CHAP. xiii.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 451 



penetrating to the Mediterranean, under Tiglath Pileser 

 I. (B.C. 1130 to 1090). In 866 B.C. the Assyrians con- 

 quered Phoenicia, including the great merchant cities of 

 Tyre and Sidon, and subdued their great rival, Egypt, 

 in 672 B.C., under Esar-haddon. Cyprus fell under the 

 arms of Sargon in 710-705. The conquest of Phoenicia 

 and of Egypt constitutes a landmark in the arts of the 

 Mediterranean peoples, since from that time articles of 

 Assyrian design penetrated to Greece and Italy, and 

 took the place before occupied by those of Egypt, and 

 they continued to hold their own until they were dis- 

 placed by the development of Lykian art in Greece and 

 the Etruskan art, and that of Magna Graecia in Italy. 

 Their distribution was mainly due to the great traders 

 of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Phoenicians. 



The limit of the Assyrian influence to the north is 

 marked by the discoveries in the sepulchral tumuli in 

 the valley of the Dnieper at Wasilkow, 1 in the govern- 

 ment of Kiew, in which twenty-four gryphons, stamped 

 in thin gold, along with glass beads, copper beads, and 

 various other articles in gold and silver, have been met 

 with. These gryphons probably passed northwards 

 through the hands of the Greek traders of Olbia, along 

 a route (Fig. 168, III.), to be examined presently, reach- 

 ing from the Black Sea to the amber coast. 



The Phoenicians and their Influence. 



The great Semite merchants of the East, the Phoeni- 

 cians, dwelling on the seaboard of what became ulti- 

 mately the battle-ground between Egypt and Assyria, 



1 Konn and Mehlis, Vorgeschichte des Menschen im ostlichen Europa, 

 1879. Erste Band, pi. xi. 



