As many sites were recovering from their devastations in the early twelfth century bce, the art of the Phoenician city-states perpetuated Late Bronze Age traditions—both local and “international style” trends (Feldman 2006)—but now with even more appreciable doses of Egyptian(izing) and, occasionally, Aegean elements. During the archaic period, impulses from the dynamic Phoenician diaspora in the Nile Delta and other contemporary sites in Egypt, moreover, crystallized in compositions with an outspoken Egyptian look owing to the straightforward adoption and adaptation of motifs popular in Late Ramesside and Libyan-age Egypt. The Assyrian menace ultimately resulting in the sack of Sidon (677 bce) and the clampdown of Tyre’s commercial network, however, nipped the revival of Egypt’s prestige in the bud on the Phoenician coast, a brief restoration of its military successes in the seventh century bce notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, the revitalization of trade with the former foundations in the West and, especially, with the Phoenician kingdoms in Cyprus, had resulted in a growing impact of Cypriote and Greek influences in local artistic media. Whether or not to be interpreted as a subtle artistic opposition against the Persian dominion, the Hellenization process of Phoenician art was booming more than a century before Alexander laid siege to Tyre. (For the history of Hellenization and the Hellenistic period in Phoenicia, see chapter 8, this volume; previous periods are also treated in chapters 4–7.)
Stone Sculpture
The output of Phoenician lapidary artists mainly articulated on stelae, capitals, altars, and reliefs, besides life- to over-life-sized three-dimensional sculptures decorating temples, tombs, and palaces alike. If next to nothing remains of the latter, the decorative scheme of the Tamassos royal tomb (Cyprus) features sphinxes, sacred trees, false tripartite windows, and “Proto-Aeolic” capitals reminiscent of eighth-century bce Phoenician art (Matthäus 2007). Whether the latter reflect a typical Israelite concept, as repeatedly stated, remains a controversial issue in view of their incorporation in Phoenician overseas monumental sanctuaries (Cádiz and Motya, eighth–sixth centuries bce; Almagro-Gorbea and Torres Ortiz 2010: 186–23). Three-dimensional Hathoric capitals are hitherto only attested in Cyprus (mid-sixth–fourth centuries bce), but the initiative for the adaptation of the Egyptian concept was for sure a Phoenician one related to the Bes-capitals (Carbillet 2011: 85–146). To judge by representations on seals, as well by the Sidonian “Obelisk” dedicated to Shalman around 300 bce, this Egyptian concept already attested in early second millennium bce Byblos enjoyed a long life in the Phoenician and, subsequently, Punic realm (Wagner 1980: 112–17; Stucky 2016: 453–59).
The Egyptian naiskos shrines served as models for “source sanctuaries” (i.e., built on water sources or wells such as the Amrit ma’abed or stela; figure 23.1) cut out of the bedrock, with stepped oriental crenellations atop of an Egyptian cornice, decorated with winged sun-discs and surrounded by a lake. Monumental altars inspired by the Egyptian Djed-pillar were erected during the sanctuary’s earliest building phase (ninth century bce). In turn, most of the free-standing statues from the local favissa were executed during the Persian age and are heavily dependent on Cypriote models, featuring either deities (Ptah, the Sidonian Eshmun, and the Tyrian Milqart) or worshippers (Lembke 2004). The main features of the sanctuary’s main architectural body are reproduced on several naiskoi, small shrines found in the destruction layer of Sidon, sacked by Esarhaddon in 677 bce (Wagner 1980: 118–37). Their lateral decoration opposes twin deities or acolytes carrying either metal or red-slip oinochoai. Also, ram-headed incense burners (attested on a series of contemporary ivory plaques) mark these small naiskoi as icons of the far-reaching importance of Sidon, as evidenced much later by the metropolis’s Persian age coinage (Gubel 2001; for Phoenician-Punic coins, see chapter 24, this volume).
Figure 23.1 The “Amrit” stela, limestone, Tell Kazel (Syria), early eighth century bce. Paris, Louvre AO 22247.
Source: Public domain.
A specific category of Phoenician sculpture in the round is represented by a rather homogeneous group of limestone and sandstone statues often compared to Cypriot kouroi, but with a stronger emphasis on their Egyptian(izing) paraphernalia. Found in the vicinity of Sidon, as well as in Sarepta and Tyre, they mark the location of yet unexcavated shrines. These representations of deities (if not royals officiating as high priests) are assigned to the late eighth–early sixth centuries bce and influenced both Ammonite and Punic sculpture (Faegersten 2003: 163–212). In the Sidonian Bustan esh-Sheikh sanctuary, Greek-style idioms gradually replace the Cypriot markers in the group of the votive “Temple boys”(and girls), ca. 430–380 bce (Stucky 1993; Nunn 2000: 22–24). Attested since the early first millennium bce on reliefs (coffin of Ahiram), ivories, and seals (Gubel 1987a: 37–80), marble and limestone thrones flanked by winged sphinxes were integrated into temples and private shrines in Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre from the fifth century bce well into the Hellenistic period (Lemaire 2014). Such three-dimensional stone thrones flanked by winged sphinxes are invariably empty, presumably to allow visiting worshippers to mentally project an image of their own divinities in the empty spot (for an in-depth analysis of Phoenician aniconism, see Doak 2015).
A first type of Phoenician stelae also hark back to Late Bronze Age Levantine traditions with their curved upper segments, according to Egyptian prototypes, but with the addition of rectangular tenon posts (allowing to fix the stela in the ground) (e.g., at Ugarit). The yet sparse examples in basalt (Qadboun, the “Amrit stela” from Tell Kazel [figure 23.1], and the Milqart stela from Bredj) illustrate this emerging early first-millennium bce type featuring male deities of the Ba’al/storm-god type. The site of Amrit, opposite the insular city of Arwad (in coastal Syria), has yielded four reliefs decorated with reclining sphinxes, griffins, and palmette “carpet” designs separated by guilloche borders. From the stylistic and iconographic viewpoints, as corroborated by iconographic convergences with early bowls and ivories, these reliefs should be placed a few generations before the neo-Assyrian conquest of the Akkar Plains in 738 bce. With the exception of the Persian-age stela of Yehawmilk of Byblos, with a curved upper edge, little is known about the evolution of this category of sculptures in central and southern Phoenicia. Several funerary stelae were recorded recently in Tyre (Al-Bass), its hinterland, and Akhziv, however, with very crude nefer and ankh signs, which are the most popular designs during the ninth–seventh centuries bce (Sader 2005; Abousamra and Lemaire 2014). Iron Age II–III Egyptianizing reliefs came to light in Tyre’s periphery with stelae and freestanding statues ranging from the fifth century bce into Hellenistic times with dense concentrations at Umm el’Amed (Caubet et al. 2002: 138–148). Their typological variety covers the entire repertoire adopted in the contemporary Punic world, which saw, among other features, the development of the cippi troni—that is, funeral monuments in the form of thrones flanked by braziers, occasionally with betyls on their seats (Bartoloni 1976).
The third and best scrutinized category of Phoenician sculpture is represented by coffins. Stone coffins reappear, borrowed from Egypt anew, as it were, in the early first millennium bce for the burial of Ahiram, king of Byblos. This remarkable coffin contains an archaic inscription, and the reliefs around its lid and main body, supported by lions, illustrate the still-noticeable impact of Late Bronze Age Levantine art at the time. The concept of the row of grieving attendants recalls Egyptian antecedents (which also holds true of the sphinx’s side lock), but by and large, the decoration is firmly rooted in the Levantine tradition (Markoe 1990: 19–22). Numerous basalt and marble coffins with anthropomorphic lids in the Egyptian and Ionic style were found along the Phoenician coast (mainly in Sidon and Arwad) and distributed throughout the Mediterranean between the fifth and fourth centuries bce (Lembke 2001; Frede 2002). Roughly contemporary terracotta examples from Amrit and Malta are marked by Cypriote besides Egyptian features (Elayi and Haykal 1996).
No significant fragments of Phoenician woodwork survived owing to th
e humidity of the Levantine coastal soil. Several scholars studying (over-)life-sized stone and terracotta sculptures and ivories of sizable dimensions, however, detected techniques commonly used in woodcarving, especially so on the aforesaid representations of male deities or worshippers with Egyptianizing features (Faegersten 2003). Clay models and representations of shrines on bowls and seals featuring anthropomorphic pillars and capitals (e.g., nude goddesses, Bes figures) also point to the practice of incorporating impressive wooden sculptures in the stone architecture of sanctuaries.
Several Phoenician sculptures, capitals, and coffins (including the mid-fifth-century bce Sidonian architectural coffin from Amathous) conserve traces of polychromy (Hendrix 2001). Other forms of paintings are rare; if the apparent lack of mural paintings may be attributed to the random luck of the spade, the amount of Phoenician and Punic pottery indicates that figurative vase painting never reached the popularity it had enjoyed in the Greek world.
Ceramics
The focus of the Phoenician ceramic production primarily relied on shockproof and easily storable transport (torpedo and bullet) amphorae, the capacity of which was modified to fit the recipients’ standards (see chapter 22, this volume). During the transitional phase of the ninth century and well into the eighth century bce, geometrical designs of a more complex nature than those borrowed from the Cypriot repertoire for incineration kraters, along with stylized palm-tree motifs, decorate bag-shaped storage recipients of a content not yet identified. This also goes for the highly polished red-slip series, a red fossil of Phoenician overland and Mediterranean trade, as well as for the black-on-red (perfume?) or the diagnostic mushroom-lipped (spice?) juglets. The elaborated decorative schemes of, for example, the “Amathous” style kraters warn us not to rule out uncharted Phoenician initiatives in the realm of vase painting. Stamped jar handles of the early first millennium bce mainly feature quadrupeds, scorpions, rosettes, and other symbols, but the Judaean four-winged scarab adopted from contemporary Phoenician sources is suspiciously lacking. During the Persian period, the stamped handles of Sidonian amphorae feature the image of a ship, but the restricted iconographic repertoire is by and large replaced by inscriptions with the exception of Herakles’s club and floral design on stamps issued by the Tyrian administration (Kaoukabani 2005). Finally, as opposed to painted kernoi, mostly decorated with animal heads, which did not survive the early first millennium bce, the repertoire of askoi (small zoomorphic vessels) was considerably expanded by Phoenician and Punic potters with often very imaginative new types.
Terracottas
The paramount importance of the fertility theme, embodied by the Late Bronze Age representations of goddesses, survived during the first Iron Ages (I–II) in the Levant, with regional accents. For instance, during the early first millennium bce, we see a production of plaques depicting nude goddesses (“Breast Astarte”), sometimes paired in groups between pillars supporting architraves. These were fashioned using univalve molds (Ward 1996). Dressed versions of this deity remained a popular motif on plaques produced also with univalve molds during the Persian period under Syrian influence (Nunn 2000: 73). Linked with this motif is a series of three-dimensional model shrines from the central Levant with anthropomorphic pillars flanking the entrance, a testimony to the survival of the nude-goddess theme until the later sixth century bce (Brettschneider 1991: 129–35).
Three-dimensional representations of enthroned deities, besides male and female figurines distinguished by lebbadé and polos crowns, respectively, mark the regional output of the Akkar Plains’ workshops until the neo-Assyrian conquest of 738 bce. In the south, hollow trumpet-shaped figurines of male and female worshippers holding animals or children at breast height or playing musical instruments (cymbals, flutes) prevail in the production of eighth–seventh centuries bce Sidonian and Tyrian workshops. These figurines were readily exported abroad to Cyprus (Amathous) and the Galilean Plains, together with clay boat models. Besides other types firmly rooted in local traditions, Cypriot, “Syrian,” and Greek elements emerge in the coroplastic production of the sixth–fourth centuries bce in the coastal strip, with almost fifty subtypes distinguished in a recent critical survey (Nunn 2000: 36–81). A similarly comprehensive review of the many regional Punic productions is unfortunately lacking at this time. At some later point, and lasting until the early Persian period, the popularity of such figurines was overshadowed by the Deae Gravidae in the same area. These are hollow figurines of standing or seated pregnant (elsewhere delivering) goddesses, with children or palmette-shaped mirror cases in their hands. In due course, the export of such figurines reached Phoenician temples in Kition and Carthage. Associated types feature seated goddesses with high polos crowns, as well as figures of the dwarf god Bes. Their bearded male counterparts with lower polos crowns or feathered Egyptian atef crowns are not attested to date in the West (Gubel 1987a: 85–109). Another pre-Persian-age production apparently situated at Amrit focused on divine horsemen (figure 23.2) and charioteers in carts pulled by two to four horses, a motif restricted in more southern sites by imported Cypriot horse-riders and crude local versions thereof (Nunn 2000: 42–46). Masks foreshadowing the much broader variety current in the Punic world have come to light in several Phoenician coastal Iron Age I–II centers (Culican 1986: 391–431; Fariselli 2011).
Figure 23.2 Deity with bow case on a horse with accoutrements, Amrit, late eighth or sixth century bce (date depends on whether the eye-blinkers and chestplate reflect contemporary metal models or represent archaizing features of a more recent production). Brussels, Royal Museums of Art and History. Inv.n.° A 1323.
Source: Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels.
Throughout the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, Tyrian workshops produced small to sizable figurines of deities (Milqart, Eshmun[?], Baal Arwad), as well as male and female worshippers on an industrial scale, occasionally represented in the presence of deities or of cultic accessories. Of special interest are busts and nearly life-sized statues reminiscent of their more careful treatment exemplified by the Amrit sarcophagi in baked clay. Others are best described as models of Phoenician temples and feature priestesses preparing sacred foodstuffs (Culican 1986: 437–44). The majority of such terracotta figurines, often respectfully wrapped in a protective linen cloth, were looted since the late 1960s by local divers from the wrecks of obsolete vessels full of these ex votos (turning into maritime favissae), which were intentionally sunk whenever local sanctuaries became filled up with similar ex votos once paid for by pious pilgrims.
Metalwork
Dovetailed into the Late Bronze Age repertoire, figurines representing a smiting Baal (or a seated version of the storm-god) with lebbadé or atef crowns were current in the Iron Age I and II Levant and propagated abroad as figureheads of the contemporary expansion of Phoenician trade, including the western Mediterranean (Jiménez Ávila 2015). The Iron Age II output marks a distinct emphasis on standing armed figurines of deities of both sexes with a panoply of arms in their hands and Egyptianzing regalia, possibly to be explained in the light of the growing neo-Assyrian territorial expansionism (Falsone 1988; Jiménez Ávila 2002: 267–301). The growing number of imports from the Nile Valley (figurines of deities, worshippers, animals) during the seventh–early sixth centuries bce may also have been heralded by the efforts of Saite rulers to restore Egypt’s military grip on the Levant. The role left over to Phoenician initiatives in this realm (locally produced imitations?) is far from self-evident thus far.
Metal bowls (e.g., figure 23.3) were a hallmark par excellence of Phoenician workshops, already famed in Homeric sources (Il. 23.740–45, Od. 6.615–19, 15.113–19) (see also chapter 25, this volume). We should highlight an archaic production of shallow bronze bowls (Barnett 1974, 1975; Onnis 2009; Winter 2010: 335–79; Almagro-Gorbea and Torres-Ortiz 2015: 64–71), which display either a mixture of Aramaean and Phoenician engraved motifs during the tenth–ninth centuries bce (Euboia, Crete) or predominantly Egyptian elemen
ts on silver and gold bowls (Athienou, Nimrud). The latter motifs point to the marshes of the Nile Delta, where Phoenician settlers had become familiar with local forms, techniques, and popular mythological tales. Themes, shapes, and foreign names (Egyptian transcriptions of Semitic names) on several examples from the late Ramesside Tell Basta treasure in the Nile Delta illustrate the pioneering role of this area in the transmission of vase types and decorations to later generations (Lilyquist 2012). A few of these bowls bear inscriptions, with those on bowls from Tekké (Crete) and the ribbed Kefar Veradim (Israel) bowl ranking among the earliest to date (Sciacca 2015). In some cases, the succession of inscribed names suggest that bowls were used by successive owners of a different ethnic origin (Bordreuil 2007). The style of several of these archaic bowls betrays close affinities with ivories of the Aramaean “Flame and Frond” group, suggesting the interference of itinerant Phoenician artists in their production in the wake of the propagation of the Phoenician script and trade to North Syria.
The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean Page 51