Fig. 239.—Œnochoé, New York Museum. (P. & C.)
The small cylindrical perfume bottles in glass known as alabastrons are of the highest antiquity; they were usually placed in the hands of the dead.
In the art of weaving and making textiles the Phœnicians are not credited with making anything different from the Orientals or Egyptians, and perhaps supplied themselves with the Egyptian muslins and linens, and had their rugs and carpets from the East, which were famed then as now for their soft nature and brightness of colouring. We have evidence from Homer that the Sidonian slaves were very skilful at embroidery. “With threads of gold, or with a colour contrasting with that of the ground, they drew fantastic beasts of every kind.”
These embroideries would likely have similar decoration to that which is found on the metal platters, and perhaps imitations of those decorations we see on the embroidered robes of the Assyrian kings’ mantles (Figs. 162A, 163A), and the scheme of decoration would likely be a division of the field into bands and circles, each filled with Egyptian or Assyrian motives.
Fig. 240.—Œnochoé, New York Museum. (P. & C.)
In Cyprus, we can easily infer that the textiles would be strongly influenced, as other manufactures were, by Egyptian art. The Phœnicians were noted for their famous purple dye obtained from the Murex and Purpura families of shell-fish. This purple dye was of world-wide renown. Its great advantage was that on its exposure to light and sunshine it became more fast and more intense in colour, which is contrary to most dyes. It was very costly by reason of the difficulty in extracting it from the fish, and of the enormous quantities required to produce even a small quantity of the dye. The city of Tyre had extensive factories for the manufacture of the Tyrian purple. It is not obtained now from the shell-fish, as, of course, many other ways and cheaper have been found to produce a similar colour.
Fig. 241.—Intaglio on Chalcedony.
(P. & C.)
The Phœnicians were adepts at ivory-carving, shell-engraving, and gem-cutting (Fig. 241), as many examples of these arts have been found, but we regret that the limitations of this volume prevent us from going into these subjects as fully as we might wish.
CHAPTER X.
ART IN ANCIENT PERSIA.
Persia occupies what is known as the tableland of Iran, and is a plateau bounded on the north by the Elburz Mountains, Armenia, and Afghanistan; the Bol-ur and Hindu-Kush in the east; the heights that are parallel to the Indian Ocean in the south; and the Persian Gulf, the chains of Zagros, and Ararat in the west.
The Zagros Mountains separated Persia on that portion of the Iran plateau from Assyria, which was known as part of Media. The Assyrians under Tiglath-Pileser scaled these mountains and conquered the Medes.
The Medes have always been considered with the Persians as forming part of one nation, being closely related to each other in language, religion, manners, and customs.
The Medes were the first to emerge from barbarism, owing to their nearness to the Assyrians. After the conquest of Babylon (B.C. 539) the Medes and the Persians descended from their mountains into the valley of the Tigris, under Cyrus, the first Persian king of the Achæmenidæan dynasty. The name Achæmenidæ was given by the Greeks to the descendants of a native chief called Akhamanish, and one of the oldest families of Persia. Cyrus marched through Asia Minor to Asiatic Greece, seized all the cities on his way, and made them pay tribute. Under Cambyses (B.C. 527) the countries of Syria, Palestine, Phœnicia, Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt—nearly all the old-world civilisation from the Mediterranean to the Indus—belonged to the Persian Empire. Hostilities were kept up between the Asiatics and Hellenes for two hundred years, until Alexander the Great ended them at the battles of Issus and Arbela (334-330 B.C.). For nearly a century Persia was under the vassalage of the Greeks, but still kept her ancient customs and her ancient cult of fire-worship, the national religion, although this was in a great measure undermined and weakened by the teachings of the Greek conquerors.
Fig. 242.—Naksh-i-Rustem, General View of the Rock-cut Tombs. (F.C.)
Fig. 243.—Persepolis. Tomb on the North-east. Elevation. (F.C.)
The Greeks were, in turn, overthrown by the Parthians, a northern Asiatic tribe who ruled in Persia down to B.C. 226, when the native Sassanidæ family of the south restored Persia to her former freedom, and installed again the ancient worship of Ahurâ-Mazda, and also tried to restore the art of the First Dynasty. The Greek and Roman influence was, however, too strong at this period to be entirely shaken off, in spite of the renewed display of patriotism. For instance, a great quantity of Greek furniture, utensils, and figures of Greek gods must have found their way into Persia during the reign of the Seleucidæ—the Greek rulers—and must have influenced the native Persian art; besides borrowed ideas from the art objects and other things that the Persians at a former time pillaged from the Greek temples and carried home with them. When the Arabs finally overthrew the Sassanid Dynasty and conquered Persia, the state religion of fire-worship was proscribed, but the Moslem religion never took the same hold in Persia as it did in other countries, the Persians adopting the secular form of it—the Shiah—as opposed to the more devout form, the Sunni. To this reason is assigned the independence of Persia to the present day amongst the other Moslem countries of the world.
Fig. 244.—Funeral Tower at Naksh-i-Rustem. (D.) (P. & C.)
It was during the period of the First Empire that the greatest works in architecture first appeared in Persia. It is clear from the remains of this period that the national architecture of Persia was composed of a mixture of Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greek elements, blended together in an original way. The artists and architects who produced the national Persian style were hardly native Persians, as there was no previous style of any importance in Persia on which such great works as the famous palaces could be founded or developed from. It is, therefore, quite likely that the artists and architects were of Phœnician or Greek nationality. Indeed, records of Greek names appear on the buildings as architects of some of the palaces of the best periods, and ancient history mentions the names of more than one Greek sculptor that was brought to Persia for this purpose by the victorious kings, and induced to work for them by being well treated and cared for. Many of the Greek artists were also political refugees who found employment and a hearty welcome in Persia.
It was when Cyrus had become master of Western Asia that the Persians began to think of building the famous palaces at Persepolis, Susa, and Pasargadæ. Most of these palaces and the tombs were built of a close-grained limestone that is found very plentiful in the mountainous country of Persia. The royal tombs were, as a rule, cut out of the living limestone rock (Fig. 242). They are of the time of Darius, and are all of one type that seems to have been invented by one mind, and, after the first was cut, speos-like, out of the native rock—probably that of Darius itself—the rest were copied faithfully from it. The great height from the ground of the tomb itself was arranged for safety from violation. The sculptured figure of the king is represented near the top, in the act of worshipping the sacred fire seen on the right; at the centre of the top of the field is seen the emblem of the god Ahurâ-Mazda and the sun disk (Fig. 243). An older form of tomb, the “built” tomb, is seen at the right of the rock-cut tombs, and a larger illustration of