No. -57.— 1906.] 



SINHALESE ART. 



81 



The survival of a peculiar form of armlet is in itself sig- 

 nificant enough ; but the form of it raises the question of 

 ' ' palmette , " or " honeysuckle " patterns , and the possibilities 

 of Greekish influence. The " palmette " Greek honeysuckle is 

 one of a series of decorative forms which have a very long 

 and interesting history; including the "Fleur de lys" and 

 the Renaissance "shell," they often alternate with another 

 element in what are known as "knop and flower" patterns, 

 for a short account of which the last chapter of Sir George 

 Birdwood's " Industrial Arts of India " may be consulted. The 

 earliest forms of these patterns are found in Egyptian art, 

 the "Fleur de lys" lotus forms (see Flinders Petrie's 

 " Egyptian Decorative Art"). The Grecian forms themselves 

 are developments of borrowings from Egypt (or Assyria), 

 through the Phcenians and Mykenae ; the early Indian and 

 also the Sinhalese forms are likewise in the last analysis trace- 

 able to Egypt through Assyria. As to the date of the borrow- 

 ing, it will be recalled that it is generally considered that 

 writing was introduced into India from lemitic sources not 

 long before Asoka's time, and it is reasonable to suppose that 

 with the writing sculptured on stone, the associated deco- 

 rative forms were also introduced. There is no necessity for 

 postulating a direct Greek origin for any of these patterns, 

 which would follow their own line of development from 

 Egypt through Mesopotamia and finally into Persia and 

 India ; at the same time the possibility of Greek influence is 

 by no means excluded, as there was, after the 6th and 7th 

 centuries B.C., considerable intercourse between Greece and 

 Persia and between Greece and Northern India in the time of 

 Alexander. It is difficult to avoid regarding such a pat- 

 tern as that shown in figure 17 as evidence of Greek influence ; 

 because it is a specimen of what the Germans call fortlaufende 

 wellenranke, i.e., an arrangement of decorative vegetable 

 elements on both sides of a continuous wavy line connecting 

 them. Now this method of associating decorative elements on 

 a continuous undulating stem is first met with in Mykensean 



G 43-06 



