Fig. 206.—Border of a Bronze Cup; from Layard. (P. & C.)
In painting on plaster (Fig. 198) or enamelling on tiles (Figs. 194 and 200) and bricks, the Babylonians and Assyrians used very few colours, not more than five or six, but they used them with great advantage and decorative effect, and always in flat tints. Their painted figures were, as a rule, not intended for any other meaning than their geometric ornament, and merely used as units in the ornamental scheme (Fig. 194). The colours were: blue from the lapis lazuli; yellow, an antimoniate of lead and a little tin; white, an oxide of tin; black, an animal charcoal; red, an oxide of iron; and another blue from the oxide of copper completes, as near as possible, the range of their palette.
Fig. 207.
Cylinder; from Soldi.
(P. & C.)
Fig. 208.—Assyrian Cylinder. Worship of Sacred Tree. (B.M.) (P. & C.)
The nearly universal colour of the groundwork was blue, a deep dark blue from the lapis lazuli. At Khorsabad M. Place found a mass of powdered blue, over two pounds in weight, that was found to be made from the lapis lazuli for the purpose of enamelling. The main portion of the decoration was yellow, but often white was used with black outlines, and red sparingly. A green tint was less common, but was supposed to be obtained from a mixture of the yellow and copper blue oxide.
Remains of pottery are not very plentiful, and the forms have nothing distinctive that calls for special notice. The vessels, such as vases, cups, and buckets of bronze, are elegant in form and decoration (Fig. 209).
Jewellery and personal decoration have only been found in a limited quantity, and not of a very good quality in design or material: the bas-reliefs furnish our best information on what existed in these articles.
Fig. 209.—Bronze Bucket; from Layard. (P. & C.)
Gem cutting and cylinder engraving were arts very much practised in Babylonia and Assyria (Fig. 208). The cylinders usually were engraved with subjects of a religious character. The illustration shows one of the best engraved Assyrian cylinders that has yet been found. It represents the king and deities at the worship of the Sacred Tree, and the God Assur. In the hands of the deities may be seen the bronze buckets shown at Fig 209.
This subject is supposed to be a copy from a bas-relief. The material of these cylinders was generally of serpentine, chalcedony, agate, black marble, jasper, &c., and they were used to impress clay documents with, in a similar way as in the use of ordinary seals (Fig. 207).
CHAPTER IX.
PHŒNICIAN ART.
The origin of the Phœnician people remains in obscurity. According to Herodotus, we learn that they came as an Eastern branch of the Canaanitish peoples, of which race the Greeks were also a part, and who settled at the foot of Lebanon, on the Syrian sea-coast, between Mounts Carmel and Casius.
The Phœnician and Hebrew languages resembled each other very closely, and from this it has been argued that the Phœnicians belonged to the Semitic race of the Hebrews. Ancient Phœnicia was a narrow strip of land, 130 miles long by only a few miles in width at its widest part. The three principal towns in ancient times were Tyre, Sidon, and Joppa; three others of importance were Arvad, Gebal or Byblos, and Accho or Acre.
Arvad in the north, was, like Tyre in the south, built on a rock some little distance from the mainland. Tyre was for a long time impregnable on its rocky seat, with a channel of about three-quarters of a mile dividing it from the coast of the mainland. Owing to its peculiar position, it could defy all unmaritime nations, and it was not until Alexander the Great built an isthmus connecting it with the Phœnician coast that it fell. The inhabitants of Gebal or Byblos were, according to Rénan, more Jewish-like than any other Phœnician people.
Sidon was the first town of Phœnicia to rise to importance, and Tyre afterwards, with greater vigour, rose to power and greatness; and both, from being originally colonies of poor fishermen, became the famous ports which sent forth ships to all points of the Mediterranean, and even to the British Isles, carrying all kinds of merchandise to barter for silver, gold, and tin, as well as for other raw materials from the barbarians beyond the seas, and carrying these raw materials back to supply the artists and artificers of the East. No two cities of the ancient world did so much for the spread and progress of human civilisation as the maritime cities of Tyre and Sidon.
Fig. 210.—Phœnician Merchant Galley; from Layard. (P. & C.)
Like the rest of Phœnicia, Sidon, the first in power, accepted without resistance the supremacy of Egypt. This was indeed to her great advantage, for the ships of Sidon could fly the Egyptian flag in any part of the Mediterranean or other seas, and so exist secure under the protection of the mighty monarchs of that great country. In return for this protection the Phœnicians carried on a successful trade with Egyptian goods, thus benefiting themselves, and their masters to even a greater degree.
The Phœnician fleets were, in fact, at the entire disposal of the Egyptians, who possessed, in the early days, no fleet of their own.
Sidon was sacked and taken by the Philistines about B.C. 1000 or 900, and from that period Tyre rose in supremacy. The first Tyrian king known by name was Abibaal, the contemporary of David; his son was Hiram, the friend of Solomon.
Fig. 211.—Phœnician War Galley; from Layard. (P. & C.)
Afterwards Tyre, with its close intercourse with Egypt, established colonies on the Delta of the Nile, the most renowned of which was called the “New City,” Karthadast, called by the Greeks Carchedon, and by the Romans Carthage.
This daughter of Tyre rose to great prosperity, but never forgot her allegiance to the mother city. Their combined fleets sailed to, and founded, colonies in Sardinia, Cyprus, the Grecian Archipelago, and to Spain, doing enormous trade with both East and West. The Phœnician ships that are known to us from the relief representations are of two kinds, the round-prowed galleys, or cargo-carriers (Fig. 210), and the ram-stemmed vessels, or war galleys (Fig. 211). There is no record that has been found of their larger sea-going “merchantmen” ships.
Fig. 212.—Carthaginian Coin, Silver. (P. & C.)
The growing power of the Greeks and Etruscans, and their improvement in shipbuilding, was a new competition with the ships of Tyre in the East, and at length forced the Tyrians to find new markets in the West.
Fig. 213.—Carthaginian Coin, Electrum. (P. & C.)
The staple trade of the Tyrians had now become