Seleucia upon the Tigris, a city of the Diadochi which had itself taken
the place of the Chaldæan Babylon on the Euphrates,--the dwellings of
Sarbistan and Firuz-Abad, with many other buildings and monuments
sculptured upon the face of cliffs, give evidence of the artistic
ability of the new Persian kingdom, which continued to flourish until
the foundation of the Mohammedan power in Mesopotamia, 641 A.D. Much was
certainly lost, and the artistic ornamentation of architecture, as
illustrated by the columns and pilasters of Sarbistan, which are without
capital or base, sank again to the rudeness of the ancient monuments of
Chaldæa; but, on the other hand, the constructive gain was not
inconsiderable, notably in the greater development of gateways, windows,
and niches, as well as in the appearance of immense arches, cylindrical
vaults, and cupolas, which received peculiar forms of parabolic lines,
though not excluding the round arch. The later Persians had marked
influence upon the conquering Arabs, who, with few native traditions,
were readily receptive: this is illustrated by the horse-shoe arch, so
characteristic of Moorish architecture, which may be traced in the works
of the Sassanidæ from the Palace of Ctesiphon to the Monument of
Tak-i-Gero. Chronological considerations and the increasing influence of
Greek and Roman elements seem, however, to forbid the treatment of
Sassanian architecture in this sequence. Indian art is omitted chiefly
upon the ground that the best work of the Farther East does not
appertain to a history of antiquity at all; the remains antedating the
Christian era, such as the columns of Asoka, are too undeveloped and
wanting in independence to deserve separate consideration. This would be
even less the place for a review of Sassanian sculpture, because in
this, in spite of the recurrence of ancient Mesopotamian figures and
details, and notwithstanding the national peculiarities observable in
the modelling of muscles and draperies, the Hellenic and Roman
influences are too great to allow of a proper treatment of the subject
apart from the artistic development of Greece and Italy. Sassanian and
Indian art, though standing in a certain relation to the civilization of
antiquity, may receive a more just historical treatment if considered
immediately before the advent of Mohammedan methods of building,--upon
the threshold of the Middle Ages.
The chief currents of culture and intellectual development have ever
flowed steadily towards the West: such was the course of the
wide-spreading artistic influence of Mesopotamia. The valley of the
Euphrates and Tigris is divided from the shores of the Mediterranean by
desert tracts which did not allow Assyrian traditions, though directed
and furthered by the important trade-roads, to take immediate and
undisputed possession of the strip of Phœnician coast. Egypt lay too
near for this; its influence could not remain unfelt by the seafaring
inhabitants of the Syrian lands. Indefinite theories have been prevalent
for some time concerning the meeting and blending of the peculiar
civilizations of the lands of the Nile and the Tigris, but until
recently Phœnicia was the least-known country of the ancient world.
The Syrian expedition of the French under the auspices of Napoleon
III., like the Egyptian under Napoleon I., presented the possibility of
a thorough and systematic exploration of Phœnician remains. The
difficulties of prosecuting the investigations were not less than they
had been in Chaldæa. “The land,” says Renan, who was commissioned to
conduct the explorations, “is now completely deserted. The destruction
of the forests has everywhere done its evil work; the soil, year after
year carried off by the inhabitants of the villages or washed away by
the torrents of winter rain, has disappeared from the native rock; the
flow of water from the springs, more and more exhausted, has become too
weak to find its way to the sea against the many hinderances; hemmed in
by dunes and alluvial formations, it fills the plain with the poisonous
exhalations of swamps, so that the once blooming and populous land has
become a pestilent desert, where for miles there is scarcely a hut to be
seen.”
The remaining monuments are chiefly grouped around the five principal
trading towns of the coast,--Ruad (Aradus), Amrith (Marathus), Jebeil
(Byblus), Saida (Sidon), and Sur (Tyre),--which follow one another from
north to south in the given succession. Still farther to the south are
isolated ruins near Gabr-Hiram and Um-el-Auamid. Beyrout, now the most
important city of all the original Phœnician territory, has the
fewest remains of antiquity; the greater number are at the totally
deserted site of Marathus, where the neighboring brook, Nahr-el-Amrith,
alone retains a trace of the city’s anciently celebrated name. The city
Aradus, frequently mentioned in the Mosaic Scriptures, founded Marathus,
its most important colony, as well as Paltus, Balaneia, Carnek, and
Enhydra. Of Aradus itself little exists beyond a few enormous blocks of
hewn stone; the fanaticism of the present inhabitants of Ruad prevented
an adequate examination of the site. All these cities lost their
importance in the Roman period, with the ascendency of Antaradus, the
mediæval Tortosa.
[Illustration: Fig. 94.--Temple Cella (El-Maabed) of Amrith.]
The remains at Amrith are barely sufficient to give a conception of the
temple buildings and monumental tombs of the Phœnicians. One fane, in
an exceptionally good state of preservation, is still called by the
inhabitants El-Maabed (the temple). It consists of a rectangular area,
the temenos, 48 m. broad and 55 m. long, sunk into the native rock, so
that three of its sides are formed by the perpendicular cut, and reach
the height of 5 m. Upon the north, the entrance, the enclosure was
completed by a wall, which was also continued around the other three
sides, and there heightened the boundary. Two piers, in the southeastern
and southwestern corners, standing 3.5 m. from the edge of the rock, and
numerous sockets for the ends of the beams, plainly visible in the
walls, lead to the supposition that a gallery was carried partially or
entirely around the space. The whole sunken area formed the court of a
temple, perhaps a sacred lake, as many traces of paved springs in the
interior seem to indicate. The small cella, which rises exactly in the
centre of the quadrangle, thus became an unapproachable sanctuary.
(_Fig._ 94.) It is formed of only five stones. The socle is hewn from
the solid rock, 3 m. high and 5.5 m. square, with traces of a stairway
upon the right side. The three-walled cella, open to the north, is 5 m.
high; its ceiling is monolithic, while the walls consist of three
superposed blocks cut to the plan of the chamber. The roof, chiselled
within to the form of a flat-arched vault, juts forward over the
opening; its projection may have been supported by light columns of
metal, the probable form of which will be considered in connection with
the rock-cut reliefs of Mashnaka. Upon the side-walls, which stand 2.34
m. apart, there are two low benches, leaving a ground-space of only 0.8
m. between them. The architectural decoration of this shrine is limited
to a cornice of scotia and roundlet; though this appears also in Assyria
and Persia, it still gives an Egyptian character to the cella exterior,
which in plan and general disposition is very similar to the
Mesopotamian chapels represented upon Assyrian reliefs (_Figs._ 35 and
57), and to such structures as appear to have existed upon the terraced
pyramids of Chaldæa. In this cella we possess the oldest and the only
Semitic temple known, still in admirable preservation, although the
downfall of the crumbling mass is predicted by the authorities who
accompanied the Phœnician expedition. Of two similar structures,
which stood near the city of Marathus, Renan could discover only
overthrown blocks buried in the swamp of Ain-el-Hayat (fountain of the
serpents) and hidden by oleander-bushes. They stood at a distance of 10
m., their open sides turned towards each other. The remains of the
better-preserved cella show it to have been entirely monolithic. It
stood upon a double substructure, of which, strange to say, the lower
part is considerably smaller than the upper. It betrays still closer
relationship with Egyptian works of the kind by rows of uræos-serpents
over the cornice scotia and the winged disk upon the inner ceiling. From
their plan, they appear to have had no columnar supports, and resemble,
in the careful restoration made by Mr. Thobois, the monolithic cellas of
Philæ preserved in Leyden and in the Louvre. Traces of three other
sanctuaries, or at least of their temenos enclosure, which is partly cut
in the rock and partly built, exist in the vicinity of the Stadion of
Amrith, now known as El-Meklaa (the quarry), and designated by Renan,
upon insufficient grounds, as itself ancient Phœnician.
[Illustration: Fig. 95.--The Monuments El-Meghazil of Amrith.]
The monumental tombs of Amrith are not less important than these places
of worship; the ruins known under the name El-Auamid-el-Meghazil (the
spindle-columns) are truly majestic. (_Fig._ 95.) The first rises in
three cylindrical steps upon a square platform little elevated above the
ground. The lower part, 2.5 m. in height and 5.15 m. in diameter, built
of two stones, is ornamented over the corners of the platform with
engaged lions, which are among the most prominent works of Phœnician
sculpture known, and will be considered at greater length below. Upon
this first cylindrical step rests a block 7 m. high, ornamented at the
base with delicately curved moulding, and at the summit with dentils and
battlements. These latter are found also upon fragments from Jebeil in
conjunction with squares and rosettes and a particularly characteristic
frieze of straight-lined laurel branches; they show great similarity to
Mesopotamian remains. In the circular plan of the structure there is no
reminiscence of Egyptian methods of art; an hemispherical termination
lends to the whole so marked an individuality that, although its form
seems not to have been universal, or even the most common, upon the
Syrian coasts, there yet may be recognized in this monument a truly
original Phœnician type. In the development of memorial stones a
cultured people generally expresses its fundamental artistic
conceptions, as is the case with the pyramidal termination of Egyptian
obelisks, and with the Assyrian piers terminated by a stepped terrace,
in both of which are embodied the lines predominant in the architecture
of those nations. A stairway hewn in the rock leads to the subterranean
burial chambers; its entrance is at some little distance from the
monument, as shown in the section _Fig._ 95. Only 6 m. removed from this
rises a second pile, which, from a certain parallelism of position,
seems to belong with it. It is simpler than the first, consisting of a
cube measuring 3 m. upon the side, so roughly hewn that it appears a
block taken just as it was quarried; upon it is a monolithic cylinder 4
m. high and 3.7 m. in diameter, terminated by a five-sided pyramid of
steep inclination. Somewhat removed from these are two similar
monuments, of which the better preserved stands upon steps and rises in
two cubes, separated by a cornice of wavy outline, the upper block
terminating in a four-sided pyramid, now almost entirely overthrown. It
is remarkable for the monolithic horizontal covering of the entrance to
the grave chambers, which is again a little distant from the base. Of
the pyramidal termination of its neighbor, only traces remain. All these
monuments were in part cut from the native rock and in part composed of
enormous monoliths; a fifth, of considerably greater dimensions, was
built of quarried stones. Of this latter, the commanding mausoleum known
under the name of Burdj-el-Bezzak (Tower of the Snails), little remains
beyond the platform, which measures 11 m. in height and 9 m. in the
square plan. The four-sided pyramid, of obtuse inclination, placed upon
this elevation, is now entirely overthrown. The blocks, 5 m. long, are
hewn only upon the joints, and left with a rough face. A cornice of
curved profile ran around the platform; within it are two chambers, each
lighted by a small window, the existence of which rendered the otherwise
customary grotto beneath the pile superfluous.
Grotto tombs, with a decorated entrance cut upon the rock wall, seem to
have been most generally employed in Central Phœnicia. They are
exemplified by the numerous remains of this kind at Saida (Sidon) and
Jebeil (Byblus). A tomb at the latter place shows a simple but
interesting façade; its ornamentation, by the heavy gable and
ring-formed acroterium, is strikingly similar to forms occurring in
Central Asia Minor (Phrygia). (_Fig._ 96.) Its flat border and plain
five-leaved rosette in the tympanon triangle give no evidence of
Hellenic influence. The interior of these tombs is generally a large
room, with curved ceiling and niches upon three of its sides, sunk into
the rock, one above another, like those of the Catacombs, to hold the
rows of coffins. The finest of the sarcophagi of Jebeil is decorated
with festoons, wreaths, single leaves and branches, in a naïve style of
ornament betraying no knowledge of Greek sculpture. In Southern
Phœnicia a monumental development of the sarcophagus seems to have
been chiefly favored. The tomb known as that of Hiram (Gabr-hiram),
south of Sur (Tyre), is an immense coffer, 3 m. high, with a heavy
arched cover, raised upon a plinth built of hewn blocks 4.24 m. long,
2.64 m. broad, and 3 m. high, the upper part of which is formed by a
monolithic slab almost one meter in thickness. Not far from this site,
at Um-el-Auamid, is a large sarcophagus, 2.40 m. long and 1.24 m. broad,
with a gable-shaped lid decorated by clumsy corner acroterias. Against
one of its sides stands a small altar, remarkable for the corners of its
battlemented termination, which must be similar to the horns of the
altar which stood in the tabernacle of Solomon’s Temple.
[Illustration: Fig. 96.--Façade of a Rock-cut Tomb at Jebeil.]
Of the domestic architecture of Phœnicia can be mentioned only an
entirely unornamented house, hewn from the rock, in Amrith, and a portal
at Um-el-Auamid, where the middle block of the triple lintel is
decorated with the Egyptian disk and uræos-serpents upon either side.
The materials employed by the Phœnician architects seem generally to
have been the cedars of Lebanon and the various metals of transmarine
commerce; it is on this account that the preserved monuments are so few,
and their remains so bare of carved decoration.
This explains also the lack of examples illustrating the sculpture and
extended industrial art of the country. The Homeric epics constantly
point to the Syrian coast as the home of all contemporary skill in
metal-work, pottery, and weaving. Stone statues were rare; metal was the
favorite material of Phœnician sculpture, although it was but seldom,
as in the columns before the Temple of Jerusalem, employed for casting.
The usual proceeding of the artificer was to make a core of wood for the
work, whether this were to be in relief or in the full round; upon it
sheets of metal were secured, and these finally beaten with the hammer
to the modelling of the carved wood beneath, thus forming a so-called
sphyrelaton. The sculptures of Solomon’s Temple illustrate this process,
and, according to the Biblical account, may unhesitatingly be ascribed
to Phœnician artists. In some instances the beaten metal was gold,
this being the case with the Temple of Jerusalem and with a small temple
at Carthage, which contained an image similarly overlaid. Silver was
more rarely thus employed, though it is known that from the earliest
times the Spanish silver-mines were worked by the Phœnicians. The
metal was perhaps more frequently devoted to utensils like the twelve
silver vessels discovered upon Cyprus, of which those now in the Louvre
show a workmanship nearly akin to that of the before-mentioned Assyrian
bronzes. It has been remarked in the section upon Assyria that this
style was neither purely Mesopotamian nor Egyptian, but rather a mixture
of both, the latter predominating. This points to the Phœnician
origin of such works, and these silver vessels of Cyprus lend a striking
confirmation to the supposition. The beaten metal was usually a bronze,
the copper in its composition being derived from the Phœnician island
Cyprus, the tin an article of commerce brought from England. It is
natural that the Phœnicians, to whom alone these metals were
accessible, should be regarded as the inventors of that amalgamation of
ten parts of copper with one of tin known as bronze, of so great
importance in casting. Homer’s mention of vessels and utensils from
Sidon, and the discovery of Phœnician bronzes in the ruins of
Nineveh, prove a most ancient and extended trade in objects formed of
that metal.
The carved wooden form covered with sheets of metal, the sphyrelaton, is
a peculiarly Phœnician product. Such beaten reliefs were generally of
copper, pure, or with a small percentage of tin; gold, silver, and even
tin were, however, similarly employed, in conjunction with mosaics of
precious stones, ivory, and notably with amber, a substance greatly
prized in early antiquity, and brought by the enterprising Phœnicians
from the coasts of the North Sea. A certain effect of color was thus
obtained. In the decoration of weapons, a ground of metal served instead
of the wood as a foundation. This inlaid work was known to the Greeks of
the Homeric age. It stood in the same relation to primitive monumental
painting as the mosaic of the Byzantines did to the decline of the art,
its greatest height of development being reached by the so-called
chryselephantine sculpture, where a combination of carving and inlaying
was effected with gold and ivory upon a wooden kernel. The throne of
Solomon was an example of this, the lions carved upon its arms rendering
it the work rather of a sculptor than of an artisan. Carvings entirely
of ivory are mentioned by Hezekiah as frequently existing in the
sanctuaries of Tyre, and in Nineveh there have been found many
fragments, apparently Egyptian, which may, without doubt, be attributed
to the Phœnicians. The Biblical prophets speak of great works in Tyre
composed of precious stones, and Theophrastos mentions an entire obelisk
of emerald as existing in the Temple of Melkarth of that city, which is
explained to have been of a colored glass (_plasma di smeraldo_). Glass
itself, assumed to have been invented by the Phœnicians, but common
in Egypt before the fifteenth century B.C., appears to have been made
only in colored, and generally opaque, masses. The most ancient piece of
white transparent glass known is described by Layard as a cup whereupon
is cut the name of King Sargon in cuneiform characters--consequently an
Assyrian work from the end of the seventh century B.C.
[Illustration: Fig. 97.--From a Relief of Saida.]
[Illustration: Fig. 98.--From the Monument El-Meghazil of Amrith.]
Phœnician sculpture is almost exclusively represented by metal-work,
and, as this was mostly beaten, it is natural that it should assume
that peculiar style of conventionalization which, even in works of
stone, reminds us of empaistic prototypes,--that is to say, of the
characteristic forms and modes of conception originally decided by the
properties of beaten metal. This style is shown by the Phœnician
leaved ornaments upon architectural details, and is especially striking
in the representations of animal forms. Upon a frieze at Saida (_Fig._
97), for example, is a remarkable illustration of the Phœnician
sphyrelaton, which enables us to understand the form of the bulls upon
the brazen laver in the Temple of Jerusalem. The half-lions upon the
monument of Amrith, also, although carelessly carved and much weathered,
are still more interesting in this regard. (_Figs._ 95 and 98.) Besides
their peculiarities as imitations of empaistic work, especially
recognizable in the primitive legs, they show some reminiscences of
Egyptian granite forms and of a Mesopotamian conception of animal
nature, marked also upon the bull’s-head by the strap-like formation of
the sinews. Less direct insight can be gained from other Phœnician
sculptures because of their more advanced state of destruction. The
rock-cut reliefs of Gineh and of Mashnaka, however, well deserve to be
mentioned. The first shows upon one side an animal, apparently a bear,
leaping upon a man, while at the right, in a sunken rectangular frame,
is an enthroned figure, and in another a man in front view, with two
dogs, which are scarcely recognizable. Enough is still preserved to show
that the work is not of Egyptian origin, but may more justly be compared
to Assyrian sculptures, though without the stiff character of courtly
ceremonial peculiar to the works of Nineveh. The two rock-cut reliefs of
a mountain-pass near Mashnaka (_Fig._ 99) are more important to the
history of the architecture than to that of the sculpture of Western
Asia, because of the remarkable forms of the capitals represented upon
them; they will be considered in connection with Solomon’s Temple. The
smaller, movable sculptures found in Phœnicia, which were possibly
not the work of the country, are of less interest; they usually exhibit
decided Egyptian influence. Numerous marble sarcophagi found in Saida
are characterized by the confusion of style peculiar to Phœnicia. The
covers are imitated from the swathed human forms represented upon the
lids of Egyptian mummy-coffins; the heads betray in some measure the
influence of Greece, and render it probable that they were executed in
the time of the Seleucidæ.
[Illustration: Fig. 99.--Rock-cut Relief of Mashnaka.]
As might be expected from the position of the country, lying between
Egypt and Chaldæa, and from the national commerce and manufactures,
which attracted the products of both countries, the artistic style of
Phœnicia was a mixture of Egyptian and Mesopotamian elements. This
was, of course, also the case with that of the Jews, who, in their
architecture and sculpture, were as dependent upon the Phœnicians as
were the primitive Romans upon the Etruscans. The influence of Egypt was
felt in Palestine in a greater degree than in Phœnicia, because the
Israelites had grown to a people upon the banks of the Nile, and without
doubt transplanted many artistic conceptions, as well as methods and
details, to the Promised Land. This is noticeable in the tabernacle and
in the temple, the latter, as is well known, receiving its general
disposition from its relation to that former encampment. The tabernacle
(_Fig._ 100) is in fundamental character a repetition in movable tents
of the triple Egyptian temple system of court, hall, and cella. At the
time of the emigration of the Jews from their long sojourn in Goshen,
they could have been familiar only with Egyptian forms; we cannot
mistake if we suppose them, before their intercourse with the
Phœnicians, to have supplied all their artistic needs from Egyptian
precedents.
[Illustration: Fig. 100.--The Mosaic Tabernacle.]