perspectives on phoenician art

Perspectives on Phoenician ArtAuthor(s): Shelby BrownSource: The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 6-24Published by: The American Schools of Oriental ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210237 .

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Silver bowl of the seventh century B.C.E. with gold-plated figural decoration, of unknown provenance. This bowl illustrates the subtlety and skill of the Phoenician craftsman at organizing his design. The central medallion depicts two women dancing, facing one another, with a bird flying between them. In the middle register, five ibex, separated by trees and each accompanied by two birds, run clockwise; a lion attacks the flank of the ibex located above the heads of the dancers in the center. In the main register, women walk in a procession toward a basin on a stand. They are split vertically into two groups and step bilaterally from a palm tree at the bottom of the design, below the central dancers, toward the basin at the top. The bilateral procession and other structural elements are characteristic of a particular class of Phoenician bowls (Markoe 1985: 13-33). The Phoenician artist influences the way an observer views the design by manipulating details, such as height of repousse, size and placement of motifs, orientation of figures, and direction of glances and movements. Al- though many modern authors have maligned Phoenician artists, such carefully crafted bowls do not seem to be the work of bungling, inferior craftsmen. Photo courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, number 47.491. Purchased from the J.H. Wade Fund.

Perspectives on

Phoenician Art

by Shelby Brown

ncient literary and inscrip- tional records of Israel, Egypt, Assyria and Greece document that Phoenician

craftsmen were renowned for their skill in working ivory, metal, stone and wood as well as weaving and dyeing fine fabrics. In contrast, until fairly recently, modern critics frequently scorned Phoenician artistry or accorded it, at best, only back- handed compliments. This is largely because the Phoenicians borrowed so many (in some cases, most) of their motifs from a variety of foreign sources, often modifying them and sometimes "getting them wrong" according to the conventions of their original contexts.

Phoenician artists did frequently care more about the general "look" of a motif than its exact adherence to an original, but even when they copied motifs exactly, we often

6 Biblical Archaeologist, March 1992



simply do not understand the significance of the borrowed symbols in a Phoenician context. As a result, scholars have tended to emphasize the derivative nature of Phoenician art and to focus on its apparent lack of meaning in comparison with the imagery of other artistic traditions.

As one might expect, however, Phoenician art ranges widely in quality and significance, according to the skills of individual artists and the varying, often overlapping, functions for which particular objects were intended. These functions included fulfilling a specific role in a religious ritual, serving as an afford- able copy of an expensive prototype, and being beautiful. Much of Phoe- nician art served a practical purpose, yet was also intended to appeal to the eye. I will therefore not distinguish here between artist and craftsman (assuming that most ancient artists were male).

Deciding what art, if any, to call "Phoenician" in the Late Bronze Age (circa 1550-1200 B.C.E.) is not easy, and in the early Iron Age there is a gap in most of the artistic evidence from about 1200 to 900 or 800 B.C.E. For these reasons, I focus here on the first millennium from the ninth century B.C.E. on. I propose to illustrate a sample of Phoenician art in four representative media: ivory (furniture, boxes and toiletries, mostly from the east), metal (bowls from the east, razors from the west), stone (stelae and cippi - tombstones -

from the west), and terracotta (masks and protomes - small molded heads - from both east and west).

These examples illustrate a great deal not only about Phoenician artistic techniques and aesthetic tastes but also about Phoenician religious beliefs and rituals, international trade and travel in the ancient Medi- terranean, and the exchange of ideas and techniques among cultures. In particular, these objects document the iconography from which Phoeni- cian craftsmen chose symbols of myth, religion and daily life both to

decorate objects and to communicate ideas to their ancient audience. We can appreciate and admire the decorative images, but we often fail to understand the ideas behind them.

Phoenician "Minor Arts": Contexts and Problems The Phoenician art that survives today consists mainly of relatively small objects sometimes called "minor arts." These are often made of expensive materials such as silver, gold, ivory and semiprecious stones, but they also occur in terracotta, bronze, glass and paste. Some larger, heavier items of stone are also preserved. Unfortunately, objects made of carved wood and textiles have almost all perished.

Most of the art has survived in funerary contexts. Grave goods include personal possessions or insignia of rank and status purchased or inherited in life and taken to the grave, such as jewelry, scarabs and amulets, metal bowls, and ivory boxes and cosmetic implements. Other, more functional objects, such as bronze razors, terracotta masks, and stone sarcophagi and commemorative monuments, were associated with funerary rituals. Limitations of space prevent discussion here of the vast corpus of jewelry, amulets and scarabs, the many bronze and terracotta figu- rines and the rarer stone sarcophagi (see Moscati 1988: 292-99, 328-53, 370-93, 394-403).

Phoenician art is found in sanctuaries as well as funerary contexts, but less often in areas of habitation. This does not mean that all the art was created for the dead or to worship the gods. Phoenician settlements have frequently been razed, looted or built over, both in antiquity and modern times. Most that survive have either not yet been found or not been thoroughly excavated, especially in Phoenicia. Phoenician tombs and sanctuaries are often repositories of art that might not otherwise be preserved.

Much of the art was portable,

and the artists, too, were mobile. As a result, Phoenician goods found their way, in the first millennium B.C.E., deep into Assyria (modern northern Iraq) and across the Medi- terranean as far as Italy and Spain. The products of Phoenician craftsmen influenced Etruscan and Greek artists during the first third of the first millennium B.C.E., even before the Phoenicians had established themselves as a major presence in the western Mediterranean.

Ironically, most surviving Phoe- nician art has been discovered outside Phoenicia proper. In Phoenicia, archaeologists have excavated too few sites to remedy this situation and, where they have excavated, they have usually not dug deeply enough (with the exception of Sarepta; see Pritchard 1978). The virtual absence of Phoenician art in Phoenicia itself poses a dilemma for those trying to identify what, specifically, makes early Phoenician art "Phoenician." The problem is not unlike that con- fronting early students of Greek vase painting of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. Their research was hampered by the fact that most of the surviving vases have been found in Etruscan tombs in northern Italy (Boardman 1974: 9-10).

In the west, we can usually identify as "Phoenician" the art commonly found in quantity at well- excavated Phoenician sites in Spain, Sicily, Sardinia and Tunisia. These artifacts, most dating to the seventh through second centuries B.C.E., often differ from those presumably made by eastern Phoenicians, which date mainly from the ninth to eighth centuries B.C.E. At all Phoenician sites of any period, it is difficult to isolate true Phoenician art from products imitating it and to distinguish locally made Phoenician objects from those imported or copied from other Phoe- nician sites. Many objects are also difficult to date because the owners passed them on as heirlooms, which are rarely found in contexts close in date to their period of manufacture.

Biblical Archaeologist, March 1992 7



A section of the outer frieze of a silver bowl dating to the seventh century B.C.E. from Amathus, Cyprus. The Phoenicians regularly combined images borrowed from a variety of foreign artistic traditions, including Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek. This bowl illustrates the attack on a walled, Near Eastern city by soldiers depicted in three different styles. From the right, four "Greek hoplites" (named for their characteristic shield, the hoplon) approach the city with raised spears, while behind them march four 'Assyrian archers' bTo the left, two "Egyptians" scale the citadel on ladders, holding their shields over their heads; beyond them Egyptian- looking men fell trees in an orchard. Drawn from Markoe 1985: CY4. Unless otherwise noted, all drawings by the author.

A final problem for dating Phoeni- cian art is its often conservative nature. Artists sometimes repeated the same motifs in similar ways for centuries.

What Makes Phoenician Art "Phoenician?" The hallmark of Phoenician art is its eclecticism. Most often, we recognize Phoenician art by its unusual combi- nations and modifications of motifs and designs borrowed from a variety of foreign sources, such as Assyrian, Syrian, Greek and Egyptian. Some- times it is possible to identify a work as Phoenician because of the distinctive organization of its designs, but attempts to do so have been rare (Markoe 1985: chapter 3). The eclec- tic Phoenician "composite style" is one that artists of the different lend- ing traditions would probably not have used, especially when motifs of particular religious or social significance are depicted out of context. Modern critics, depending upon which borrowed style they consider dominant, may call a Phoenician work "Egyptianizing," "Assyrianiz- ing," "Cypro-Phoenician" (Assyrianiz- ing Phoenician art found in Cyprus) or "Syrianizing" ("Syro-Phoenician"). Unfortunately, all scholars are not in complete agreement as to which objects should be called "Phoenician" and how these terms should be ap-

plied to subgroups within the corpus of Phoenician art. As a result, the non-specialist may understandably become quite confused.

Egyptian attributes generally dominate, and "Egyptianizing" is the adjective most commonly used to describe Phoenician art. In the last

The hallmark of

Phoenician art is

its eclecticism.

century, scholars debated whether or not Phoenician ivories were actually Egyptian. In addition to specific Egyptian themes, such as the winged sun disk or Pharaoh smiting his enemies, Phoenician artists often employed common elements of Egyp- tian designs, such as the regular spacing of figures across a relatively plain background, the standardized proportions of human and animal figures in profile, the smooth, undecorated expanses of flesh or clothing, the symmetry of individual motifs and designs, and the colors common in Egyptian art: black, white, green, red, yellow and blue. The modern scholarly debate on the nature and extent of Egyptian influence on Phoenician art, in particular

on whether it increased through time or predominated in certain periods, still continues (Markoe 1985: 16-17).

Sometimes Phoenician artists imitated specific foreign styles rather than modifying or recombining a variety of foreign motifs. It can be difficult to recognize art as "Phoeni- cian" when it copies a foreign model closely. To complicate matters even further, Phoenician artists were by no means the only ones to borrow generously from foreign iconog- raphies. For example, there are many similarities between Syrian or north-

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ern Syrian art (Weiss 1985). Neverthe- less, Syrian art can at times be distinguished from Phoenician. Syrian artists more often borrowed motifs and themes from Anatolia than from Egypt. They depicted more figures frontally and drew squatter, plumper forms and distinctive faces with large eyes and noses, receding chins and pinched lips. They also tended to fill the available space in a given field more completely (Winter 1976: 2-8; Barnett 1982: 43-44). Similarly, some Cypriot ("Cypro-Phoenician") art is distinguished from the main body of Phoenician art because it borrows so many Assyrian motifs

rather than emphasizing Egyptian iconography (Markoe 1985: 8).

Clearly, the study of Phoenician art is often complicated, and scholars view various aspects of this composite style differently. Having noted the problems and controversies, I attempt in what follows to move beyond judgments of what is "good" or "bad" in Phoenician art and beyond consideration of the degrees of foreign influence to evaluate briefly the kinds of information we can gain from the art in each medium.

Ivory Phoenician ivories have been found

in quantities, mainly in palaces, at sites all along the Levantine coast, inland in Iraq and in tombs on Cyprus. Fewer, isolated examples occur, largely in sacrificial and funerary contexts, in Rhodes, Samos, Crete, Greece and Italy (Barnett 1956; 1982: 47). The majority of these ivories date to the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.E.

Ivory-carving was a long- established craft in the Near East, and the Phoenician ivories have many precursors in the second millennium, but the evidence to estab- lish continuity in traditions of carving ivory has not yet been found. As

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7Wo ivories from Nimrud, probably from the late ninth or eighth century B.C.E., depicting winged sphinxes. Sphinxes are usually winged in Phoenician art but not always in Egyptian. Left: A plaque from the North West Palace illustrates the slender proportions and graceful lines characteristic of Phoenician work. Photo from Barnett 1982: plate 50a, with the permission of the Israel Exploration Society, Jerusalem. Above: A pyxis (cylindrical con- tainer) from the South East Palace reveals the blockier, squatter forms and distinctive faces characteristic of much Syrian art. Drawing from Barnett 1975: plate XXI (S6), with the permission of the British Museum, London.




Ivory-Working Techniques Elephant tusks are composed

largely of dentin, the most suit- able part for carving. The dentin is covered by a hard bony material, cementum, which forms the surface or "rind" of the tusk. Near its tip the tusk is solid, but at its base it is filled with pulp, living tissue through which a nerve cavity ex- tends the length of the tusk (St. Clair and McLachlan 1989: 1). A cross section through the base of the tusk reveals a hollow cylinder, naturally forming the circular shape of a pyxis or cylindrical "box," one of the items commonly fashioned from ivory tusks in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean.

To prepare the tusk, carvers first removed the cementum by abrading it, leaving behind the dentin. Then they cut the dentin with saws into cross sections or longitudinal strips of different sizes according to their needs. The final product was worked first with coarse chisels or gouges to block out figures in the round or remove unwanted material. Then it was worked with progressively finer tools: chisels and knives for modeling, scribers for engraving, and drills for making holes. Lastly, files and abrasives were used to polish away any remaining tool marks. Sometimes ivory plaques were inlaid with paste or other materials in a technique borrowed from metalworking (cloisonnd), or the back- grounds of low reliefs were cut away so that the decorations themselves were left virtually freestanding

(ajour,; see St. Clair and McLach-

lan 1989: 5; Barnett 1982: 11-15). There is some debate about how

or even whether ivory carving re- lates more directly to stone and wood carving. Wood carving seemns the more obvious parallel, although the classical Greek sculptor Phei- dias (fl. 450-425 B.C.E.), famous for his enormous gold-and-ivory statues of Athena at Athens and Zeus at Olympia, worked in both marble and ivory. The Phoenician craftsman sent to Jerusalem by Hiram of Tyre (2 Chronicles 2:13-14) was adept in even more media.

with Phoenician art in other media, there is a troublesome gap in the evidence between the late second and early first millennium B.C.E. The Egyptians of the New Kingdom ex- celled in carving luxury goods and making fine furniture of ivory. In the Late Bronze Age the Canaanite fore-

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bears of the Phoenicians worked ivory and hoarded it as treasure (Barnett 1982: 25-31; note the unusual ivories at Kamid el-Loz in the Biqac valley of Lebanon, Hachmann 1983: 82).

Phoenician ivories first came to light in Iraq in 1845 with the discoveries of Austen Henry Layard at the North West Palace of Ashurna- sirpal II (883-859 B.C.E.) at Nimrud (Barnett 1975: 15-18). More ivories turned up in the following century, during continued excavations begun in the 1940s under the direction of Max Mallowan. Recently, the Depart- ment of Antiquities of Iraq uncov- ered still more ivories at Nimrud (Barnett 1982: 51-52).

The early discoveries at this site were supplemented in the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries by extensive finds at a number of other palaces (in Assyria at Khorsa- bad, in northern Syria at Arslan Tash and Zincirli, in Israel at Samaria) and, most recently, in tombs at Sala-

mis on Cyprus. The ivories from all these sites seem mainly to be panels from furniture such as chairs, thrones, footstools and beds. Phoeni- cian craftsmen also made smaller items of ivory, such as boxes, handles for fans or fly-whisks, cosmetic implements, and even horse blinkers

The Phoenicians and Syrians were known for their skill in making ivory furniture, including chairs, thrones, beds, tables and footstools. Fragments of furniture that are probably Phoenician have been tentatively restored from Nimrud and Salamis, including this ivory throne from Tomb 79 in Salamis, Cyprus, of the late eighth century B.C.E. Ivory plaques were applied over a wooden frame that has completely decayed. The seat, indicated by a dark stain on the soil around the throne, is also lost. The back was decorated with vertical, plain and floral-patterned plaques and capped with a band of sheet gold stamped with a scale pattern. This was one of three ivory thrones in the tomb; still other ivories may have belonged to a bed and table. Drawn from Karageorghis 1969: plate 6.

and harness trappings. Paint, gold leaf, and inlaid stones, glass and paste made many of these Phoeni- cian ivories bright and colorful. Some later ivories from the west, made perhaps at Carthage, also survive from the seventh century B.C.E. in Carthage, Samos, Malta, southern Spain and southern Italy. These are toilet articles such as combs, mirror handles and plaques from small boxes. Finds from Tharros, Sardinia, in particular, document the use of small luxury goods of ivory in the west into the second century B.C.E.

The size of the furniture panels and other objects was limited by the carver's ability to obtain relatively flat pieces of sufficient size from a curved tusk of ivory. When joined together on a wooden frame, furniture panels formed decorative patterns of repeated abstract and representational motifs, rather than narrative scenes, which are in any case rare in Phoenician art. Carvers often marked panels with letters from different




alphabets, not just Phoenician, as keys to their correct placement on pieces of furniture. Motifs include ones wholly Egyptian in origin, such as sphinxes and various representations of the god Horus, as well as modified Egyptian themes, such as youths wearing Pharaonic crowns

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and grasping fantastic plants. This last theme resembles a native Egyp- tian scene of Nile gods binding plants symbolizing the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt; its significance in a Phoenician context is unclear.

A few motifs seem more distinc- tively Phoenician. The "Woman at the Window" wearing an Egyptian wig may refer to real or mythological sacred prostitution. Other scenes of animals and animals in combat are subject to a wide variety of interpretations. The motifs of the later, western- made ivories reflect the earlier ones: women wearing Egyptian wigs, animals of various kinds, men battling animals, and mythological creatures, such as griffins and sphinxes.

Metal: Bowls and Razors Bowls. Phoenician bronze and silver bowls dating to the ninth through seventh centuries B.C.E. are less well- known than the ivories since, except for a hoard from Nimrud, they occur in isolation at a wide variety of sites in east and west. In 1849, Layard dis-

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covered a cache of more than 100 metal bowls and other vessels decorated in a variety of styles in the North West Palace at Nimrud. Some of the bowls have since disappeared, but more than 50 have been published in at least preliminary fashion (Barnett 1974: 12-13). Many of these seem to be Phoenician in origin.

After Layard's discoveries, exca- vators in the second half of the nine- teenth century unearthed bowls in sanctuaries and tombs in Italy, Greece, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus. Other isolated finds, usually without provenance, have found their way to museums in Europe, Iran and the United States. Recently, Glenn Markoe published a comprehensive

corpus of more than 80 examples, excluding the hoard from Nimrud. Based on the evidence of this corpus, Markoe (1985: 1) argues forcefully for the structural balance and uni- formity of design of these bowls and against those who have seen on them only an "indiscriminate hodge-

7Tvo ivory panels from the North West Palace at Nimrud of the eighth century B.C.E., illuS- trating the same motif carved (in mirror image) with slight variations, probably by different craftsmen. The projecting tongues show that these plaques were meant to be inserted into a larger construction, possibly a piece of furniture, where they most likely would have flanked a different central motif. Each panel shows a youth wearing a modified pharaonic crown with uraeus (the Egyptian royal symbol of a rearing cobra) and a hybrid Egyptian-Assyrian costume. He grasps the stem of an elaborate lotus plant in his left hand and raises his right to it in a gesture of ritual greeting often seen in religious contexts in Phoenician art. Photo from Barnett 1975: plate III, C1 and 2, with the permission of the British Museum, London.

podge of symbols." Apparent precursors to these

bowls are rare, but there are several similar Egyptian bowls and an example from Ugarit dating to the Late Bronze Age. As with the ivories, there is a gap in the evidence between the Late Bronze Age and the early first millennium (Markoe 1985: 15, 19, 99). In the ninth and eighth centuries, many metalworking centers were active in many parts of the ancient Near East, not just in Phoenicia. Assyrian kings mention metalwork along with ivories in the lists of tribute they received and booty they seized. After the eighth century B.C.E., production in the east apparently waned and individual craftsmen and




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Ivory plaque of the seventh or sixth century B.C.E. from Bencarron (Carmona), Spain, showing a helmeted warrior fighting a griffin and a lion. Drawn from Barnett 1982: plate 54B.

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An eighth-century-B.C.E. ivory panel from the North West Palace at Nimrud. The panel represents the so-called "Woman at the Window," a motif found on a number of Phoenician ivories from different Levantine sites. The woman, wearing an Egyptian wig, looks out from a window recessed inside a three-stepped frame and supported below by four columns with elaborate palm capitals. The decorated neckline of her garment is visible (the shoul- ders of her dress seem to be made of crinkly material; Barnett 1975: 173). This motif has been associated with temple prostitution, a practice mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in connection with a Babylonian goddess like Aphrodite (Histories 1.199). Saint Augustine claims that the Phoenicians gave their daughters as prostitutes (De civitate dei IV 10). Other references tie Cypriot Aphrodite (related to Phoenician Astarte) to a story about a woman looking out a window (Barnett 1975: 149). Photo from Barnett 1975: plate IV C14 and 15, with the permission of the British Museum, London.

whole workshops perhaps moved westward. By the seventh century, it may be possible to identify a center of production on Cyprus and a Phoe- nician workshop in Etruria (Markoe 1985: 7-8, 11, 27, 68, 141-42).

The bowls are usually shallow, approximately 3 to 5 centimeters (1 to 2 inches) deep and 15 to 20 centimeters (6 to 8 inches) in diameter, and decorated with concentric friezes encircling a central medallion. On shallower bowls the design is engraved on the interior; on deeper ones it is applied to the exterior. Certain bowls are finely crafted, detailed pieces, some gold-plated or highlighted in gold. These indeed merit the praise Homer gives Phoe- nician bowls in the Iliad (chapter 23, lines 741-44; Lattimore 1962). Decorative motifs on bowls include files of animals or mythological creatures, hunting scenes, duels between men, between animals, and between men and animals or mythological beasts (for example, sphinxes and griffins), files of soldiers march- ing to or engaging in battle or siege, processions, some toward an en- throned figure, and recognizable

Egyptian themes such as Pharaoh vanquishing his enemies. Phoenician metalsmiths also inserted Egyptian attributes and motifs throughout their work in the form of Egyptian dress and hairstyles and symbols like the hovering Horus falcon, a sign of victory. Clear examples of narrative are rare, although some of the scenes of dueling probably represent episodes from lost stories taken out of their narrative context.

Some bowls are inscribed with personal names in Phoenician, Ara- maic, Greek and Cypriot Syllabic. The inscriptions within the central medallions of two bowls from Italy may name the craftsman, but most inscriptions are located below the rim or at the base of the bowls and probably name the owners (Markoe

A deep silver bowl, gold-plated on the exterior, of unknown provenance. In the upper register, foot soldiers in groups of three proceed to the right. Below, a Horus falcon, an Egyptian symbol of victory, hovers over a lion hunted by a spearman and archers. Phoenician metalsmiths inserted Egyptian attributes and motifs throughout their work. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, number 27.170. Gift of Miss Mary Thatcher in memory of her sister, Miss Martha Thatcher.

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1985: 72-73). How the bowls were used probably depended on these owners. Some vessels were pierced for suspension and may have been hung on display. Those found in Greek votive contexts may have been used to pour libations; their shape is similar to that of Greek bowls made for this purpose. Those from tombs could have served a similar function in funerary rituals, or may merely have been treasured possessions in- terred with the deceased.

The bowls' decorative designs were not always related to their

function. In fact, some of the iconography on these bowls would probably have had no meaning at all for their Etruscan, Cypriot or other foreign owners. The significance of the decorations to their Phoenician makers or owners is elusive. The borrowed Egyptian motifs were mainly religious in their original contexts and could certainly have symbolized the same or related con- cepts to the Phoenicians.

Nevertheless, Phoenician craftsmen sometimes clearly sought to create a certain "look" rather than to

Clear examples of narrative are rare in Phoe- nician art, although two very similar silver bowls from Kourion, Cyprus, and Praeneste, Italy, illustrate an unusual example of Phoe- nician continuous narrative and may reveal the existence of a lost myth or tale. The bowls may have been made in, or by representatives of, the same workshop using a model or pattern book. In the central medallion of this gold-plated bowl from the Bernardini Tobmb in Praeneste, now in the Villa Giulia, Rome, a bearded, naked captive, bound as in many Egyptian reliefs, watches the pursuit of an enemy by an Egyptian spearman. Below, a dog bites another naked man. In the lower decorative frieze horses file in a row beneath flying birds. The main scene is divided into nine episodes running counterclockwise. A "prince" or hunter leaves his fortified town in a chariot, hunts a stag, skins it and offers sacrifices at two altars below a winged disk. An ape or monstrous man steals something from the sacrifice and then apparently attacks the hunter, who is snatched, chariot and all, by a winged goddess. Back on the ground, the hunter pursues and kills the ape before returning to the city (Markoe 1985: 67). Photo from Markoe 1985: E2 (Copyright 1985, The Regents of the University of California).

Left: Silver bowl of the seventh century B.C.E., gold-plated on the interior, from Idalion, Cy- prus (now in the Louvre). The central medallion shows "Pharaoh" smiting his enemies. In the inner frieze, alternating griffins and winged sphinxes trample men underfoot. The main frieze illustrates two examples each of six scenes showing Egyptian-looking heroes battling lions or griffins. Such repeated figures or groups are common in Phoenician art. These may be excerpts from heroic tales. Photo from Markoe 1985: CY2 (Copyright 1985, The Regents of the University of California). Below: Decorative motifs on Phoenician bowls included recognizable Egyptian themes such as Pharaoh vanquishing his enemies, shown here on this twelfth-century-B.C.E. relief from the mortuary temple of Rameses III at Medinet Habu (Thebes). Drawn from Otto 1966: plate 45.

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Techniques for Making Metal Bowls Most Phoenician bowls are

hammered from sheet metal over a curved anvil. The bowls are decorated on the interior by means of engraving and repoussd. The outlines of decorative and representational motifs are engraved on the inside of the bowl using a sharp tool (a graver), which actually cuts away a fine sliver of metal as it incises a line. More rarely, the outline is traced using a fine chisel and ham- mer; when the artisan strikes the chisel into the surface of the bowl, it displaces rather than removes the metal, creating a line which resembles a row of stitches. The lines engraved on the inside of the bowl are visible on the outside as faintly raised lines that serve as guidelines for the repouss6: the process of raising a design in low relief (no higher than .5 centimeters) by hammering or punching from the reverse (i.e., from the outside of the bowl). Em- bossing is the raising of smaller, often round areas (bosses), such as the tip of a tail or the petal of a flow- er. Finally, details are added on the interior with fine incision (Markoe 1985: xiii; 9-12).

communicate meaning. For example, the hieroglyphs inscribed on a bowl from Etruria are Egyptological gib- berish (Markoe 1985: El), like virtually all the hieroglyphs on con- temporary "ancient" Egyptian papyri recently in vogue and sold in modern department stores as wall decorations. Far from being mere bunglers, Phoenician craftsmen could choose intelligently from a range of options, aim for one international "look" or another, or even invent something to suit their aesthetic needs. Razors. The metalworking tradition embodied in the east by bronze and silver bowls is represented in the west by a series of bronze razors with zoomorphic handles found in Phoenician tombs in North Africa

(about 100 examples from Tunisia), Sardinia (about 75), and Spain (about 60, mostly from the island of Ibiza). The ultimate inspiration for these implements probably lies in Egyptian razors of the New Kingdom (Acquaro 1971: 186). The chronology of the Phoenician razors is often unclear, especially in cases where tomb contexts are uncertain or find-information has not been preserved in excavation records or museum catalogues. As a group, the razors range in date from the seventh into the second century B.C.E. Most of the Sardinian examples and virtually all the Spanish ones are unknown and can be dated only by stylistic comparisons with Car- thaginian razors from clearer contexts. The Spanish and Sardinian razors seem to copy Carthaginian prototypes in the third century B.C.E. in particular, but they are usually quite crudely incised in comparison with the more carefully worked, symmetrical Carthaginian models.

These razors are long, up to about 20 centimeters (8 inches), and flat, with a roughly rectangular body, a crescent-shaped blade on one short end, and a handle protruding from either the middle or, more often, one side of the other short end. Frequently the handle takes the form of the long, curving neck and head of a bird, such as a swan or ibis, with the bird's wing incised onto the razor's shoulder. The razors were meant to be suspended, as indicated by small holes piercing the upper body or by suspension-rings attached near the handle. Since they were not usually hung in tombs, perhaps their owners displayed them during their lives. Moreover, since they do not occur in every tomb, their presence may reflect the particular social status or religious beliefs of the deceased.

Early razors are undecorated or (especially in Sardinia) ornamented only with patterns of dots or punc- tate abstract or floral designs. In the fourth century and later, the bodies of many razors were incised with representational motifs, usually ani-

mals, humans and divinities. Plants are also common, such as the lotus, the palm (palms frequently occur on sacrificial stelae) and other, more abstract floral decorations. Many humans or divinities hold plants or branches, as they sometimes also do on stelae. The shaving crescent was decorated separately, sometimes with geometric or floral motifs, less often with representational motifs. The motifs on razors are also found on other minor arts, such as scarabs

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Western Phoenician razors, probably of the third centuryB.C.E., depicting Egyptian themes. Above left: On a razor from Carthage, an Egyptian falcon-headed divinity, Horus or Re, wears a solar disk on his head decorated with two uraei (the uraeus, a rearing cobra, is a symbol of royal authority). He raises his right hand in greeting and holds a uraeus in his left. Drawn from Acquaro 1971: plate XVIII. Above right: A razor from Ibiza, Spain, depicts a woman holding a disk (tambourine) wearing a long, transparent, Egyptian-looking garment. A crescent of the type also seen on sacrificial stelae "floats"in the air above the tambourine. Drawn from Picard 1967: figure 72.




and jewelry, and on sacrificial stelae. Scholars assume that the razors

were used to shave the dead and that their iconography was chosen for its funerary significance. The main decoration on the body of the razor often consists of Egyptian-looking figures and specific Egyptian divinities such as Isis and Horus, both of whom are associated with death, resurrection, and power over evil in a variety of complicated Egyptian myths and rituals.

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TWo Carthaginian razors depicting Greek gods associated with the underworld. Above left: Heracles stands gazing left, carrying his club and wearing only his most recognizable attribute, the lion skin. Drawn from Picard 1967: figure 65. Above right: Hermes walks to the left carrying his caduceus wand over his left shoulder. (On sacrificial stelae only the caduceus, not the god himself, is shown.) He wears a conical cap, recognizable from other depictions of him in Greek art, and the traditional winged shoes. Drawn from Acquaro 1971: plate IV; and Picard 1967: figure 53 (number 13).

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Tharros a

Monte Sirai * sulcis Nora

Su Cardulinu

Motya Lillibaeum

adrumetum

The sites of known tophets, Phoenician sacrificial cemeteries. All but Su Cardulinu have produced decorated and/or inscribed stone commemorative monuments.

The Greek gods Heracles and Hermes are also represented on Carthaginian razors (Heracles twice, Hermes once). Both gods have funerary associations: one of Heracles' labors was to bring the multi-headed dog Cerberus up from the underworld, a feat that symbolized his ability to cross between the worlds of the living and the dead. Hermes was a divine messenger and a conductor of souls to the underworld. His sacred wand, the kerykeion or caduceus, is a common motif on sacrificial stelae, especially at Car- thage. The Carthaginians in particular borrowed many Greek motifs and religious symbols and copied Greek artistic conventions starting in the fifth century B.C.E., a century of much contact and conflict between the two peoples, especially in Sicily.

In the early fourth century, after a defeat at Syracuse, the Carthagin- ians even adopted the cult of Demeter and Persephone and worshiped them in the Greek manner (Brown 1991: 106-7). These goddesses are clearly associated in mythology with the underworld and the rebirth of life in the spring. Other Phoenician cities inherited some Greek-inspired iconography from Carthage and also borrowed ideas directly from their Greek neighbors or imitated Greek goods acquired through war, travel and trade.

Stone Stelae Stone sacrificial monuments - stelae and cippi - can, more reliably than objects in other media, be identified as the products of Phoenician craftsmen since they occur in uniquely Phoenician cemeteries and are not easily portable. These cemeteries, called tophets, are named after biblical references to Topheth, a place outside Jerusalem where children were sacrificed (2 Kings 23:10, Jere- miah 7:31-32). The cemeteries were repositories for the cremated remains of infants, children and animals. Many burials were commemo- rated with decorated monuments, some of which were also inscribed with dedications to the gods (Bisi 1967). To date, nine tophets have been excavated in North Africa, Sicily and Sardinia. Most have monuments and burials. One, at Su Cardulinu in Sardinia, has produced no monuments, while two, at Cirta (Constan- tine) in Algeria and Lillibaeum in Sicily, have been identified not by the discovery of buried remains but only on the basis of stelae removed in antiquity from the sites.

The sacrificial monuments, up to about 1.25 meters (50 inches) tall, number in the many thousands at Carthage, and mostly in the hun- dreds elsewhere (more than 1,000 at Motya and Sulcis). They take many




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TWo early (Tanit I: circa 750 to early fifth century B.C.E.) sandstone monuments from Carthage, possibly originally stuccoed and painted, depicting, at left, a pillar or baetyl, and at right, a Tanit motif The pillar presumably represents an actual "pillar shrine" or "standing stone" of the sort discovered by Joseph Shaw at Kommos in Crete (Shaw 1989: figures 4 and 5; single, double and triple pillar- monuments are also depicted on Phoenician stelae). The Tanit motif is generally assumed to represent the goddess Tanit cited in inscriptions on later monuments. The Sign of Tanit remained a popular motif throughout the first millennium. Drawn from Brown 1991: figures 55b and c.

forms but most frequently are either roughly cubic or, copying the form of Greek tombstones, tall, thin and gabled. They differ from the repetitive monuments found in "normal" cemeteries. At Carthage the taller shape (stela) in limestone, replaces the cubic shape (cippus) usually carved of sandstone and sometimes stuccoed and painted. At other tophets variations of the cubic form predominate. The tophet at Carthage was the largest and was in use the longest, from approximately 750 to 146 B.C.E. (Stager 1982; Brown 1991). As a vastly influential city, Carthage served as a source of artistic inspiration to other Phoenician cities in the west until quite late. By the late third century, however, carvers of Carthaginian stelae had ceased to innovate and to borrow foreign motifs. They were producing repetitive monuments of inferior quality, a fact that probably reflects the increasing political and cultural isolation of Carthage in the wake of the first two Punic Wars.

These stelae illustrate a wealth of western Phoenician religious mo-

tifs (Picard 1976, 1978; Brown 1991). Some motifs were borrowed from Egypt, others were entirely local, and many, at least after the late fifth century B.C.E., were based on Greek models. Artisans in various cities preferred different shapes of monuments and favored certain motifs over others, sometimes executing the designs differently. For example, although depictions of so-called "pillar shrines" (Shaw 1989) are rare at Carthage after the sixth century, they are much more frequent at Hadrumetum (Sousse) and at Phoe- nician sites in Italy. Sulcis in Sar- dinia favored the motif of a woman holding a tambourine (Bartolini 1986). Many Carthaginian craftsmen preferred incision over relief, where- as Italian carvers worked more frequently in relief.

Certain motifs were widespread,

Stone sacrificial

monuments are more

easily identifiable

as Phoenician.

however, and occur at all or most tophets. The Sign of Tanit, named by modern scholars after the goddess mentioned along with Bacal in dedi- catory inscriptions on some stelae, decorated the earliest monuments and remained popular throughout the first millennium. The motif probably depicts the goddess with her arms raised in greeting. In the late fifth or fourth century B.C.E. the caduceus motif, probably represent- ing the wand of Greek Hermes-as conductor of souls to the underworld, appeared on stelae from many sites, perhaps under Carthaginian influence. Hermes himself is not shown, and the motif may have become more a general symbol of the passage from one world to the next

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TWo pairs of monuments from the tophet at Carthage. The pair above dates to the fourth or third century B.C.E. and is decorated with the right hand turned palm outward, a regular form of greeting between human and divinity; in this context it is probably the dedicant of the monument who makes the gesture. The only other decoration preserved in this pair is a boat, a common sight to a Carthaginian and a symbol with varied interpretations. The pair below dates to the third or second century B.C.E. and also features the hand motif Note how the earlier hand changed with time to the more naturalistic one at right. Below the inscription in this pair, the Tanit motif is shown beside a caduceus motif. The Tanit is sometimes anthropomorphized to resemble even more clearly a human figure in a long robe, who may hold a branch or a caduceus. Each pair of stelae was based on the same model or taken from the same pattern book. Photos by William Graham.

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A stela from Lillibaeum in Sicily of the late fourth or third century B.C.E. This is one of a number of monuments depicting images of worshipers or religious functionaries facing an incense stand, raising one or both hands in ritual greeting. The Tanit and caduceus motifs to the left of the incense stand may possibly be interpreted as the receptive divinity and the symbol of sacrifice or interaction between god and mortal. Above, the three pillars on a stand probably represent a real tripillar shrine. If so, the scene as a whole may perhaps stand for the mortal at an actual shrine, using appropriate religious parapher- nalia; the divinity to whom he prays; and the interaction between human and god (the caduceus). This fine stela was declared by Perrot and Chipiez (1885: 308) to have no artistic value, but only to provide a useful illustration of Phoenician clothing. Drawn from Shaw 1989: figure 17.

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Attic Greek red figure plate of the late sixth or early fifth century B.C.E. showing Heracles, accompanied by Hermes, performing one of his labors of the underworld: dragging the two- headed guardian dog, Cerberus, toward the world of the living. Hermes is here in his role as conductor of souls. Both Hermes and Heracles, as symbolic figures who can cross the barrier between this world and the next, were borrowed by the Phoenicians in their funerary and sacrificial art. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, number 01.8025. Pierce Fund, purchase of E. P Warren.

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Drawing of a stela from Cirta of the late third or early second century B.C.E. depicting a humanized Tanit motif holding a branch and a caduceus. Parallel horizontal lines represent lines of inscription in sunken inscription panels. Drawn from Brown 1991: figure 53b.

than the specific attribute of the Greek god. It is often associated with the Sign of Tanit and may even have been her emblem (assuming that the Tanit and caduceus really are represented by these motifs). Craftsmen at Carthage in particular adopted many Greek decorative and representational motifs at this time.

Another longstanding and common motif is the raised right hand with the palm out, appearing in many artistic media in the Late Bronze Age and throughout the Iron Age. Sometimes a human or deity makes the gesture in a context of ritual greeting, but often the hand (or hand and arm) becomes a separate motif, disassociated from the body. The raised hand, Sign of Tanit, and

caduceus wand are among the most common motifs on late Carthaginian stelae and are often depicted together, perhaps in a symbolic shorthand il- lustrating worshiper and goddess in the ritual setting of tophet- sacrifice. Any such interpretation is highly speculative, but a few less abstract scenes on stelae may support the suggestion.

The quality of these stelae, aside from the general artistic de- cline in late Carthaginian monuments already noted, varies greatly. Carvers of stelae copied single motifs and whole groups of motifs from the same models or pattern books, with widely differing results depending on the skill of the individual artisans. A number of stelae must have




been prefabricated. This is suggested by the presence of blank panels on some monuments, spaces left by carvers for inscriptions which the dedicants never bothered to add. Entire monuments were also turned out in series of exact or nearly exact copies, faithful even down to the quality of workmanship. A number of very fine stelae may have been specially commissioned works, yet even these distinctive pieces, with their highly smoothed bodies, po- lished facades and carefully incised, symmetrical designs, have sometimes been disparaged in the scholarly literature.

Terracotta Masks and Protomes Terracotta masks and protomes form a rare category of Phoenician art that spans the Late Bronze Age through the first millennium B.C.E. without major chronological gaps. Moreover, they are represented in both east and west, although in the west they begin and end later, lasting from roughly the seventh to the second century B.C.E. Masks (mostly male) usually, but not always, have cutout eyes and mouths, while protomes (mostly female) are busts or heads with necks, sometimes hollowed out in back, without eye- or mouth-holes. They vary greatly in quality. Both types are usually smaller than life-size, and made of terracotta (or, rarely, of stone) and they are wheel-made or pressed in molds and then incised or stamped with designs (a technique remini- scent of jewelry-making) and painted. Traces of pink, red and black survive. Most masks, and some protomes, have suspension holes at the top or along the sides. Their form and decoration is often standardized, and they were sometimes mass-produced.

Masks dating to the Late Bronze Age are found at Hazor, Beth Shean and Gezer. At Tel Qasile and Tel Shera they have been dated to the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C.E.

In the ninth century they occur all along the Levantine coast (Moscati 1988: 354). By the seventh century

B.C.E. some Levantine masks began to copy Greek attributes. In the west, masks and protomes, like razors, have so far been discovered only in Tunisia, Sardinia and Spain (mostly on the island of Ibiza) and date from the seventh through second centuries B.C.E. Like razors, they were not placed in all tombs, and so probably had special significance for certain individuals.

There are Greek parallels for these masks, especially at the sanc- tuary of Artemis Ortheia in Sparta. These were taken to be the inspiration for the western Phoenician masks until so many examples, in-

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Terracotta male mask from Tharros of an unlined, grotesque type with crescent-shaped eyes and grinning mouth. A small plaque decorated with a lion's head is applied to the forehead. Photo from Barnett and Mendleson 1987: bTomb 7, number 16 (plates 30, 86), with the permission of the British Museum, London.

cluding ones earlier in date, were discovered in the east (Culican 1975: 55-64). Discoveries of masks in the Levant have not, however, closed the argument, and scholars still debate how the idea of masks and the types of masks were transmitted.

Protomes, largely from the west

in the first millennium B.C.E., are also widely discussed, since their makers seem to have borrowed Greek attributes from different sources: Ionia, Rhodes, Cyprus and, in particular, Sicily (Culican 1975: 75-77; Stern 1976: 114; Markoe 1990: 14-16). The impetus for making masks or protomes that "look Greek" may be especially complex. Western Phoeni- cians may have obtained ideas and examples for Greek attributes not only from eastern Phoenicians, who had already borrowed them from the Greeks, but also from Rhodes and Cyprus directly and from nearer Greek neighbors in Sicily and southern Italy. Craftsmen in more out-of- the-way places like Ibiza seem to have received their Greek-looking masks, or mask molds, from Car- thage and subsequently to have modified them to suit local tastes.

Pierre Cintas was the first to classify Carthaginian masks in his Amulettes Puniques (1946). He established categories that are still used and seem to apply roughly to the eastern masks as well. "Hand- some" (or normal) types vary greatly; at their finest they resemble naturalistic sculpture. Grotesque masks, some wrinkled ("old"), some unlined ("youthful") grin or grimace in fairly standardized patterns. Normal and grotesque masks are mirrored in miniature by small amulets in various media depicting male heads intended to be worn on necklaces. One category of mask copies a Greek Silenus (a semi-divine figure with the ears, legs and tail of a horse, usually associated with the god Dio- nysus) or satyr (follower of Dionysus with the ears, legs and tail of a goat). The types are so similar that it is often difficult to tell whether a Silenus or satyr is depicted.

Phoenician artists copied a wide variety of such faces, imitating Greek types of the Archaic period (circa 600-480 B.C.E.) for centuries, long after Greek artists had ceased to manufacture them. Female masks and protomes are all of the "normal"




Above: Masks of the seventh century B.C.E. on the Phoenician mainland (Akhziv) and from western Phoenician contexts of the sixth through fourth centuries B.C.E. From left: A normal male mask from Akhziv, drawn from Culican 1975: figure 10; normal male mask from Carthage, drawn from Picard 1967: figure 20; male mask with no eye or mouth holes from Carthage of a normal type copied from Archaic Greek sculpture, drawn from Picard 1967: figure 19; grotesque male mask from Carthage, wrinkled and grinning, drawn from Moscati 1968: figure 73; grotesque male mask from Carthage, wrinkled and grimacing, drawn from Picard 1967: figure 5; male mask from Sulcis, Sardinia, copying a Greek Silenus or satyr, drawn from Moscati 1988: 365.

Terracotta masks

and protomes form

a rare category of

Phoenician art.

Below: Female masks and protomes are all of the "normal" type rather than the grotesque and fall roughly into two categories: one type has an Egyptian hairstyle; the other has Archaic Greek facial features (an oval face, almond eyes and a faint smile) and wears a veil. Carthage seems to have been the source of a number of mass-produced protomes and molds of both types of female masks and protomes found in Sardinia and Ibiza. From left: female protome from Tharros, Sardinia, wearing an Egyptian wig, drawn from Moscati 1988: 363 (see the very similar examples from Carthage and Motya, Sicily, in Moscati 1968: figures 60, 62); female protome from Carthage wearing a veil, copying an Archaic Greek sculptural type, drawn from Picard 1967: figure 34; female protome from Ibiza, Spain, probably roughly based on a Carthaginian protome, drawn from Moscati 1988: 368.




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Scene from a Greek red figure vase painting of the late fourth century B.C.E. showing worshipers dancing before a statue of Dionysus created by draping a post with rich clothing and attaching a mask at the top. Phoenician masks may possibly have been used in a similar way to make statues for religious rituals. Drawn from Arias, Hirmer and Shefton 1962: plate 206.

type rather than the grotesque. They usually fall roughly into two categories: one type has an Egyptian hairstyle; the other has Archaic Greek facial features (an oval face, almond eyes and a faint smile) and wears a veil. Carthage seems to have been the source of a number of mass-produced protomes or molds of both types found in Sardinia and Ibiza. At Ibiza there also occur protomes which, although they dimly reflect the original Greek-looking type, have become a truly local product. These provide an excellent illustration of how an image can be modified from its original form in stages as its significance in each previous context is lost.

These terracotta masks and protomes are almost all from tombs, although some are from tophets

(at Carthage and Motya) and sanctuaries. They are rarely found in settlements. Masks have been vari- ously interpreted as death masks, tomb guardians or apotropaic devices, personifications of death, copies of larger masks worn by adults in religious rituals, and actual masks, either worn by children or adolescents in sacred dances, or put onto the faces of infants or children before they were sacrificed. The lat- ter two possibilities are remote, since Phoenician adolescents are not known to have been consecrated to Bacal and the infants and young children buried in the tophets were too small to have worn the masks. The protomes have generally been interpreted as representations of a divinity, such as Persephone, or as apotropaic devices or votive objects

(Culican 1975: 85-87; Stern 1976: 117-18; Picard 1967: 40-41, 99).

Both male and female images were probably functional, ritual objects as well as symbolic images. Most masks are too small to have been worn by adults but may be copies of actual masks worn in dances or rituals. The suspension holes on masks and some protomes also could have permitted their at- tachment to temporary statues as heads. The Greeks made such statues of Dionysus by attaching masks to the tops of draped poles. We cannot be certain of the meaning of these Phoenician masks, however. Even if they imitate masks actually worn in rituals or represent heads attached to poles in Greek fashion, we can neither reconstruct the rituals nor identify the statues. Like so much of Phoenician art, these terracotta faces tantalize us with what we can guess, but still do not know.

Phoenician Craftsmen and Craft-Organizations Unfortunately, no accounts survive describing the Phoenicians' own opinion of their art and artists, their sources of raw materials, the relation- ship of patrons and artisans, the nature of workshops or guilds, or even the tools and techniques they employed. For answers to our questions on these topics we must rely on the archaeological evidence, despite its limitations. From it we can glean a surprising amount of general information, although we remain ignorant in many particulars (see the fairly depressing summary in Barnett 1983).

We can often determine probable sources of raw materials and can sometimes pinpoint the immediate origin of the material used to make a specific object or class of objects (see Barnett 1975: 168, on the ivories from Nimrud). Yet we are usually unsure of how the raw materials were obtained initially and through what channels the appropriate craftsmen acquired them. We can reconstruct approximately how artists worked




different materials and with what kinds of tools, but do not know how they learned their skills or how often and to what extent someone trained in one medium could translate his skill to other media.

Many other questions also remain unanswered. How did patrons commission works? Who designed patterns? How was the work as- signed? How were the final products marketed and distributed? The rela- tionships between craftsmen and ap- prentices or between local artisans and foreigners importing new techniques or patterns are a mystery. Even the role of the craftsman in Phoenician society is unclear (for a comprehensive list of suggestive questions concerning bronze technology and craftsmen, see Doeringer, Mitten and Steinberg 1970: viii-ix).

Sometimes we can identify groups of objects probably originating from the same "workshop," if that is the appropriate term. I use the simple definition of Mallowan and Georgina Hermann (1974: 35-36): a group of craftsmen working together, presumably under one or more leaders or masters. Craftsmen from one workshop tended to work objects in similar ways. It is possible to recognize different workshops by identifying similarities between groups of objects in technique of manufacture and in that elusive and rarely defined quality, "style." For example, a series of metal bowls may share consistent technical attributes, such as deeply incised outlines and a particular pattern of embossing, and depict the same narrow range of motifs, modified in similar ways, from the same original source. Identifying a particular place of production is a different matter, however, especially since craftsmen probably traveled. Nevertheless, when objects of a particular technique and style are found mainly in one geographical area, we may guess that they were made there.

In the case of carved ivory, Richard Barnett has suggested that there may have been ivory work-

Ancient and Modern Critics of Phoenician Art phoenician

artisans were known in antiquity for their fine craftsmanship. According to Homer's Iliad, when the Greek hero Achilles chose prizes

for the funeral games in honor of Patroklos outside Troy, he selected as first prize for the foot race a treasure of Phoenician manufacture:

a mixing bowl of silver, a work of art, which held only six measures, but for its loveliness it surpassed all others on earth by far, since skilled Sidonian craftsmen had wrought it well, and Phoenicians carried it over the misty face of the water. (Iliad 23.741-44; Lattimore, 1961)

Here, and elsewhere in the Homeric poems (Odyssey 4.613-19; 15.113-19), probably composed in the eighth century B.C.E., Sidon is a well-known Phoeni- cian city and a source of preeminent craftsmen and fine metalwork.

In the Old Testament, when King Solomon planned to build his magnifi- cent temple in Jerusalem, he asked Hiram, king of the Phoenician city of Tyre, for a skilled craftsman to help with the work (2 Chronicles 2:7). Hiram sent him a man "trained to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, and fabrics and to do all sorts of engraving and execute any design" (2 Chronicles 2:13-14). Hiram's craftsman was responsible, in particular, for the two pillars of bronze in the vestibule of the temple and the many decorations and equip- ment of bronze (1 Kings 7:13-45).

Although composed centuries after Solomon's time, this account of the Phoenician master craftsman reflects a high opinion of Phoenician skill that may well extend back to Solomon's time and beyond. Solomon's ivory throne (1 Kings 10:18-20) with lions standing at the sides may also have been fashioned by Phoenician craftsmen, who made furniture as well as other items of ivory (Barnett 1982: 47).

In this century, Phoenician art has often been denigrated, even by those who claim to appreciate it. Friedrich Poulsen, in his study of early Greek art and its indebtedness to the east, Der Orient und die frithgriechische Kunst, declared that the Phoenicians, even when they copied faithfully, could never achieve the unity and force of their models (1912: 20). Henri Frankfort, in his seminal history of the art of the ancient Near East, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (first published in 1954), identified the "lavish use of bungled Egyptian themes" as the "hallmark" of the Phoenicians (1970: 310). He complimented ivory animal plaques, but noted that their simplicity and sensitive modeling were "unusual in Phoenician work" (1970: 316-18). Most ivories, as well as metal bowls, he deemed "garish" (1970: 331) but granted the bowls the virtue "at least" of supplying themes to Greek artists of the Orien- talizing Period (roughly, seventh century B.C.E.)! Donald Harden, in The Phoenicians, sometimes praised Phoenician artisans; still, he ended his chapter on Phoenician art-the final chapter in the book-with the pro- nouncement ".... the Phoenician, though he possessed an artistic bent, was less interested in art for his own purposes than for the price he could get for it abroad" (1980: 218), thereby insulting the Phoenician as both artist and merchant. This is an old insult: in the Odyssey, Phoenicians were maligned as greedy and tricky merchants (14.288-297).

Other authors have been kinder. William Culican, in The First Merchant Venturers, noted that despite the "mixed inspiration and artistic tradition" of Phoenician ivories, "their carvers managed to achieve a synthesis which is itself creative, and to express a refined and typically Phoenician taste," (1966: 82). In Phoenician Bronze and Silver Bowls from Cyprus and the Mediter- ranean, Glenn Markoe refuted Poulsen and noted the "structural balance and cohesion" and the unity and integration of decoration on Phoenician bowls (1985: 1). In recent decades, with the publication and exhibition of finds from many Phoenician sites throughout the Mediterranean, authors have generally viewed Phoenician art more favorably (for example, Moscati 1988).




shops in all the richest cities of the Levantine coast (Barnett 1982: 55). Ivories found at a royal capital like Nimrud represent booty and tribute collected over many centuries from many different cities and workshops, some Phoenician, some not. They probably include the products of foreign craftsmen who worked at Nim- rud (Mallowan and Hermann 1974: 19; Barnett 1982: 52). As Oscar Mus- carella notes (1970: 121-22), we are sometimes fruitlessly preoccupied with assigning a specific place of origin to even unprovenanced objects.

Phoenician ivories are numerous and they have been the subject of scholarly study for a long time. Re- searchers have identified the work of individual craftsmen more often in the corpus of ivories than among objects in other media. They have also recognized series of artifacts from a single workshop or group of associated workshops, and individual motifs or even entire works of art in ivory based on shared pattern-books or models.

As Mallowan and Hermann (1974: 36) pointed out about the ivories from Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud, the panels from even a single piece of furniture were not necessarily carved by one artisan. Variations in quality of carving and minor deviations from standard iconography probably indicate different hands. Barnett has suggested that similarities in motifs on groups of ivory panels found in a number of Levantine cities of the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.E. denote that similarly-decorated ivory furniture was in widespread use. Isolated finds of related single panels that seem unlikely to have belonged to furniture may indicate that craftsmen produced the same panels for a variety of purposes (Barnett 1975: 129). The repeated motifs and themes sug- gest that ivory-workers from different workshops shared or copied each other's patterns. Series of ivories exhibiting similarities down to the smallest detail also probably indicate

that carvers worked from pattern- books or models.

Stone sacrificial stelae form another body of data in which it is possible to detect common workshop styles and shared patterns. Carthage has yielded the largest corpus of such carved stone stelae. This important western Phoenician city seems to have served as an artistic center from which other cities borrowed motifs and conventions. Carthagin- ian stelae, too heavy to be easily moved, were copied mainly within North Africa (as at Hadrumetum [Sousse] and Cirta [Constantine]), while more portable objects such as razors and terracotta heads (or molds to make them) reached Italy and Spain. In general, the stone monuments are particularly useful indi- cators of entirely local Phoenician techniques of production and choices of motifs (see Moscati 1973). Late monuments with very repetitive themes from Carthage and from some Italian sites (for example, ones from Sulcis in Sardinia, depicting women holding tambourines) were probably so familiar that carvers did not require a pattern.

Artists borrowed individual motifs and even whole scenes from one another, not only within the same media, but also between media. Eastern Phoenician ivories and metal bowls of the early first millennium B.C.E. share motifs, as do later stone stelae and metal razors in the west. Similarly, Greek metalwork and pottery shared motifs in the Orientalizing Period (seventh century B.C.E.) and later (Doeringer, Mitten and Steinberg 1970: 103-6). Phoenician jewelry, scarabs and amulets are particularly rich sources of representational motifs that recur for centuries in carved ivory and stone, worked metal and modeled clay throughout the Phoenician world, east and west.

Phoenician artists freely borrowed the imagery of other cultures and allowed themselves considerable leeway in depicting their own motifs

XOP

STharrog Carmona MonteSirai Sulcis

Su Cardulint

So

and those of others. Yet Phoenician art was also traditional and conservative. Artists relied on viewers' appreciation and understanding of a particular aesthetic style and an iconographic shorthand we can sometimes no longer decipher. This




Ras Shamra

Idalion * Salamis

urion

S mathus

Kamid e loz

. Sarepta.

Akhzi .* azor

zer S. Me iddo

Sam a a

Beth-s no Je salem

Black Sea Sea

i2 oa R,, : ..

Khorsabad ora Zincirli * Nimrud Mot* Arslan

Tash

Li• l

er n

Mediterranean Sea

brief overview of Phoenician art cannot do justice to the wide variety of artifacts preserved in many different contexts or the rich iconography from which Phoenician craftsmen drew. I hope to have illustrated the kinds of questions we can ask of

Phoenician art and some of the answers we can glean from the surviving evidence.

Most of the art existed to serve a purpose other than merely to look attractive, and much of it was intended for a broad range of consum-

ers throughout the Mediterranean and Near East. The foreign owners of some Phoenician art would have understood its iconography, while others would merely have enjoyed the appearance of a design or appre- ciated the materials a craftsman had




chosen and the care expended in making an object. Some of the art was confined to a more purely Phoe- nician, ritual context and reflects religious beliefs and documents cul- tic practices we are only beginning to comprehend. In all cases, our appreciation of Phoenician art is greatly enhanced by our awareness of its varied contexts. We must hope that the excavation of Phoenician sites undertaken in the past 25 years will continue, and that each new publication will further our understanding of the art and culture of this mis- understood people and diminish the mystery too long associated with the very term "Phoenician."

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