Page 184 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LEVANT IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C.

in its headlong flight, and the galloping horses, do not conform to the Mycenaean pat­
tern, but rather to the Syrian one which had been evolved in preceding centuries under
Aegean influence. They find parallels on a number of cylinder seals.82 The attitude of
the charioteer, the bird above the horses, the attendant following the chariot on foot,
and the head-dress which distinguishes him, arc all Syrian, not Aegean - truly Levantine,
in fact. But one short side of the gaming board shows wild cattle resting under trees.83
The general character of the designs, the long horns, wrinkled dewlaps, and free poses
of the animals arc entirely Aegean and without Asiatic parallels.
This mixture of affinities is by no means confined to Cyprus, but is found throughout
the Levant at this time. The port of Ras Shamra contained tombs with a quantity of
‘Mycenaean* grave goods. But a study of the proper names84 shows a predominance of
Semitic with a strong admixture of Hurrian and some Kassitc, and even Anatolian forms.
The texts are written in a Semitic tongue closely related to Hebrew and Phoenician,
but using an alphabet developed from Babylonian cuneiform writing. In the town, in
its port, and in the surrounding countryside the population was mixed.
From a tomb in the port at Minet cl Bcida comes the lid of a round ivory box (Plate
150),83 dated by the objects found with it to the first half of the thirteenth century b.c.
The chief figure is Creto-Mycenaean in face and dress, but not in the manner of carving
nor in its setting. It is clear that the carver aimed at rendering the Great Goddess of the
Aegean. Her bare torso, flounced skirt, coiffure, and cap, tally with the Aegean proto­
types, and the profile, too, agrees well with the fme spiritual faces of the best Aegean
paintings. But her action conforms with Asiatic, not Aegean, conceptions of the god­
dess. She holds some greenery on which two wild goats feed. Such an explicit statement
that the goddess is a personification of the vital force of nature can be found in Meso­
potamian art from Protolitcrate times onwards. But in Cretan and Mycenaean art the
goddess is not shown ‘feeding* the animals which attend her.86 In the rendering of the
lower part the Levantine carver has been at a loss how to proceed. One might think that
the goddess is standing, but the intention was to show her seated on an hour-glass­
shaped stool which is set on a mountain, rendered by dots; the goats place their forefeet
likewise on this mountain, and it reappears once more below the feet of the Great
Mother. Now we have seen that in Asia ‘the mountain’ symbolizes the field of action
of the gods of fertility. In the Aegean it is but one of the settings in which the gods be­
come manifest, and they are never enthroned upon a mountain. Their appearance is
rendered as a flashing epiphany, sometimes on a mountain-top, sometimes in the air.
Nor does the goddess ever sit upon the hour-glass-shaped object, which, in the Aegean,
is an altar.
This confusion of motifs is matched by an odd rendering of the pose. A seated fig ure
I lun Aegean art is rendered broadly and with a clear articulation of its limbs, not with the
■mbiguity of our plate 150. But it follows from what we have said that die actual scene
vwn there had no Aegean prototype. It was the carver’s task to combine the Great
^ Mess of the Aegean with the animals she was to feed and with the mountain which
-—-support her, in order to render an Asiatic conception. Even his pattern for the
pf the goddess can hardly have been an Aegean carving, for the pendulous breasts

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