SCULPTURE. e, 
properly so called never attained a very high point of excellence among 
them. We meet most frequently with reliefs which were impressed in the 
clay before it was burnt and then coated with various colored varnish, and 
also statues of deities made of wood and plated with gold or silver. Works 
regularly sculptured in stone are hardly ever found, as the material had to 
be brought from a great distance, and even wood, excepting that of the 
palm-tree, was scarce. The statues of the gods, however, were made of a 
colossal size; for Herodotus mentions the image of Belus which cost 800 
talents of gold, and another image 24 feet in height. Diodorus informs us 
that they made brazen statues of their kings. Daniel, too, set up stone 
images; but these belong to a later period, and probably were also of 
burnt clay. 
Still many engraved stones are found which were executed by the Baby- 
lonians; and Herodotus says that every Babylonian had his signet. These 
stones are cylinders of chalcedony, hematite, agate, &c., and the figures 
engraved on them are for the most part representations of the principal gods 
of the Babylonish religion. The style of these productions is very various, 
but mostly resembles the Persian. 
The Phenicians thought less of indestructible than of ornamental works 
of art; their temples were usually very rude, and the wooden walls were 
very often plated with gold. Sculptured work among them attained to 
no great excellence, and statues of stone were very rare. Nor can cast 
statues be shown to have existed among the Pheenicians, although they 
were not unacquainted with the art of brass-founding, since they cast 
vessels of elegant and frequently of colossal form. Of the sculptures of the 
Pheenicians little or nothing has come down to us; but we know, from 
their coins and engraved stones and from the accounts of the ancients, that 
the figures of their gods by no means exhibited those characteristic and 
significant traits which indicate an indigenous school of art. Some grave- 
stones there are, as those in pl. 2, jigs. 11, 12, which show as little artistic 
skill as they do originality of invention. In their figurative representations 
‘the Pheenicians often employed combinations of the human form with those 
of animals, while by means of dwarf-like or shapeless and strangely designed 
figures they strove to express the mysterious nature of the deity. 
D. The Egyptians. 
The Egyptians form a distinct branch of the Caucasian race of mankind, 
elegant and slender in form, and fitted for persevering labor. We find 
them in the earliest times through the whole extent of the valley of the Nile; 
and as the country has a peculiar, secluded, and uniform character, so we 
find the people to have led from a most remote epoch a monotonously 
regulated and, as it were, petrified life. Their religion had become a very 
complicated ceremonial worship. The hierarchy and the system of castes 
made their influence felt in every department of human activity, and each 
“employment was carried on by people who were born to it. We find 
among the Egyptians the art of writing already in use and brought to great 
perfection ; it consisted first of a monumental writing, the hieroglyphics, 
391 
