Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/207

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

MEN. '8.3 large number of detached pieces and homely groups which could not easily be accounted for without it, for they may well have be- longed to similar compositions. . . . We find ourselves brought back to that idea of an escort which must have been associated with the supreme migration in the minds of the Cypriots, as well as in those of the Phoenicians and Etruscans. It is a survival from that primitive instinct which caused the dead to be buried with their favourite horses and even chariots." l On the other hand most of the figures found in the salt-mines of Larnaca seem to have been votive in their intention. 2 In fact, FIG. I2O. Terra cotta from Kition. Louvre. Height 9^ inches. From Ileuzey. many of them hold things in their hands which can only have been offerings. " The series begins with figures of quite primitive execu- tion. Nothing could be much more fantastic than the little rude sketch in clay, which represents a personage wearing a high conical cap (Fig. 120). When the legs are unbroken, as we find them in some other examples of the same type, they are combined into a slender stem of exaggerated length. ; they remind us of the oldest Phoenician (Fig. i) and Sardinian bronzes, and of those idols in the Kircher Museum which are little more than metal rods." 1 HEUZEY, Catalogue, pp. 143-144. 2 Ibid. p. 169. 3 Ibid. pp. 170-171.