Page 223 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART TWO: THE PERIPHERAL
REGIONS
Some themes were executed i 111 a
pieef f S °dS °,fSCnVreCiOUS St0UCS !md 8lass'Pastc of different colours One
piece, from Nimrud shows the cliild-god on the Lotus, here with the correct Egyptian
gesture suchmg his forefinger. It has a close (hut not exact) parallel at Samaria.® The
splendid piece of plate i7oa, in the same technique, shows what Phoenician art at its
best may achieve, hi a fairy-land jungle of scrolls and stylized flowers two winged
gri ins seem to cry out, they resemble their second millennium forebears more closely
than their contemporaries on north Syrian or Assyrian reliefs or cylinder seals. An open-
wor ' version of the same theme was also found at Nimrud.164 From Nimrud, too, conics
the fragment of a statuette adorned in this technique,165 and furthermore uvo splendid
pieces with an even more sophisticated enrichment (Plate 169A).166 Both show the same
design: a lioness has sprung at a Negro who has fallen backwards; the beast closes its
jaws over his throat. The kilt of the victim is rendered in gold-foil and ‘the effect of
crisp curly hair was obtained by fixing gilt-topped ivory pegs in the head* - pegs the
size of pin-heads. The background shows a continuous pattern of Egyptian * lilies ’ inlaid
with lapis lazuli and smaller flowers in red and gold. Together with die two inlays, an
ivory lion of the Assyrian type was found,167 as if to emphasize the foreign origin of the
richer piece, for the lioness of the inlays is neither Egyptian nor Assyrian. The natural-
ness of the movement of attacker and victim surpasses the usual Phoenician renderings
and resembles that of the cow and calf from Arslan Tash.
The close connexion between ivories from various sites is further illustrated by the
subject of plate 170B, which has been found at Arslan Tash, Nimrud, and Khorsabad,
while a miniature version occurred at Samaria.168 It represents either Astarte or her
votary ‘at the window’, leaning out and alluring men to serve the goddess by sexual
union. The cult was devoted to Astarte in Phoenicia; to a ‘beckoning’ (parakuptousa:
leaning out) Aphrodite in Cyprus, where the motif of our ivories recurs in a bronze
support;169 and to the goddess ‘ Kilili of the window’ in Mesopotamia.170 The frondet
which she wears is fastened with a cord round her head, and this was probably the
crown made of a cord’ which, according to Herodotus,171 was worn by the women who
went to the temple of Babylon once in their lifetime to offer themselves to a stranger in
the service of the goddess.
In this case the Phoenician ivories could be understood throughout the Near East an
interpreted in terms of a local cult. But what about the other themes? Did the sphinxes
and sacred trees, and the many corrupt derivations from Egypt which had no meaning
in Egyptian terms, possess a definite significance for the Phoenicians and their customers.
It has been maintained that these obscure designs were not unintelligible but re ecte
Phoenician religion in Egyptian guise.17* This view was substantiated by reference to
the religious texts from Ras Shamra which are 600 years older, and perhaps even
rime of writing not valid along the whole of the Syrian coast. Indeed, t ley arc y
ns fully understood to-day. Yet if we turn to the sculp ture of Ras Shamra, we
"g rve what happens when a people without pictorial traditions derives rom a m
JCTnf art the forms in which it wished to express its own conceptions. On vanom
Ses'’ (PlatTlt ) we see figures of gods delineated according to Egyptian usage, but

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