, employed for casting. The usual proceeding of the artificer was to make a core of wood for the work, whether this were to be in relief or in the full round; upon it sheets of metal were secured, and these finally beaten with the hammer to the modelling of the carved wood beneath, thus forming a so-called sphyrelaton. The sculptures of Solomon’s Temple illustrate this process, and, according to the Biblical account, may unhesitatingly be ascribed to Phœnician artists. In some instances the beaten metal was gold, this being the case with the Temple of Jerusalem and with a small temple at Carthage, which contained an image similarly overlaid. Silver was more rarely thus employed, though it is known that from the earliest times the Spanish silver-mines were worked by the Phœnicians. The metal was perhaps more frequently devoted to utensils like the twelve silver vessels discovered upon Cyprus, of which those now in the Louvre show a workmanship nearly akin to that of the before-mentioned Assyrian bronzes. It has been remarked in the section upon Assyria that this style was neither purely Mesopotamian nor Egyptian, but rather a mixture of both, the latter predominating. This points to the Phœnician origin of such works, and these silver vessels of Cyprus lend a striking confirmation to the supposition. The beaten metal was usually a bronze, the copper in its composition being derived from the Phœnician island Cyprus, the tin an article of commerce brought from England. It is natural that the Phœnicians, to whom alone these metals were accessible, should be regarded as the inventors of that amalgamation of ten parts of copper with one of tin known as bronze, of so great importance in casting. Homer’s mention of vessels and utensils from Sidon, and the discovery of Phœnician bronzes in the ruins of Nineveh, prove a most ancient and extended trade in objects formed of that metal.

The carved wooden form covered with sheets of metal, the sphyrelaton, is a peculiarly Phœnician product. Such beaten reliefs were generally of copper, pure, or with a small percentage of tin; gold, silver, and even tin were, however, similarly employed, in conjunction with mosaics of precious stones, ivory, and notably with amber, a substance greatly prized in early antiquity, and brought by the enterprising Phœnicians from the coasts of the North Sea. A certain effect of color was thus obtained. In the decoration of weapons, a ground of metal served instead of the wood as a foundation. This inlaid work was known to the Greeks of the Homeric age. It stood in the same relation to primitive monumental painting as the mosaic of the Byzantines did to the decline of the art, its greatest height of development being reached by the so-called chryselephantine sculpture, where a combination of carving and inlaying was effected with gold and ivory upon a wooden kernel. The throne of Solomon was an example of this, the lions carved upon its arms rendering it the work rather of a sculptor than of an artisan. Carvings entirely of ivory are mentioned by Hezekiah as frequently existing in the sanctuaries of Tyre, and in Nineveh there have been found many fragments, apparently Egyptian, which may, without doubt, be attributed to the Phœnicians. The Biblical prophets speak of great works in Tyre composed of precious stones, and Theophrastos mentions an entire obelisk of emerald as existing in the Temple of Melkarth of that city, which is explained to have been of a colored glass (plasma di smeraldo). Glass itself, assumed to have been invented by the Phœnicians, but common in Egypt before the fifteenth century B.C., appears to have been made only in colored, and generally opaque, masses. The most ancient piece of white transparent glass known is described by Layard as a cup whereupon is cut the name of King Sargon in cuneiform characters—consequently an Assyrian work from the end of the seventh century B.C.