Page 218 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

ARAMAEANS AND PHOENICIANS IN SYRIA
bronze bands of masts erected in the temples,120 present strictly Assyrian subjects. There
is no trace of Egyptian motifs anywhere. The ivories and bronzes found at Topra Kaleh,
near Lake Van121 in the kingdom of Urartu, arc equally free from admixture; they are
peripheral Assyrian, to put it tersely. A fine ivory head from Babylon122 is, again, purely
Mesopotamian in type and treatment, differing in both respects from those which are
ascribed here to the Phoenicians.
There may have been a trickle of Urartian metal-work to the west, and it has even
been supposed that Urartian metal-workers moved from Armenia to Phrygia, and hence
to Etruria, before the onslaught of the Assyrians and, later, of the Cimmerians.123 The
main influence of Easton West was, however, exercised through trade; and the sea-route
from the Levantine ports of Syria was a great deal easier to use than the overland route
through Anatolia to Ionia.124 There is perfectly good evidence for a route from mainland
Greece to Crete and Rhodes and from there to the Syrian port of Al Mina, at the mouth
of die Orontes, where Proto-Corinthian pottery dated from the middle of the eighth
century onward was found. A typical Luristan ring, discovered at Perakhora125 near
Corinth, and a typical Luristan ewer found in Samos,126 can only have travelled from
Persia to the Aegean through trade channels. And various objects serving as examples to
local craftsmen may have reached the West in the same manner, but probably not
along the same route.127 Four strands of oriental influence in Greece have been distin­
guished:128 (i) Phoenician, meaning ‘the composite style which began to be developed
in the eighteenth century b.c., and continually absorbed new themes from other arts,
without any striking change in style, till die fifth century’; (2) ivory carving of central
Syria (an influence which I call, for the moment, likewise Phoenician (see p. 191 below));
(3) the sculpture of the north Syrian cities; and (4) metal-work of Urartu. And it has
been argued that Greece was connected with each strand by a different route. If it is cer­
tain that Phoenicians traded in Greece, we now know also diat Greeks were setded at
Al Mina, at the mouth of the Orontes, far north of Phoenicia, on a main route to Meso­
potamia and Urartu; and no Phoenician objects were found there, but plenty of Greek
pottery from about 750 or a little earlier, down to about 600 b.c.129
It is, however, also relevant to remember that the Syrian herds of elephants were,
apparently, exterminated by the eighth century b.c. and that ivory had to be obtained
by trade, probably from India through Arabian middlemen, and that the Phoenicians
were engaged in this trade.130 We do not know to what extent the Phoenicians drew on
their hinterland for their supplies of finished articles in different materials, but it seems
safe to assume that the objects discussed in the following pages were used, exported, and
to a large extent manufactured by Phoenicians.
In the dispersal of such articles towards the East, diplomacy played as large a part as
trade. Several Assyrian kings131 mention ivory stools, beds, and thrones which they re­
ceived as tribute from Damascus and the Phoenician cities. The description includes small
objects made entirely of ivory132 and others decorated with tinned or carved parts and
inlays of ivory. Such pieces have been found in many places, and they often bear
Phoenician letters scratched on the back, presumably to guide the cabinet-maker in the
assembly of the parts. This is strong evidence of Phoenician manufacture, which is not
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