§78,79. IDEAS BORROWED FROM OTHERS. 303 



ceiving how they were influenced by the types prevailing at 

 those periods ; which sometimes bear the stamp of an 

 Egyptian, and sometimes of an Asiatic, origin. The 

 Egyptian type is always sufficiently evident ; the other is 

 probably Phoenician ; and this is only what might be ex- 

 pected from the statements of ancient writers, who represent 

 the Sidonians as the great manufacturers of bronze and other 

 ornamental works. They were also the great exporters of 

 those days ; and as we frequently meet with the same designs 

 on paterae and various objects both in Etrun'a, to which they 

 traded by sea, and in Assyria, with which they traded by 

 land, we may safely attribute to them the same origin. Nor 

 is there wanting abundant proof of the intercourse of that 

 trading people with Nineveh. Again, similar designs are 

 occasionally found in Egyptian paintings representing vases 

 and other things, brought home or captured by the Pharaohs 

 in their Asiatic wars ; and it is therefore reasonable to con- 

 clude that these and other designs used by the Assyrians 

 were Phoenician ; and that those supposed to have been taken 

 by the Greeks from the Assyrians were from the same source. 

 And though the sphinx, the scarabaeus, the lotus, and many 

 conventional emblems were derived from Egypt in the first 

 instance, we at once perceive how they were altered by the 

 Phoenicians ; and how the sphinx, with recurved wings, which 

 became so prevalent on early Greek and Etruscan works, was 

 the Phoenician modification of its Egyptian prototype. 



The greater part then of those early designs, common to 

 Etruria, Assyria, and Greece, which have not a real Egyptian 

 character, may be attributed to that great manufacturing and 

 trading people ; and the name Phoenician, formerly given to the 

 oldest Greek vases, may not be altogether without authority ; 

 though it should rather be applied to the patterns than to the 

 vases themselves. Similar facts tend to prove the exchange 

 of ideas in taste and customs, which took place at these re- 



