ANCIENT CARVED IVORIES 21 



are principally ivory tablets and combs, and although owing 

 to the many centuries that they have been buried, the 

 ivory has split up into sections, or even fragments, the 

 surface is usually well preserved and the engraving as 

 clearly defined as when first executed. Several of these 

 objects may be seen in the collection of the Hispanic Mu- 

 seum, New York City. The combs exhibit a number of 

 designs in which human and animal forms are combined; 

 in others, again, the carver has only depicted animal forms. 

 For example, one tablet shows a bull attacked by two lions; 

 on the reverse appears a gazelle between a lion and a griffin. 

 A comb, from the Celto-Punic necropolis of Cruz del Negro, 

 Carmona, is engraved with a design representing a lion 

 lying down and having a bird between its paws; a gazelle 

 is graven on the reverse side. 



More curious and interesting than these purely animal 

 subjects are two tablets, from the tumulus of Bucarron, 

 representing a combat between warriors and lions. On one 

 of these plaques the valiant combatant is withstanding the 

 attack of two lions, while the other one represents a single 

 combat. The type of the warrior, with his long pointed 

 beard, is curiously suggestive of the so-called "Hittite" 

 art of northern Syria which flourished for many centuries 

 before 1000 B.C., and these or similar types were probably 

 copied and recopied in the commercial art of Phoenicia. 

 From the necropolis of Cruz del Negro came also an Egyp- 

 tian spatula of ivory, and an ivory comb with an engraving 

 of gazelles and griffins, found May 15, 1908. 



A bone-incrusted bed of the second or first century 

 B. C. was found in the necropolis of Orvieto, Province of 

 Perugia, and is now in the Field Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, Chicago. This is an example of the Etruscan funeral 

 bed, a resting couch for a deceased person, and is of table 

 shape. The dimensions are: length, 55 in.; width, 30 in.; 



