CHAP. xiii.] PHOENICIANS HAD NO ART OF THEIR OWN. 455 



beside the rich chariot from which the monarch has 

 descended. Such was the group of Tyrian and Assyrian 

 personages, and such the scene which, in B.C. 859, was 

 to be seen on the shores of the Mediterranean, near the 

 city of Tyre. How doubly interesting this picture is in 

 giving, as it does, an illustration of the meeting of East 

 and West, and portraying an event of great import- 

 ance in the history of civilisation." l 



The subjection of the Phoenician mother cities to the 

 Assyrians is, as Mr. Stuart Poole 2 remarks, of the highest 

 value in fixing the date of ancient works of art in the 

 Mediterranean. Up to that time articles of Egyptian 

 design were among the principal commodities in the 

 Phoenician ships; afterwards they were replaced by 

 articles made from Assyrian models. 



The Phoenicians possessed no Art of their own. 



The Phoenicians did not possess any art of their own, 3 

 but borrowed styles from other peoples Egyptian, As- 

 syrian, Persian, Lykian, or Greek. So much was this 

 the case that the thirteen sarcophagi in the Louvre, 

 which contained Sidonian nobles, are borrowed either 

 from Egypt or Assyria. The king of Sidon, Eshmon- 

 ezar, is buried in a sarcophagus made of stone from the 

 Egyptian quarries of Syene in the Upper Nile, and he 

 appears on the lid in an Egyptian dress, although the 

 inscription proves that he was born, reigned, and died 



1 Standard, May 12, 1879. These bronze gates are now in the 

 British Museum. 



2 Contemporary Review, Jan. 1878, p. 348 et seq. 



8 Renan, La Mission de PJufnicie, Paris, 1864. Wiberg, Archiv fur 

 Anthrop. iv. 25. 



j 



I U N r V ; T? cs T -r -T7- t 



