DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4921#0026
xxvi
INTRODUCTION.
may have been hoped for in this direction from recent excavations, the result has been frequently
disappointing.*
An interesting example of the drawing of animals will be seen in the bull on Fig. 986
(Plate CXXXIV.), with which may be compared similar vases from Marion and Amathus. In
the instance before us the bull exhibits a marked Assyrian influence mixed with the Greek
manner of drawing this creature in the sixth century B.C. In the vase from Amathus just referred
to we have, similarly placed on the shoulder, first a combat of a lion with a bull, and secondly,
on the other side of the spout, a group of two sphinxes seated face to face with a conventional
tree between them.f This conception of the two sphinxes seated face to face has become
familiar to us from the sixth-century reliefs of tombs in Lycia, now in the British Museum, as also
from the probably older reliefs of the temple at Assos in the Troad. That it was originally an
artistic conception proper to Asia Minor, but arising out of the art of Egypt and of Assyria,
seems more than likely. So also the lion attacking the bull may very well have spread as an
artistic motive from Assyria westwards into Asia Minor, and thence to Greece proper, where it
long reigned as a favorite piece of decoration. In both these groups on the vase from Amathus
we see how far the influence of Greek vase-painting in the sixth century had already modified not
only the details but the general composition, till it gradually expelled every distinctive or at
least every obvious Oriental feature. In the vase from Marion, of which we have made mention,
the bull retains something more of the Assyrian character, while the vase itself is remarkable in
having round the body a broad pattern of ivy leaves united together in a horizontal row, and
thus forming a striking pattern, which can be traced from the remains of the Mycenae J period to
the terra-cotta sarcophagus of Clazomense, and to Etruscan vases of the sixth century B.C.
* Mr. Munro, in summing up the results obtained from his excavations at Marion (Polis tis Chrysochou), says (Hellenic Journal,
xi., p. 59): " It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that, in the present state of Cypriote archseology, to date the native fabrics solely
by the criteria of style is to beg one of the principal questions at issue." This opinion has been confirmed by the recent excavations at
Amathus on the part of the British Museum.
t This vase was found in the excavations recently conducted at Amathus by Mr. A. H. Smith, of the British Museum, where
it now is.
I Dr. Herrmann, Das Graberfeli von Marion auf Cypern, publishes this vase, and says that this pattern of ivy leaves points to a
Mycenaean vorbild or prototype (p. 50), adding that the mixture of Mycenaean, Assyrian, and archaic Greek elements in the decoration
of so ordinary an object is highly curious (p. 51).
INTRODUCTION.
may have been hoped for in this direction from recent excavations, the result has been frequently
disappointing.*
An interesting example of the drawing of animals will be seen in the bull on Fig. 986
(Plate CXXXIV.), with which may be compared similar vases from Marion and Amathus. In
the instance before us the bull exhibits a marked Assyrian influence mixed with the Greek
manner of drawing this creature in the sixth century B.C. In the vase from Amathus just referred
to we have, similarly placed on the shoulder, first a combat of a lion with a bull, and secondly,
on the other side of the spout, a group of two sphinxes seated face to face with a conventional
tree between them.f This conception of the two sphinxes seated face to face has become
familiar to us from the sixth-century reliefs of tombs in Lycia, now in the British Museum, as also
from the probably older reliefs of the temple at Assos in the Troad. That it was originally an
artistic conception proper to Asia Minor, but arising out of the art of Egypt and of Assyria,
seems more than likely. So also the lion attacking the bull may very well have spread as an
artistic motive from Assyria westwards into Asia Minor, and thence to Greece proper, where it
long reigned as a favorite piece of decoration. In both these groups on the vase from Amathus
we see how far the influence of Greek vase-painting in the sixth century had already modified not
only the details but the general composition, till it gradually expelled every distinctive or at
least every obvious Oriental feature. In the vase from Marion, of which we have made mention,
the bull retains something more of the Assyrian character, while the vase itself is remarkable in
having round the body a broad pattern of ivy leaves united together in a horizontal row, and
thus forming a striking pattern, which can be traced from the remains of the Mycenae J period to
the terra-cotta sarcophagus of Clazomense, and to Etruscan vases of the sixth century B.C.
* Mr. Munro, in summing up the results obtained from his excavations at Marion (Polis tis Chrysochou), says (Hellenic Journal,
xi., p. 59): " It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that, in the present state of Cypriote archseology, to date the native fabrics solely
by the criteria of style is to beg one of the principal questions at issue." This opinion has been confirmed by the recent excavations at
Amathus on the part of the British Museum.
t This vase was found in the excavations recently conducted at Amathus by Mr. A. H. Smith, of the British Museum, where
it now is.
I Dr. Herrmann, Das Graberfeli von Marion auf Cypern, publishes this vase, and says that this pattern of ivy leaves points to a
Mycenaean vorbild or prototype (p. 50), adding that the mixture of Mycenaean, Assyrian, and archaic Greek elements in the decoration
of so ordinary an object is highly curious (p. 51).