THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

'
WHO WERE THE MAKERS ? 271
blades, the ivory handles, the golden seals, the gold cups found
at Vaphio and the like: from this difference in skill and workmanship
he argues that the two sets of objects were made by
two different peoples, the former by the native workmen on the
spot, the latter by Phoenician artificers who wrought either in
Phoenicia or in Greece itself Helbig includes the Mycenean
pottery among the articles of Phoenician manufacture, but
Pottier thinks rt of Aegean origin.
Helbig argues that (1) Mycenean art is an exotic production
in the ;
Aegean
for it appears there already mature and is
just as it
abruptly extinguished is preceded, and followed, by
;
a barbaric rectilinear style of decoration, with which it has
little or nothing in common. He therefore infers that it must
have developed elsewhere and have been introduced from
abroad. (2) Certain sporadic finds show that Mycenean art
was represented in Phoenicia itself (.S)
There are striking
analogies between Mycenean art and that of the Keftiu, a
Levantine people, who brought tribute to Kgypt under the
XVIllth Dynasty, which is
contemporary with the Mycenean
age. (4) The Keftiu are, according to Helbig, the Phoenicians :
fi'om this he infers that the Keftiu art is the long sought-for
art of Phoenicia in the
'
Sidonian Age' before the rise
of Tyre
ill or about the tenth century
H.c. (o) He also bases an argiinu'iit
on the existence of certain Semitic, loan-words in Greek.
(G) The K})ic, which is iai-gely of the Mycenean age, and the
great mass of Greek traditional liistory I'ecognize 'Sidonian'
imfortations, especially of metal-woik, as superior to the native
manufactures of Greece, and speak
(^f Sidonian merchants in
'
the Aegean. On the ot-lu'r hand, the literature indicates no
early Achean coiiimeice with Egypt,
i'ov we only hear of
occasional raids. Hence Myc-eiiean art borrowed its Kg\ptian
elements not dirtetl}',
liut through Sidoii.
The rcpl\- to the argument ot I'ottid' and Helbig, that there
is such a wide difference between the technical skill oi' the
hea\iei' inoiiiiiiieiils and the more portaliK^ ol))ects, is not (ar to
Seek. They assume that skill in one branch of art implies skill
111 all the rest. IJecaUSe tile .M\CeIleail goldwdik i> silperior in
tecllllii|lle
to
till'
srillptUleil
t ol I
ll )St ol leS wllicll CoXfled tile
272 WHO WERE THE MAKERS ?
graves in which these masterpieces of the goldsmith's craft
were found, it no more follows that the gold objects are of
foreign origin than that the gold ornaments of early Ireland
must have been imported because the carving seen at New
Grange and elsewhere on the stones which mark the restingplaces
of the dead are of the rudest work. The fact is overlooked
that, whilst most beautiful work in gold can be ac-
those miniature
complished by means of bronze tools, such as
chisels often found in Ireland, and occasionally in England
(Fig. 43), the cutting of stone requires either infinitely more
time and patience, which is not the heritage
of every people, or the possession of tools
of iron, such as those with which the
great sculptures of Nineveh were wrought.
Ireland can furnish us with a further illustration
of the doctrine that skill in the
minor arts does not necessarilj' imply e(|ual
skill in architecture and sculpture
; for,
though the delicacy of manipulation evinced
by the Irish illustrated manuscripts
of the
eighth century has never been surpassed,
yet the architectural remains of the same
Fig. 43. Bronze Chisel, period in Ireland are far inferior.
Suffolk'.
To go further, we niay say that it is a
(Full sii
regular feature in barbaric art to find the
greatest skill in the smaller phases of decoration and ornamentation
side by side with the rudest attempts at depicting
the human form either in painting or in scul])ture. Any
one who will take the trouble of going into any ethnological
museum can abundantly verify this for himself by examining
the beautiful pi-oducts of the Polynesian and Melanesian
islanders. The Maoris attained to the highest level in South
Sea art, and have tried to grapple with the problem of
the human form. Let the reader contrast the
representing
ornamentation on the staff (Fig. 44a) held by the speaker- in
the Maori assembly and the beautiful whorl wrought
'
111
my own posse-sioii.
bronze chisels.
tm the
The Mahiy goklsniiths still
employ very similar