Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 19, PHY-PRO

PLATE
within a lotas border in repouss6 work ; an inscription on
the rim shows it to have belonged to an officer of Thothmes
III. [Mem. Soc. Ant. de France, xxiv. 1858).
Assyrian and Phoenician Plate.—Among the many
treasures of early art found by General Cesnola in the
tombs of Cyprus none are of more interest than a large
number of Phoenician silver phialse or saucer-like dishes,
enriched with delicate repouss^ and tooled reliefs, which
in their design present many characteristics of Assyrian
art mingled with a more or less strong Egyptian influence.
A considerable number of bowls and phialse found in
Assyria itself are so exactly similar to these Cyprian ones,
both in shape and ornamentation, that they cannot but
be classed together as the production of the same people
and the same age. The British Museum possesses a fine
collection of these bowls, mostly found in the palace at
Nimrud. Though they are made of bronze, and only
occasionally ornamented with a few silver studs, they are
evidently the production of artists who were accustomed
to work in the precious metals, some of them in fact being
almost identical in form and design with the silver phiake
found at Curium and elsewhere in Cyprus. They are
ornamented in a very delicate and minute manner, partly
by incised lines, and partly by the repouss4 process, finally
completed by chasing. Their designs consist of a central
geometrical pattern, with one or more concentric bands
round it of figures of gods and men, with various animals
and plants. In these bands there is a strange admixture
of Assyrian and Egyptian style. The main motives
belong to the former class, the principal groups being
purely Assyrian—-such as the sacred tree between the two
attendant beasts, or the king engaged in combat and van¬
quishing a lion single-handed; while mingled with these
are figures and groups purely Egyptian in style, such as
the hawk-headed deity, or a king slaying a whole crowd
of captives at one blow. Fig. 2 gives a silver dish from
Fig. 2. Silver Bow], about 7 inches in diameter, found in a tomb in Cyprus, with
repousse reliefs of Egyptian and Assyrian style
Curium containing examples of all the above mentioned
subjects. Some of the designs are exceedingly beautiful,
and are arranged with great decorative skill: a favourite
composition is that of antelopes walking in a forest of tall
papyrus plants, arranged in radiating lines, so as to suit
ie circular phiale, and yet treated with perfect grace and
leedom. In addition to the numerous silver phialse some
weie found, with similar decoration, made of pure gold.
179
The Curium find alone is said to have included more than
a thousand objects in gold and silver.
Etruscan Plate.—The Etruscan races of Italy were
specially renowned for their skill in working all the
metals, and above all in their gold work. Large quanti¬
ties of the most exquisite gold jewellery have been found in
Etruscan tombs, including, in addition to smaller objects,
sceptres, wreaths of olive, and massive head-pieces. The
Museo Kircheriano in Rome possesses a magnificent speci¬
men of the last form of ornament; it is covered with
nearly a hundred little statuettes of lions arranged in
parallel rows.1 Little, however, that can be classed under
the head of plate has yet been found. A number of silver
bowls found in Etruscan tombs have ornaments in the
Egypto-Assyrian style, and were probably imported into
Italy by the Phoenicians; some almost exactly resemble
those found in Cyprus.
The British Museum (gold ornament room) possesses a
fine specimen of early plate found at Agrigentum in
Sicily. This is a gold phiale or bowl, about 5 inches
Fig. 3.—Archaic Gold Phiale, found at Agrigentum, now in the British Museum.
It is shown in section below. It is 5 inches in diameter.
across, with central boss or omphalos /tEo-d/t^aAos)
which seems once to have contained a large jewel. Round
the inside of the bowl are six figures of oxen, repoussd in
relief, and at one side a crescent, formed by punched dots.
A delicate twisted moulding surrounds the edge; the
workmanship of the whole is very skilful (see fig. 3).
Hellenic Plate.-—Discoveries made of late years on the
plains of Troy, at Mycenae, and at Camirus in Rhodes
have brought to light a large quantity of gold and silver
plate of very remote antiquity. These early specimens of
plate are all very similar in character, graceful in shape,
hammered, cast, and soldered with great skill, but, with
the exception of weapons and ornaments, mostly devoid of
surface decoration. The most remarkable find was that
which Dr Schliemann calls “ Priam’s treasure,” including
a large number of silver vases and bowls, with fine massive
double-handled cups in gold, and a very curious spherical
gold bottle. Fig. 4 shows a silver cup, with gold mounts,
found in a tomb at Camirus in Rhodes, apparently a work
of the same early date and class. Homer’s poems are full
of descriptions of rich works in both the precious metals
{Iliad xxiii. 741), showing that the taste for valuable
pieces of plate was developed among the Greeks at a very
early time—much more so probably than it was during
1 Another, very similar, exists in the Vatican Mus. Gregor.