§ IV Phœnician Sculpture
Phœnicia, it must not be forgotten, was by turns subjected to the yoke of the Egyptians and Assyrians, who introduced into it, with their garrisons, their art, their customs, their industries and all that characterised the peculiar genius of their civilisation. The conquerors were the masters of the Phœnician artists, and the few objects which came from the hands of the latter were inspired by Egypt or Assyria; it is only from the time of Alexander that a third element, Greek art, begins to reveal its action in Syria.
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.
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.
Carthage, which was a city of warriors as well as of merchants, had despoiled all the towns that she had conquered of their artistic wealth, in order to adorn her temples and palaces. This systematic depredation was so great a scandal in antiquity that when Scipio took possession of Rome’s haughty rival, he invited the inhabitants of the Sicilian towns to come and point out their artistic property, and resume their ownership of it; all that was not reclaimed was carried away to Rome, and a nation of statues was seen passing along in procession behind the triumphal car. Besides these Græco-Roman works, the fruit of pillage, which adorned the public places of Carthage, there were those which were the work of the Greek artists whom Carthage was pleased to summon to her bosom; there were also those of Carthaginian craftsmen educated at the school of the Greeks: these last alone interest us here, and the scanty specimens which exist of them confirm us in the opinion that the Carthaginians were not more artistic than the Phœnicians.
These monuments consist almost exclusively of votive stelæ anterior to the taking of Carthage by the Romans in B.C. 146. These boundary stones, from 11¾ in. to 19½ in. long by about 5¾ in. broad, were intended to be fixed in the ground, and therefore the lower part is still in the rough; the upper part, trimmed on its four sides, is particularly well smoothed on one of its larger faces; on this side alone is found a votive inscription addressed to the goddess Tanit, the Punic Astarte, and to Baal-Hammon. Above the inscription various symbols are represented in engraved lines, rarely in relief. The stela terminates in an imitation of a gabled roof, often provided with two acroteria. The decoration of these Punic stelæ is, however, still Greek, as is proved by the design of the acroteria, ovals, triglyphs, volutes, pediments, and even Ionic columns which figure in it. The symbols, carved in the most barbarous fashion by workmen who could not claim the title of artists, are borrowed from the Punic religion and from the fauna and flora of Africa. The commonest is the open hand, raised towards the sky and generally set at the point of the gable; the Arab still paints it in black on the white lime with which he plasters his house: it averts the evil eye. We find also the Egyptian uræus; the solar disk with the crescent, a symbol of Tanit; the ram, the symbol of Baal-Hammon; the caduceus, the horse, the elephant, the bull, the rabbit, fish, the palm, the rudder, the anchor, the hatchet, the lotus-flower, vases of various shapes, ships and fruit. We also meet with the Divine Mother holding her child in her arms; a young child standing or crouching with an apple in its hand; or a funeral banquet, as on Greek stelæ.
The great female deity of the Carthaginian Pantheon, Tanit, is found not only under the form of a human figure, but very often under that of a symbol difficult to describe. It is a sort of triangular mannikin (fig. 212), the traditional and degenerate representation of a sacred stone; this triangle is furnished with protuberances in its upper part, and resembles to some extent a man clothed in a long robe, who straddles his legs and raises his outstretched arms to heaven: this sacred cone with arms corresponds well enough to the description by Tacitus of the Paphian Aphrodite. The supreme Trinity, consisting of Baal-Hammon, Tanit and Eshmun, is also frequently symbolised by three cippi of unequal height, placed side by side, and joined on a common base. This symbol is also represented on the stelæ at Hadrumetum and Lilybæum; the cippi are broader at the base than at the summit, and the middle one is surmounted by the solar disk and the reversed crescent. Sometimes a fire-altar served by a pontiff burns at the feet of this symbolical figure (fig. 212).
One of the most interesting Punic stelæ that can be cited was found at Hadrumetum (fig. 213). An image of two columns is seen upon it, supporting a complicated entablature. The base of the columns is very elegant, and resembles a large vase from which acanthus leaves emerge; from the middle of this tuft of leaves a fluted stem rises, the upper part of which is fashioned like a woman’s bust. This woman is seen in full face, and holds her hands clasped upon her breast, which is also adorned with the round disk and the crescent; she has a similar disk upon her head. In the entablature a row of lotus-flowers, a winged disk supported by two uræi, and a row of uræi seen in full face and with heads erect are distinguished; everything in this monument is oriental, or, rather, Egyptian. Even in Sardinia and the Balearic Islands the votive stelæ of Tanit and Baal-Hammon enable us to follow the track of the preponderating influence of Egyptian art in Carthaginian symbolism.