JEWISH, PH@NICIAN, AND EARLY GREEK ART, ETC. Oo” 
From Cyprus the Phcenicians proceeded westward along the 
coast of Asia Minor to Rhodes, where they formed a settle- 
ment, and have left many traces of their presence. Their 
next station appears to have been in the little island of Thera, 
one of the Sporades, in which there is a good harbour. On 
the shore are tombs, fragments of colossal masonry, and 
Phoenician inscriptions. ‘he letters of the inscriptions are 
almost identical with those of the Moabite stone, and of the 
tablet recently discovered on the side of the subterranean 
channel between the Fountain of the Virgin and the Pool of 
Siloam at Jerusalem. From Thera the voyage was short and 
easy to the Morea and other parts of Greece. In the ruins of 
the cities of Tiryns and Mycene, probably among the oldest 
in Greece, I observed the very marked characteristics of 
Phoenician masonry—colossal stones roughly hewn at the 
edges, monolithic jambs and lintels, rudely-dressed and 
irregularly - shaped blocks piled up without order. ‘he 
masonry of the citadel of Tiryns, of the celebrated Lion Gate 
of Mycenze, and of the subterranean tombs of Atreus and 
Agamemnon (so called), closely resemble that of the Phoenician 
temples in Malta and Gozo; of the wall of Eryx in Sicily, also 
Phoenician; and of the most ancient fragments in Arvad, 
Sidon, Banias, Jerusalem, and Hebron. We learn from the 
Odyssey that the word Cyclopean, as applied to masonry, was 
of Phoenician origin. In fact, wherever solid building is 
mentioned by Homer, it is attributed, directly or indirectly, 
to Phoenician workmen (see Gladstone, Juventus Mundi, 131 ; 
Schliemann, Tiryns, 20, 21). And the inscriptions found on 
the sites of several of the oldest cities of Greece—Athens 
among others (History of Art iv Phoenicia and Cyprus, 1. 249) 
show that Phoenician enterprise and culture were introduced 
at a very early period. 
It is, however, when we examine the ceramic and metal- 
lurgic art, and the gems, seals, coins, and intaglos of the 
Phoenicians, Israelites, and Greeks, that we see the close 
resemblance in design and execution. Fortunately, many 
precious specimens have come down to us, and minute de- 
scriptions are given of others by ancient writers. The 
Pheenicians, we know, executed the finest work for the Jews, 
and introduced the art ito Greece. ‘They carried their art 
with them to their colonies, and they supplied their most 
finished and costly products to such princes and peoples as 
were able to buy them. Mr. Gladstone, in his Juventus Mundi, 
says :—‘ With respect to fine art, it seems impossible to resist 
the clear and ample evidence of the Homeric text, to the effect 
—first, that works well deserving of that name in all essentials 
