JEWISH, PH@NICIAN, AND EARLY GREEK ART, ETC. 39 
Two rows of stately dogs on either hand, 
In sculptur’d gold and labour’d silver stand. 
* * * * 
Fair thrones from space to space were raised, 
Where various carpets and embroidery blazed. 
Od. vii. 110. 
The “ fair thrones”? remind one of the throne of Solomon, 
made of ivory, and “ overlaid with the finest gold.” There 
were six steps to the throne... . and ‘twelve lions stood 
there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps ”” 
(1 Kings x. 18-20). Homer speaks of carpets “ blazing with 
embroidery,’ and in another place of “rich tapestry, stiff 
with inwoven gold” (Od. iv. 406), which recall in style of 
workmanship and richness of material the veil of the Temple 
(2 Chron. i. 14). 
And at the present time we are not dependent on even the 
most graphic descriptions of poets or sacred writers for our 
knowledge of Phoenician and early Greek art and workmanship. 
The excavations of Di Cesnola in Cyprus and of Schliemann 
and others in Greece and Troy have brought to light some 
of the works themselves—cups, and vases, and necklets, and 
rings, and chains of gold; plates of beaten gold, almost as thin 
as tissue-paper, fitted on to the faces and persons of the dead, 
and also on carved wood and ornaments of every form. These 
illustrate the words of the sacred writers, who tell us that 
Hiram carved upon the doors of the Temple “ cherubim, and 
palm-trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold ; 
and spread gold upon the cherubim and upon the palm-trees 
. and the whole house he overlaid with pure gold” 
(1 Kings vi. 32, seq.) The vessels and entire utensils of 
Solomon’s Temple and Palace were gold, made by Hiram the 
Pheenician. In the Iliad (xxiii. 704, seg.), we read that Achilles 
offered as a race-prize, at the funeral of Patrocles, a silver 
goblet, unrivalled for beauty of workmanship, made by 
Sidonian artists. Another goblet, made by Hephaistos, ws 
presented by the King of Sidon to Menelaos, as we read 
in the Odyssey :— 
The silver bowl, whose costly margins shine, 
Enchased with gold, this valued gift be thine ; 
To me this present of Vulcanian frame 
From Sidon’s hospitable monarch came. 
But perhaps the most remarkable connecting link between 
early Greek, Phoenician, and Jewish art was discovered 
some few years ago. It is a fragment of a bronze cup, 
containing part of a Phoenician inscription of the oldest 
