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They were of a round shape, slightly convex, and instead of the ordinary boss, had a long projecting cone in the centre. An actual shield, with the cone perfect, was found by General Di Cesnola at Amathus, and a projection of the same kind is seen in several of the Sardinian bronze and terra-cotta statuettes.
Here, though, the ornamentation was sometimes merely by patterns or bands, there were occasionally real attempts to depict animal and human forms, which, if not very successful, still possess considerable interest. The noble amphora from Curium, figured by Di Cesnola, contains above forty representations of horses, and nearly as many of birds.
The complete bronze figure found near Curium, which is supposed to represent Apollo and is figured by Di Cesnola, is probably not the production of a Phoenician artists, but a sculpture imported from Greece. The embossed work upon cups and paterae is sometimes of great simplicity, sometimes exceedingly elaborate.
Perrot and Chipiez regard this form of ornamentation as the earliest; but the beauty and finish of several vases on which it occurs is against the supposition. There is scarcely to be found, even in the range of Greek art, a more elegant form than that of the jug in black clay brought by General Di Cesnola from Alambra and figured both in his "Cyprus" and in the "Histoire de l'Art."
The most remarkable tombs of this class are those found at Amathus, on the south coast of Cyprus, by General Di Cesnola. They lie at the depth of from forty to fifty-five feet below the surface of the soil, and are square chambers, built of huge stones, carefully squared, some of them twenty feet in length, nine in breadth, and three in thickness, and even averaging a length of fourteen feet.
Some, which must have been very expensive, are composed of many distinct parts, connected with each other by chains of an elegant pattern. One of the most beautiful specimens was found by General Di Cesnola in Cyprus. There is a hook at top, by which it was suspended. Then follows a medallion, where the workmanship is of singular delicacy.
Doctor Holmes ridiculed phrenology as an attempt to estimate the money in a safe by the knobs on the outside, but he evidently was a believer in physiognomy, and he exemplified this in his own case. His face had a comical expression from boyhood; its profile reminded one of those prehistoric images which Di Cesnola brought from Cyprus.
The temple of Paphos, according to the measurements of General Di Cesnola, was a rectangular building, 221 feet long by 167 feet wide, built along its lower corners of large blocks of stone, but probably continued above in an inferior material, either wood or unbaked brick. The four corner-stones are still standing in their proper places, and give the dimensions without a possibility of mistake.
Avoiding the popular "Wolfe collection," whose anecdotic canvases filled one of the main galleries of the queer wilderness of cast-iron and encaustic tiles known as the Metropolitan Museum, they had wandered down a passage to the room where the "Cesnola antiquities" mouldered in unvisited loneliness.
A certain number of the sculptured figures found by M. Di Cesnola at Athienau were discovered under conditions that were quite peculiar, having passed from the shelter of a covered chamber to that of a protecting bed of dust, which had hardened and adhered to their surfaces; and these figures had preserved an unusual freshness, and seem as if just chiselled; but, saving these exceptions, the Cypriot figures have their angles rounded, and their projections softened down.
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