Page 222 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

ARAMAEANS AND PHOENICIANS IN SYRIA
Carchcinish, possibly in an early context.149 The designs differ in detail; at Samaria for
instance two bunches of dates appear similar to those of figure 93.
We must now describe the large group of ivories which we assign to the last third of
the eighth century B.c., when Assyria subjugated Syria and Phoenicia, admitting that
some older pieces may have been accidentally included among them.150 Most subjects
arc represented in sets of as many as a dozen copies, which evidently formed decorative
bands or repeating insets in furniture. There were even at one site, Arslan Tash, two sets
of the cow suckling her calf (Plate 16913). The one is in open-work and is most delicately
modelled; the other, in which the ivory background is retained, shows a far-reaching
conventionalization.151 The eyes are sometimes inlaid. Fragments of such plaques were
also found at Nimrud.152 A design similar in general character consists of a grazing stag;
it is found in open-work at Nimrud; at Assur, where it is set in a bronze background;
and in solid ivory at Arslan Tash.153 In all these animal plaques there is a simplicity and
a sensitivity of modelling which are unusual in Phoenician work; yet the stag from Assur
appears among papyrus flowers, and the incongruity of tills setting is in keeping with
Phoenician usage.
A number of plaques are free renderings of Egyptian themes. In Egypt thrones and
other royal furniture were decorated from ancient times with a symbolical design,
‘Union of the two Lands’, in which two gods bind together the plants of Upper and
Lower Egypt. Plate i68a shows one of a set of panels derived from this prototype; but
little remains of the original vegetation, and of the costume only the wig, and a parody
of the Double Crown. The central design is enriched by the small figure of a goddess,
presumably Maat, although she does not hold her attribute, the ostrich feather, but a
crook which is not normally shown in the hands of Egyptian goddesses.154 Another set
of panels (Plate i68b) shows in the centre a god on a stylized flower. This might either
be the young sun-god appearing in a lotus from the primeval waters, or the birth of
Homs in the marshes, where Isis had hidden him from her enemies. In that case the at­
tendant figures should be female, not male; in the other context they are out of place
altogether.155 Yet one not disturbed by a knowledge of Egyptian iconography who
considers die plaques on dieir own merits would grant that they achieve a sumptuous
ornamental effect, which was enriched by the application of gold-foil to some details.
There are also pieces carved on three sides, with indeterminate Egyptian figures, for in­
sets in furniture.156
An exceptionally fine design both as regards composition and workmanship is shown
in plate i68d.157 Ram-headed sphinxes confront one another between ‘sacred trees’.
They wear an atrophied Double Crown. Their horns, genitals, feathers, and necklaces,
and the bands round the ‘ sacred tree ’ were picked out with gold. The carving of the
bodies, the plumage and the cloth hanging between the front paws resemble the sphinxes
from Khorsabad so closely (Plate 170c) that it is hardly possible to separate them in
time.158 This applies also to some of the sphinx-plaques found at Arslan Tash; others
show squatting or resting sphinxes, with varying details.159 At Samaria there are clumsy
versions,160 at Nimrud yet further variants,161 and one sphinx plaque was found as far
afield as Crete.162

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