Part 6 (2/2)

Phoenicia was celebrated from a remote antiquity for the manufacture of textile fabrics. The materials which she employed for them were wool, linen yarn, perhaps cotton, and, in the later period of her commercial prosperity, silk. The ”white wool” of Syria was supplied to her in abundance by the merchants of Damascus,[81] and wool of lambs, rams, and goats seems also to have been furnished by the more distant parts of Arabia.[82] Linen yarn may have been imported from Egypt, where it was largely manufactured, and was of excellent quality;[83] while raw silk is said to have been ”brought to Tyre and Berytus by the Persian merchants, and there both dyed and woven into cloaks.”[84] The price of silk was very high, and it was customary in Phoenicia to intermix the precious material either with linen or with cotton;[85] as is still done to a certain extent in modern times. It is perhaps doubtful whether, so far as the mere fabric of stuffs was concerned, the products of the Phoenician looms were at all superior to those which Egypt and Babylonia furnished, much less to those which came from India, and pa.s.sed under the name of _Sindones_. Two things gave to the Phoenician stuffs that high reputation which caused them to be more sought for than any others; and these were, first, the brilliancy and beauty of their colours, and, secondly, the delicacy with which they were in many instances embroidered. We have not much trace of Phoenician embroidery on the representations of dresses that have come down to us; but the testimony of the ancients is unimpeachable,[86] and we may regard it as certain that the art of embroidery, known at a very early date to the Hebrews,[87] was cultivated with great success by their Phoenician neighbours, and under their auspices reached a high point of perfection.

The character of the decoration is to be gathered from the extant statues and bas-reliefs, from the representations on paterae, on cups, dishes, and gems. There was a tendency to divide the surface to be ornamented into parallel stripes or bands, and to repeat along the line a single object, or two alternately. Rosettes, monsters of various kinds, winged globes with uraei, scarabs, sacred trees, and garlands or blossoms of the lotus were the ordinary ”motives.”[88] Occasionally human figures might be introduced, and animal forms even more frequently; but a stiff conventionalism prevailed, the same figures were constantly repeated, and the figures themselves had in few cases much beauty.

The brilliancy and beauty of the Phoenician coloured stuffs resulted from the excellency of their dyes. Here we touch a second branch of their industrial skill, for the princ.i.p.al dyes used were originally invented and continuously fabricated by the Phoenicians themselves, not imported from any foreign country. Nature had placed along the Phoenician coast, or at any rate along a great portion of it, an inexhaustible supply of certain sh.e.l.l-fish, or molluscs, which contained as a part of their internal economy a colouring fluid possessing remarkable, and indeed unique, qualities. Some account has been already given of the species which are thought to have been anciently most esteemed. They belong, mainly, to the two allied families of the _Murex_ and the _Buccinum_ or _Purpura_. Eight species of the former, and six of the latter, having their habitat in the Mediterranean, have been distinguished by some naturalists;[89] but two of the former only, and one of the latter, appear to have attracted the attention of the Phoenicians. The _Murex brandaris_ is now thought to have borne away the palm from all the others; it is extremely common upon the coast; and enormous heaps of the sh.e.l.ls are found, especially in the vicinity of Tyre, crushed and broken--the debris, as it would seem, cast away by the manufacturers of old.[810] The _Murex trunculus_, according to some, is just as abundant, in a crushed state, in the vicinity of Sidon, great banks of it existing, which are a hundred yards long and several yards thick.[811] It is a more spinous sh.e.l.l than the _M. brandaris_, having numerous projecting points, and a generally rough and rugged appearance.

The _Purpura_ employed seems to have been the _P. lapillus_, a mollusc not confined to the Mediterranean, but one which frequents also our own sh.o.r.es, and was once turned to some account in Ireland.[812] The varieties of the _P. lapillus_ differ considerably. Some are nearly white, some greyish, others buff striped with brown. Some, again, are smooth, others nearly as rough as the _Murex trunculus_. The _Helix ianthina_, which is included by certain writers among the molluscs employed for dyeing purposes by the Phoenicians,[813] is a sh.e.l.l of a completely different character, smooth and delicate, much resembling that of an ordinary land snail, and small compared to the others. It is not certain, however, that the _helix_, though abounding in the Eastern Mediterranean,[814] ever attracted the notice of the Phoenicians.

The molluscs needed by the Phoenician dyers were not obtained without some difficulty. As the Mediterranean has no tides, it does not uncover its sh.o.r.es at low water like the ocean, or invite man to rifle them. The coveted sh.e.l.l-fish, in most instances, preferred tolerably deep water; and to procure them in any quant.i.ty it was necessary that they should be fished up from a depth of some fathoms. The mode in which they were captured was the following. A long rope was let down into the sea, with baskets of reeds or rushes attached to it at intervals, constructed like our lobster-traps or eel-baskets, with an opening that yielded easily to pressure from the outside, but resisted pressure from the inside, and made escape, when once the trap was entered, impossible. The baskets were baited with mussels or frogs, both of which had great attractions for the _Purpurae_, and were seized and devoured with avidity. At the upper end of the rope was attached to a large piece of cork, which, even when the baskets were full, could not be drawn under water. It was usual to set the traps in the evening, and after waiting a night, or sometimes a night and a day, to draw them up to the surface, when they were generally found to be full of the coveted sh.e.l.l-fish.[815]

There were two ways in which the dye was obtained from the molluscs.

Sometimes a hole was broken in the side of the sh.e.l.l, and the fish taken out entire.[816] The _sac_ containing the colouring matter, which is a sort of vein, beginning at the head of the animal, and following the tortuous line of the body as it twists through the spiral sh.e.l.l,[817]

was then carefully extracted, either while the mollusc was still alive, or as soon as possible after death, as otherwise the quality of the dye was impaired. This plan was pursued more especially with the larger species of _Purpurae_, where the _sac_ attained a certain size; while with a smaller kinds a different method was followed. In their case no attempt was made to extract the _sac_, but the entire fish was crushed, together with its sh.e.l.l, and after salt had been added in the proportion of twenty ounces to a hundred pounds of the pulp, three days were allowed for maceration; heat was then applied, and when, by repeated skimming, the coa.r.s.e particles had been removed, the dye was left in a liquid state at the bottom. It was necessary that the vessel in which this final process took place should be of lead, and not of bronze or iron, since those metals gave the dye a disagreeable tinge.[818]

The colouring matter contained in the _sac_ of the _Purpurae_ is a liquid of a creamy consistency, and of a yellowish-white hue. On extraction, it is at first decidedly yellow; then after a little time it becomes green; and, finally, it settles into some shade of violet or purple. Chemical a.n.a.lysis has shown that in the case of the _Murex trunculus_ the liquid is composed of two elementary substances, one being cyanic acid, which is of a blue or azure colour, and the other being purpuric oxide, which is a bright red.[819] In the case of the _Murex brandaris_ one element only has been found: it is an oxide, which has received the name of _oxyde tyrien_.[820] No naturalist has as yet discovered what purpose the liquid serves in the economy, or in the preservation, of the animal; it is certainly not exuded, as sepia is by the cuttle-fish, to cloud the water in the neighbourhood, and enable the creature to conceal itself.

Concerning the Phoenician process of dyeing, the accounts which have come down to us are at once confused and incomplete. Nothing is said with respect to their employment of mordants, either acid or alkali, and yet it is almost certain that they must have used one or the other, or both, to fix the colours, and render them permanent. The _gamins_ of Tyre employ to this day mordants of each sort;[821] and an alkali derived from seaweed is mentioned by Pliny as made use of for fixing some dyes,[822] though he does not distinctly tell us that it was known to the Phoenicians or employed in fixing the purple. What we chiefly learn from this writer as to the dyeing process is[823]--first, that sometimes the liquid derived from the _murex_ only, sometimes that of the _purpura_ or _buccinum_ only, was applied to the material which it was wished to colour, while the most approved hue was produced by an application of both dyes separately. Secondly, we are told that the material, whatever it might be, was steeped in the dye for a certain number of hours, then withdrawn for a while, and afterwards returned to the vat and steeped a second time. The best Tyrian cloths were called _Dibapha_, i.e. ”twice dipped;” and for the production of the true ”Tyrian purple” it was necessary that the dye obtained from the _Buccinum_ should be used after that from the _Murex_ had been applied.

The _Murex_ alone gave a dye that was firm, and reckoned moderately good; but the _Buccinum_ alone was weak, and easily washed out.

The actual tints produced from the sh.e.l.l-fish appear to have ranged from blue, through violet and purple, to crimson and rose.[824] Scarlet could not be obtained, but was yielded by the cochineal insect. Even for the brighter sorts of crimson some admixture of the cochineal dye was necessary.[825] The violet tint was not generally greatly prized, though there was a period in the reign of Augustus when it was the fas.h.i.+on;[826] redder hues were commonly preferred; and the choicest of all is described as ”a rich, dark purple, the colour of coagulated blood.”[827] A deep crimson was also in request, and seems frequently to be intended when the term purple ({porphureos}, _purpureus_) is used.

A third industry greatly affected by the Phoenicians was the manufacture of gla.s.s. According to Pliny,[828] the first discovery of the substance was made upon the Phoenician coast by a body of sailors whom he no doubt regarded as Phoenicians. These persons had brought a cargo of natrum, which is the subcarbonate of soda, to the Syrian coast in the vicinity of Acre, and had gone ash.o.r.e at the mouth of the river Belus to cook their dinner. Having lighted a fire upon the sand, they looked about for some stones to prop up their cooking utensils, but finding none, or none convenient for the purpose, they bethought themselves of utilising for the occasion some of the blocks of natrum with which their s.h.i.+p was laden. These were placed close to the fire, and the heat was sufficient to melt a portion of one of them, which, mixing with the siliceous sand at its base, produced a stream of gla.s.s. There is nothing impossible or even very improbable in this story; but we may question whether the scene of it is rightly placed. Gla.s.s was manufactured in Egypt many centuries before the probable date of the Phoenician occupation of the Mediterranean coast; and, if the honour of the invention is to be a.s.signed to a particular people, the Egyptians would seem to have the best claim to it. The process of gla.s.s-blowing is represented in tombs at Beni Ha.s.san of very great antiquity,[829] and a specimen of Egyptian gla.s.s is in existence bearing the name of a Usurtasen, a king of the twelfth dynasty.[830] Natrum, moreover, was an Egyptian product, well known from a remote date, being the chief ingredient used in the various processes of embalming.[831] Phoenicia has no natrum, and not even any vegetable alkali readily procurable in considerable quant.i.ty. There _may have been_ an accidental discovery of gla.s.s in Phoenicia, but priority of discovery belonged almost certainly to Egypt; and it is, upon the whole, most probable that Phoenicia derived from Egypt her knowledge both of the substance itself and of the method of making it.

Still, there can be no doubt that the manufacture was one on which the Phoenicians eagerly seized, and which they carried out on a large scale and very successfully. Sidon, according to the ancients,[832] was the chief seat of the industry; but the best sand is found near Tyre, and both Tyre and Sarepta also seem to have been among the places where gla.s.sworks were early established. At Sarepta extensive banks of _debris_ have been found, consisting of broken gla.s.s of many colours, the waste beyond all doubt of a great gla.s.s manufactory;[833] at Tyre, the traces of the industry are less extensive,[834] but on the other hand we have historical evidence that it continued to be practised there into the middle ages.[835]

The gla.s.s produced by the Phoenicians was of three kinds: first, transparent colourless gla.s.s, which the eye could see through; secondly, translucent coloured gla.s.s, through which light could pa.s.s, though the eye could not penetrate it so as to distinguish objects; and, thirdly, opaque gla.s.s, scarcely distinguishable from porcelain. Transparent gla.s.s was employed for mirrors, round plates being cast, which made very tolerable looking-gla.s.ses,[836] when covered at the back by thin sheets of metal, and also for common objects, such as vases, urns, bottles, and jugs, which have been yielded in abundance by tombs of a somewhat late date in Cyprus.[837] No great store, however, seems to have been set upon transparency, in which the Oriental eye saw no beauty; and the objects which modern research has recovered under this head at Tyre, in Cyprus, and elsewhere, seem the work of comparatively rude artists, and have little aesthetic merit. The shapes, however, are not inelegant.

The most beautiful of the objects in gla.s.s produced by the Phoenicians are the translucent or semi-transparent vessels of different kinds, most of them variously coloured, which have been found in Cyprus, at Camirus in Rhodes, and on the Syrian coast, near Beyrout and elsewhere.[838]

These comprise small flasks or bottles, from three to six inches long, probably intended to contain perfumes; small jugs (oenochoae) from three inches in height to five inches; vases of about the same size; amphorae pointed at the lower extremity; and other varieties. They are coloured, generally, either in longitudinal or in horizontal stripes and bands; but the bands often deviate from the straight line into zig-zags, which are always more or less irregular, like the zig-zags of the Norman builders, while sometimes they are deflected into crescents, or other curves, as particularly one resembling a willow-leaf. The colours are not very vivid, but are pleasing and well-contrasted; they are chiefly five--white, blue, yellow, green, and a purplish brown. Red scarcely appears, except in a very pale, pinkish form; and even in this form it is uncommon. Blue, on the other hand, is greatly affected, being sometimes used in the patterns, often taken for the ground, and occasionally, in two tints, forming both groundwork and ornamentation.[839] It is not often that more than three hues are found on the same vessel, and sometimes the hues employed are only two. There are instances, however, and very admirable instances, of the employment, on a single vessel, of four hues.[840]

The colours were obtained, commonly, at any rate, from metallic oxides.

The ordinary blue employed is cobalt, though it is suspected that there was an occasional use of copper. Copper certainly furnished the greens, while manganese gave the brown, which shades off into purple and into black. The beautiful milky white which forms the ground tint of some vases is believed to have been derived from the oxide of tin, or else from phosphate of chalk. It is said that the colouring matter of the patterns does not extend through the entire thickness of the gla.s.s, but lies only on the outer surface, being a later addition to the vessels as first made.

Translucent coloured gla.s.s was also largely produced by the Phoenicians for beads and other ornaments, and also for the imitation of gems. The huge emerald of which Herodotus speaks,[841] as ”s.h.i.+ning with great brilliancy at night” in the temple of Melkarth at Tyre, was probably a gla.s.s cylinder, into which a lamb was introduced by the priests. In Phoenician times the pretended stone is quite as often a gla.s.s paste as a real gem, and the case is the same with the scarabs so largely used as seals. In Phoenician necklaces, gla.s.s beads alternate frequently with real agates, onyxes, and crystals; while sometimes gla.s.s in various shapes is the only material employed. A necklace found at Tharros in Sardinia, and now in the collection of the Louvre, which is believed to be of Phoenician manufacture, is composed of above forty beads, two cylinders, four pendants representing heads of bulls, and one representing the face of a man, all of gla.s.s.[842] Another, found by M.

Renan in Phoenicia itself, is made up of gla.s.s beads imitating pearls, intermixed with beads of cornaline and agate.[843]

Another cla.s.s of gla.s.s ornaments consists of small flat _plaques_ or plates, pierced with a number of fine holes, which appear to have been sewn upon garments. These are usually patterned, sometimes with spirals, sometimes with rosettes, occasionally, though rarely, with figures.

Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez represent one in their great work upon ancient art,[844] where almost the entire field is occupied by a winged griffin, standing upright on its two hind legs, and crowned with a striped cap, or turban.

Phoenician opaque gla.s.s is comparatively rare, and possesses but little beauty. It was rendered opaque in various ways. Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez found that in a statue of Serapis, which they a.n.a.lysed, the gla.s.s was mixed with bronze in the proportions of ten to three. An opaque material of a handsome red colour was thus produced, which was heavy and exceedingly hard.[845]

The methods pursued by the Phoenician gla.s.s-manufacturers were probably much the same as those which are still employed for the production of similar objects, and involved the use of similar implements, as the blowpipe, the lathe, and the graver. The materials having been procured, they were fused together in a crucible or melting-pot by the heat of a powerful furnace. A blowpipe was then introduced into the viscous ma.s.s, a portion of which readily attached itself to the implement, and so much gla.s.s was withdrawn as was deemed sufficient for the object which it was designed to manufacture. The blower then set to work, and blew hard into the pipe until the gla.s.s at its lower extremity began to expand and gradually took a pear-shaped form, the material partially coolling and hardening, but still retaining a good deal of softness and pliability.

While in this condition, it was detached from the pipe, and modelled with pincers or with the hand into the shape required, after which it was polished, and perhaps sometimes cut by means of the turning-lathe.

Sand and emery were the chief polishers, and by their help a surface was produced, with which little fault could be found, being smooth, uniform, and brilliant. Thus the vessel was formed, and if no further ornament was required, the manufacture was complete--a jug, vase, alabastron, amphora, was produced, either transparent or of a single uniform tint, which might be white, blue, brown, green, &c., according to the particular oxide which had been thrown, with the silica and alkali, into the crucible. Generally, however, the manufacturer was not content with so simple a product: he aimed not merely at utility, but at beauty, and proceeded to adorn the work of his hands--whatever it was--with patterns which were for the most part in good taste and highly pleasing. These patterns he first scratched on the outer surface of the vessel with a graving tool; then, when he had made his depressions deep enough, he took threads of coloured gla.s.s, and having filled up with the threads the depressions which he had made, he subjected the vessel once more to such a heat that the threads were fused, and attached themselves to the ground on which they had been laid. In melting they would generally more than fill the cavities, overflowing them, and protruding from them, whence it was for the most part necessary to repeat the polis.h.i.+ng process, and to bring by means of abrasion the entire surface once more into uniformity. There are cases where this has been incompletely done and where the patterns project; there are others where the threads have never thoroughly melted into the ground, and where in the course of time they have partially detached themselves from it; but in general the fusion and subsequent polis.h.i.+ng have been all that could be wished, and the patterns are perfectly level with the ground and seem one with it.[846]

The running of liquid gla.s.s into moulds, so common nowadays, does not seem to have been practised by the Phoenicians, perhaps because their furnaces were not sufficiently hot to produce complete liquefaction.

But--if this was so--the pressure of the viscous material into moulds cannot have been unknown, since we have evidence of the existence of moulds,[847] and there are cases where several specimens of an object have evidently issued from a single matrix.[848] Beads, cylinders, pendants, scarabs, amulets, were probably, all of them, made in this way, sometimes in translucent, sometimes in semi-opaque gla.s.s, as perhaps were also the _plaques_ which have been already described.

The ceramic art of the Phoenicians is not very remarkable. Phoenicia Proper is deficient in clay of a superior character, and it was probably a very ordinary and coa.r.s.e kind of pottery that the Phoenician merchants of early times exported regularly in their trading voyages, both inside and outside the Mediterranean. We hear of their carrying this cheap earthenware northwards to the Ca.s.siterides or Scilly Islands,[849] and southwards to the isle of Cerne, which is probably Arguin, on the West African coast;[850] nor can we doubt that they supplied it also to the uncivilised races of the Mediterranean--the Illyrians, Ligurians, Sicels, Sards, Corsicans, Spaniards, Libyans. But the fragile nature of the material, and its slight value, have caused its entire disappearance in the course of centuries, unless in the shape of small fragments; nor are these fragments readily distinguishable from those whose origin is different. Phoenicia Proper has furnished no earthen vessels, either whole or in pieces, that can be a.s.signed to a time earlier than the Greco-Roman period,[851] nor have any such vessels been found hitherto on Phoenician sites either in Sardinia, or in Corsica, or in Spain, or Africa, or Sicily, or Malta, or Gozzo. The only places that have hitherto furnished earthen vases or other vessels presumably Phoenician are Jerusalem, Camirus in Rhodes, and Cyprus; and it is from the specimens found at these sites that we must form our estimate of the Phoenician pottery.

The earliest specimens are of a moderately good clay, unglazed. They are regular in shape, being made by the help of a wheel, and for the most part not inelegant, though they cannot be said to possess any remarkable beauty. Many are without ornament of any kind, being apparently mere jars, used for the storing away of oil or wine; they have sometimes painted or scratched upon them, in Phoenician characters, the name of the maker or owner. A few rise somewhat above the ordinary level, having handles of some elegance, and being painted with designs and patterns, generally of a geometrical character. A vase about six inches high, found at Jerusalem, has, between horizontal bands, a series of geometric patterns, squares, octagons, lozenges, triangles, pleasingly arranged, and painted in brown upon a ground which is of a dull grey. At the top are two rude handles, between which runs a line of zig-zag, while at the bottom is a sort of stand or base. The shape is heavy and inelegant.[852]

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