Phoenician art

Phoenician art is the historiographical name for the art of the Phoenician civilization, both that of the Phoenician metropolises of the Eastern Mediterranean and that of the Phoenician colonies.

Carthage was the main Phoenician colony, benefiting from its central position in the Mediterranean. The bibliography usually uses the adjectives "Semitic" and "Punic" to refer to both Phoenicians and Carthaginians. For the artistic production of Carthage, the term Carthaginian or Punic art is usually used, without forgetting the dual meaning of the latter.

This art maintained a uniformity between the eastern metropolises of Phoenicia (Tyre, Sidon, etc.) and the colonies to the west, even with the great distance, due to constant commercial contact.

Phoenician art and Carthaginian art

Phoenician art extends from the X century BC. C., since the works prior to this date are so similar to the Egyptian and Assyrian ones that they cannot be distinguished from them, until the VI century a. C. when Phenicia is conquered by Nebuchadnezzar II, beginning a decline of the colonies. From that moment Carthage, founded by Phoenicians in the IX century a. C. and main colony, it takes advantage of its location and takes the direction of the colonies until it is conquered by Rome in the II century. to. C., this period being the one studied as Punic or Carthaginian art.

In the case of ceramics, the specialist Caro Bellido dates the transition of the Phoenician ceramic trousseau to the period of Carthaginian influence around the year 550 BC. C.

Influences

Phoenician artistic productions have a strong artisanal component. In his sculptures, ceramics, jewelry and metal objects, Egyptian influences predominated, with Assyrian elements, in the first period (from the 10th century). BC - the oldest date usually assigned to Phoenician art - until the VII century BC. C.). In a second period, Greek influence began to predominate, sometimes confusing his productions with Greek ones, although, in general, greater crudeness and eclecticism of the Phoenician artist is detected in the works of his workshops.

After repeated investigations carried out on Phoenician art, it can be stated that it does not exist before the century X a. C. because although Phoenician industrialists and merchants manufactured and sold products long before, their art was nothing more than a mere imitation of the Egyptian or Assyrian and it seems that even then their articles were considered to originate from the artists who served them as model. Since that century it has been discovered in Phoenician works of statuary, glyptics, goldsmithing, etc. the tendency to combine oriental styles in the same piece, with the Egyptian one standing out.

In the Iberian Peninsula, Phoenician art mixed with the production of indigenous peoples, especially in Tartessos.

Architecture

The forms of Phoenician architecture are inferred more from the drawings of the seals and other reliefs than from the ruins of their buildings; although there are some remains of architectural pieces found in Cyprus and Phoenicia. Among these is the capital with scrolls, inspired by oriental art and which could well have been the predecessor of the Ionic order. The Phoenician temples (such as that of Byblos) were distinguished by having the sanctuary without a cover. In it, a stone or betyl was worshiped, which generally consisted of a conical-shaped aerolith (like a stone fallen from the sky) located in the middle of the room, which was preceded by an atrium surrounded internally by columns. The shape that the Sidonians gave to their sumptuous stone sarcophagi was also characteristic, and it reproduced the outline of the human figure, like the Egyptian wooden anthropoid sarcophagi.

Sculpture

Under the name of Phoenician sculptures numerous and varied statues of the Phoenician, Libyan, Sardinian, Tyrrhenian, Pelasgian, Hittite and Cypriot peoples have been included, which are presented with a certain archaic rigidity and lack of naturalness. and that offer visible Assyrian, Egyptian and even Greek reminiscences depending on the times and countries. Cypriot sculptures (from the island of Cyprus) are considered legitimately Phoenician in stone and bronze since the Phoenicians took over the island around the year 1000 BC. C. and they founded important cities there, subjugating the Hittites who were their former inhabitants. Likewise, Phoenician art can be studied on the islands of Sardinia and Ibiza, which the Tyrian colonies took over in the 8th century to. c.

Gallery

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  Figure in bronze (sss. VIII-VII a. C.) of the god Melqart, archaic Phoenician era, found in the capital of Huelva (Spain).

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  Gold pendant amulet (601-633 BC), granulate, cast and polished. Proceeding of the Necropolis of Trayamar, it represents a topic related to Egyptian cosmogony, collected by the Phoenician art.

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  Glass objects imported by Phoenician merchants to the Iberian peninsula. Madrid, M.A.N.

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  Phoenician ointment found in Tyre (Lebanon).

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  Fenicia glass vase at the beginning of the I millennia a. C.

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  Phoenician craftsmen, silver and gold patera with a king's day of hunting, 675-650 B.C., of Bernardini's tomb in the necropolis of the Colombella in Palestine. Etruscan National Museum of Villa Julia.